"Editing is The Skill of The Century"

Chance founder Julia Leach's impeccibly edited house in the latest Lonny. Photographs by Patrick Cline.

I recently watched a TED talk by TreeHugger founder Graham Hill entitled, "Less Stuff, More Happiness" that was right in my wheelhouse. I've spent the better part of the past three years thinking/obsessing/writing about this very notion. I'm pretty sold (no pun intended) on the idea that having fewer, more lasting, more special, better made things (and the "fewer" part is key here) is a happy maker...at least it is for me.

Muchness stresses me out. I like to cull, to edit, sometimes (according to Bryan) ruthlessly. In all fairness, this task is relatively easy for me. I'm not overly sentimental about things, and lack of sentimentality is a pretty essential element in any truly successful purge/cull/edit...

But back to Hill's talk and specifically this line which made my ears perk up:

“Editing is the skill of this century.”

Amen Graham.

We just live in a time of such massive abundance, figuring out how to sort through it (whether the "it" is what we're going to wear, buy, watch, listen to, eat, put in our homes...) is really the holy grail, don't you think?

I'm faced with this more than ever in my new gig. It used to be that I would visit stores only occasionally to shop -- maybe a few times a month. Now I'm in stores and showrooms several times a week. On top of all the in-person stuff culling, I'm also weeding through scores of press releases and catalogs and publications, not to mention websites and Pinterest and... (I get overwhelmed just thinking about it.) Let's just say there is a lot of stuff out there friends, and trying to figure out what out of the mass bubbles to the top is like my "Sorting Through the Muchness" exercise on steroids. I feel like I'm some sort of editing athlete in training.

But it's a good thing. The culling is making me smarter (maybe), stronger, more discerning...It's, oddly, making me want less, as there's just something about seeing so much stuff that makes you realize there's always more just behind it. It makes me less "covet-y" and more aware of when something really is special.

Count me in on this editing thing Graham Hill. 100%.