018: Clothes -- some philosophy (Part 1 of 2)

If your Second Life experience is anything like mine, you are nowhere near in the position of the guy in the barrel, above. It's more probable that your inventory makes you think of this situation:



Except perhaps a lot more messy and disorganized. At least, mine used to be.  Some people I've talked to about this issue have said that their inventory is basically about 20,000 items that are in a big heap in their inventory folder, which is kind of like having a huge empty walk-in closet and everything you own in a big heap on the floor of the spare room. Some people just don't intuitively grasp the idea of inventory. So if you haven't actually bought another copy of something because you cannot locate the first one in your inventory, you can take heart that you're not the worst-off Second Life resident I've ever met. (No names, but you know who you are.)

Cheer up! It's easy to fix. It only takes two ideas; one concrete, one abstract. The concrete contribution I can make is to give you a pattern for creating nested folders inside your inventory so that you'll have a way of finding things you're looking for. The abstract contribution is to give you a framework to think about the things you own in Second Life; what you need, why you need it, and how to stop acquiring too much stuff that you never use. Fair warning in advance, it will also take you an hour or two to get an organized inventory underway; making the folders, sorting your existing possessions into the system, etc. I know, I know, this is not why you came to Second Life. But for most of us, it costs a certain amount of money to keep our virtual wardrobes fresh and useful; if you want to get the most for your money, all you need to do is manage your inventory a little more diligently and with an overriding idea in mind.

And here's a helpful hint you may find amusing but useful, once you get the hang of it. Once you have your system in place, the best way to sequester some time to manage your inventory is by ... going dancing. Many times when you might think I was the happy guy dancing away in the middle of the floor and carrying on a bunch of IM conversations, what I'm really doing is sorting inventory and monitoring the main channel and listening to music while my av takes care of the dancing duties.