My inventory count (to be found all the way at the top of the inventory palette, btw) shows that I seem to have accumulated 1.783 items since I was first rezzed. This is quite a substantial amount for someone who has only been around for a week or so. Old timers will have much more than this of course: The main avatar tries to keep hers to a reasonable figure, such as around 5000 items at the most. However, she has heard people mention figures that go up to as high as 20000 and even more. Whether there is indeed a ceiling that Linden Labs has set as to the amount of stuff that you can possess in Second Life I have no idea, but my guess is that there would have to be. In the end all of what is in there gets kept on a server somewhere and would have to add up to gigabytes and gigabytes worth of data. 

On the other hand, I would say that Second Life is not the most appropriate place to practice frugality in either: One of the most distinctive attributes of the whole place is that it is an economic experiment, and one that has far reaching implications at that. I think that you are meant to partake in this experiment and contribute to metanomics, not only with what you create but also with what you purchase. So, buy away I would say…

Your inventory may be the container of some of your greatest joys in Second Life. However this most certainly does not hinder it from being a big chore as well, in that from your earliest days it has to be maintained to perfection. You will be accumulating vast amounts of stuff. Quite a few will be freebies that you pick up along the way, to be gone through later. And yet others will be things that you decide to purchase. Some of which you acquire out of a real need and others that you simply could not resist and yet others where it seemed like a good idea at the time.

So, here then is the bottomline: Regardless of whether there is a set ceiling for your purchases or not, unless you maintain your inventory diligently you will really not be able to find anything inside it. You will have no way of readily identifying your past purchases simply through the sheer volume of what you have amassed, as well as through all the problems created by the somewhat obscure names usually given to merchandise by their creators.

The unsorted inventory palette. The folders that you will need to go through
are all placed below your trash.

All of this accumulation will first need to get tried out, of course. This may sound like fun but trust me it isn’t. It often takes quite a while for things to rez, textures to sharpen out fully and so on. Nonetheless it has to be done… Some, if not most of it, will get thrown out. And the remainder needs to get put into the appropriate folders, that are present in your inventory by default. You will need to create sub-folders and indeed sub-folders to sub-folders and place everything in its correct location. All these folder will need to have meaningful labels. In the example shown below all the attachment hair goes in a thus named folder and then the subfolders are named to indicate hair tone. For me this is early days and I do not yet have enough hair to merit further subfolders than that. But when I get to that point you can rest assured that there will also be sub-sub-sub-folders indicating hair styles, such as short, long, ponytail, curly, shaggy and so on. I know that this sounds somewhat over the top, but thanks to all of this organization it really takes me not time at all to find things…

Here the inventory has been sorted out: Things are placed inside folders and sub-folders,
with all the objects re-named in such a way that it will all make sense to you later, when
you are looking for things.

Not only will you need to locate everything correctly but you will also need to re-name things in such a way that it will be easy for you to identify what a particular item actually is, whether it is in fact what you are looking for. Merchants tend to give their products names that sound good on the package but will probably mean nothing whatsoever to you 2 weeks later. Thus, something named Ginza Sunset or Oriental Splendor could just as easily be an evening gown or a Kimono or indeed lingerie. Give your purchases names and even short descriptions for labels that will mean something to you. Luckily, there does seem to be sufficient letter space to be able to do that provided in the label line. I would say use all of it. If the name of the merchant will mean something to you as well, definitely keep that one in also. As an example, everything I ever get from the Bare Rose Mall has their distinctive logo kept in the label that I create, since it does help me identify what it was later. However, I always give the item a good description also. The only times when you cannot rename an item is when it’s permissions are set to no modify. Whenever that is the case, I put the thing inside an individual folder and re-name the folder instead. But one way or another I try to ensure that everything that I have in my inventory is labeled and placed in such a way that I can immediately remember what it is later.

Placing items into storage boxes…

Finally: There may be things that you know you will not be using frequently, if at all, but that you are still not ready to throw out quite yet. Those I would put into storage boxes. As an example: The Mami skin fatpack, already mentioned elsewhere on this blog, is something that I know that I will not be using. However, I do not want to throw it out either. So, I boxed it: Simply rez a box, by right clicking on the ground anywhere in a building enabled area, select create from the pie menu. The box will appear on the ground shortly and the edit palette will appear as well. Open the Contents tab on the furthest right, shift select all the not-quite-ready-to-toss-out-yet items from your inventory and simply drag them into the folder found inside the contents tab. 

One word of caution here: Do not forget that you are working in a real time rendered remote location. You may be sitting at home but the objects you are dragging from one place to another are actually thousands of miles away in another server entirely. So, it could take some time for this folder to fill. Do not assume that it will just do so by itself. Wait and check to see whether everything you moved has in fact found its place in the box before you close the box. (Which happens when you close the edit tab).

Before you close the box go to the General tab found on the furthest left of the edit palette and re-name your box from simple object to whatever is descriptive of what you put inside it. If for some reason you forget to do this, no harm done, you can always rename it once it has been taken into your inventory. 

To take the box into your inventory, right click on the box and from the pie menu select Take. The object will disappear from the ground and appear inside the Objects folder of your inventory palette, from where you will, of course, need to move it to its proper location.

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I will start to work on my out of hand inventory now. My aim is to bring my items down to about 1200 or so. I will certainly let you know on how I did by updating this post later on.

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Three hours later: 

OK, here I am back with the promised report: I must have been way more careful with all of my acquisitions than I thought I had been since even with the best will in the world I have not been able to go much further down that 1350 or so. It turns out that most of what I have picked up from the freebie stalls is nice enough to hold on to after all…

;-)

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