For a while I’ve had an idea for a website called, in some form or another, “The Ten I Would Keep”.

The idea is to get people who tend to collect more things than they should to list the 10 items they would keep if they were forced to get rid of most of their collection. They would list the items and write a short blurb explaining why each was staying. (They’d also post pictures because free media.)

By doing so, my feeble theory goes, they would figure out the things they really liked and/or cared about and shed the rest.

The next goal would be to rank the ten they would keep in order to adopt a “one in one out” policy for the 10 that are left.

In my case, at least with pens, I’ve tried to reduce it to seven I would keep with three on the bubble. Then there’s, well, more on that later.

I started with a pen case that, if I arrange my pens correctly, can hold seven pens. The case is the Sinclair from the Atlanta-based Nock Co.

Rearranging my EDC pens to start reducing what I carry every day. These pens are now dubbed my "Sinclair Seven". #nakaya #fountainpen @nockco #nockshots #pilot #platinumpens @newtonpens @edisonpenco @karaspenco @twsbi #penaddict #penbroke

A photo posted by DL (@d.e.lively) on Jun 10, 2016 at 4:48am PDT

The “Sinclair Seven” are the pens I plan to carry around and use regularly. They are different kinds of pens with different colored inks and represent the seven pens I would keep if I had to get rid of all but seven.

Granted, to normal people, seven pens is a lot to carry. However, in a Japanese context, it’s not that many. (More on that in another post.)

I also carry a Nock Co. Lookout which holds the three pens that are on the bubble. If a new one comes in, one of those pens will go out. I don’t get rid of the one that goes out right away, though, as I may not like the new pen.

Where I cheat, though, as if what I just wrote isn’t a cheat, is that I’m running a low volume low margin ink resale business on the side. As such I feel compelled to test the inks so that I can offer swatches and writing samples for potential customers. Because of this, I have four pens that count as one pen because they are used as testing pens. This “one pen”, like the pen I use for marking exams, exists outside the “Ten I Would Keep”.

At least for now.