How Little is Too Much?

The “watch journey”. It’s a phrase that gets used often, but the meaning behind it varies from person to person. Hell, I’ve probably used it at some point, but I don’t even know what it means to me. All that I know is what I like in watches, and the number of them that I want to keep around.

A Simple Philosophy

Without waxing poetic about utilitarian habits, I can heartily say that I abide by the “use it or lose it” mentality. If I’m not using some material thing (or holding onto ones that are necessities), I don’t generally want to keep it around. It’s a philosophy that I’ve practiced for close to a decade, and I really enjoy it. Less stuff (for me) means less things to occupy space in my brain.

For watches, either I wear it frequently, or it gets gone. Well, how many watches can I have and still wear them frequently enough to keep?

How Little is Too Much?

The phrase stems from something that I heard at a class a few years ago. The topic was distance, and specifically, how far away something was from you to be considered “too close”.  Generally speaking, things could be relatively far, but could still be too close for comfort.

The “How Little is Too Much” is very personal for most people, especially with watch collecting. For me, that number floats between the 6 to 8 watch range. At time of writing, I own 5 watches, and am extremely content there. For you, the “How Little is Too Much” may be something in the double digit range, or even in the triple digit range.

From most of the folks that I’ve seen, they have their core watch collection, and then ones that they own, but don’t really wear. Some watch collectors will also say that X-type or Y-brand doesn’t count as a part of their collection, but that’s never made sense to me.

Now, this is not meant to sound like Marie Kondo and a life of black t-shirts and no furniture in your house. Really, it’s about finding your “sweet spot” for your watch collection. Size is just one part of that, as the biggest element should be collecting what you like. For me, that means dive watches that wear well, and only having a few of them.

Cutting it Down

I often hear about folks wanting to trim down their watch collections. Maybe you’ve got 20 watches, and you want to have less. How do you make the cut?

I personally look at my wear-time. How often is that watch actually on my arm? From there, I look at redundancy. Do I have something else in the collection that does the same things, but I wear it more? Do you value variety in your collection? I don’t which makes keeping it small pretty simple.

It may be clinical to look at it this way, but it’s how I do it. I know that I have little variety in my collection (5 dive watches), but that’s what I like. I’ve got my watches with a pop of color, the quartz ones that wear thin, and my “beaters” that I wear to the gym, or when out in the field.

Really, it comes down to figuring out what you actually like. Not what people or the internet tells you to like, but what you actually like. We’ll be revisiting this topic again in the future, as it doesn’t get discussed enough.

The Verdict

“How Little is Too Much” is something that I don’t consciously think much about now. I found my sweet spot, and staying there just feels natural. You’ll find your sweet spot too, it just may take sometime.

If you’d like to check out my other works for The Escapement Room, follow this hyperlink.