Streamline Your Life

Buy a netbook instead of a standard size notebook. Netbooks are ultra-portable, with lots of hard drive space and all the functions of their heftier cousins. I use an s10 by Lenovo.

Get a multi-purpose PDA style phone. One iPhone can replace your plain old phone, camera, mp3 player and all your books! I didn't go for the iPhone, but bought a Nokia e71, which looks beautifully business-like (think Blackberry) and has all the useful features including a camera, ebook reader etc.

Throw out your library and replace it all with ebooks. These can be downloaded, many for free, from the internet and stored on your computer or phone. As mentioned above, the best devices for reading ebooks are Nokia e-series, iPhone or Blackberry.

Never, ever, own any CDs. Are you mad? That's what mp3s are for. CDs are heavy, annoying wastes of space. Wait until you own a house to start building up a large physical music collection. Chances are anyway, by that time we will all be using a brand new format to store our music, and CDs will be totally obsolete.

Downsize your clothes frequently - at least every season, go through your wardrobe and be brutal. If you haven't worn it for the last year, it's never going to be worn. Get rid!

Buy a good sturdy washbag with lots of compartments for different things. Keep an eye on your bathroom and cosmetic products and don't allow them to amass out of control. Travel sizes might be a good idea for saving space, but they're not very economical.

Avoid carrying round large amounts of paperwork. Store important documents online. Make scans/digital photos of them and email them to your Gmail account, or use an online vault like www.humyo.com to keep them all safe. Alternatively, storing them on your laptop is ok too, just don't forget to keep backups.

Don't buy souvenirs, just take photos, write blogs and make friends.