Minimalism

I have always been curious of minimalism. The problem I had though, I'm a hoarder and recycler of all things remotely useful.
I have so much stuff and it is ruling me, I hate it.
In an effort to understand minimalism, I down loaded 2 kindle books, appropriate don't you think, Miss Minimalist (Francine Jay) and Clear your clutter with Feng Shui (Karen Kingston). Both books I enjoyed very much they had different things to offer. It seems like all things you have to get into the head space  of minimalism. I love the idea the Miss Minimalist had, can she walk away in an emergency (political or natural etc) and feel ok? I know I could not! I like the idea of working towards it though.

This would have been a ridiculous concept a few years ago, but secretly I wished a disaster would befall my house (not my family!) so I could start again. I suspect I'd just pile up the stuff again so learning to part with things and file things safely is by far a better lesson.

I love the idea of never having a dvd again. A physical disc that gets damaged. I want to down load my movies as I want them off 'the cloud' which I'm still to get my head around.

I want to sort all my photos digitally on the 'the cloud' and various hard drives so I can't lose them to theft or disaster.

I would like to transfer my books to kindle or pdf. I suspect I'd always want a few 'real' books for inspiration. I love the feel of books and looking at the pictures.

Can I transfer all my cook books to digital? Some are available as kindle versions but lots are not. Can I scan and transfer to pdfs. I have no idea, would that even be legal?

How about no cd's or a reduced amount and using my ipod?

How can I de-clutter my kitchen? Now that makes me feel a little faint. Baby steps, baby steps.