# Sustainable household - that's the systematic Karel's way

- Link: https://tomas-shejbal.cz/en/sustainable-household-thats-the-systematic-karels-way/
- Published: 2025-07-26T11:19:03+02:00
- Author: tom

# Sustainable household - that's the systematic Karel's way

Karel is pretty sharp. And also systematic. Karel simply likes to think analytically,
which a sustainable household deserves. Especially at the beginning. Just no hasty
or perhaps extremist solutions.

 

 

[⌊Sustainable household - that's the systematic Karel's way⌉⌊Sustainable household-
that's the systematic Karel's way⌉[

Initial reflections of systematic Karel on sustainable household.

_Last updated: May 17, 2023_

## Rummaging through trash? Not yet!

After coming home from work, the day after watching the documentary Gulf Stream,
Karel set about analyzing waste and drawing conclusions. One would expect him to
come to the kitchen, dump the contents of the bin on the floor and record what appears
most often.

That wouldn't be a completely wrong approach, but Karel decided to think everything
through properly. Somehow it seemed to him that focusing only on the trash bin might
be too easy a solution. And as he knew from his engineering practice, seemingly 
easy solutions usually didn't work.

Instead of rummaging through the bin, Karel made himself green tea and sat down 
at the table. He put his phone in do-not-disturb mode, turned on music and listened
to the song _Maria_ by _AlicebanD_. Right from the start he heard: "_...I have the
power in my hands I have the thought, and it makes sense..._"

## Unnecessary things

That snapped him out of his brief daydream. He took a sheet of A4 paper, printed
on one side with an invoice. He glanced over it briefly and chuckled: "New bike 
computer for the bike. I never mounted it... who knows where it even is."

He bought it when the old odometer still worked but was wired. None of his colleagues
at work had a wired mileage counter on their bikes anymore. So he ordered a wireless
one, but it didn't come with batteries. So he put it aside for a while. One evening
when he was buying beer and chips at a convenience store, he noticed that the young
Vietnamese guy also sold CR 2025 button batteries, which he needed exactly. He bought
them, and while drinking beer he started setting units and time on the counter's
display until he got to entering the wheel circumference. He went through the manual
but couldn't find the table of common dimensions. He remembered that hassle with
reading the wheel circumference and disgustedly put the counter away. This time 
for good.

## Sustainable household: how is it possible to think about it?

"So... how to approach this sustainable household?" he looked at the blank page 
when he turned over the invoice. He took a pencil and drew a human figure. It wasn't
a particularly sophisticated drawing. To capture legs, arms and torso, he made do
with five lines and an ellipse for the head. Since the fish rots from the head, 
Karel also started with the head. He thought for a moment before making the first
line leading from where the figure should have hair: _mindset_, _attention_.

The next line led from the mouth. He wrote next to it: _what do we eat_? From the
simple question he made two more lines and wrote next to each: _food preparation_
and _shopping_.

He circled the whole figure and started writing more and more words next to several
quickly drawn lines, making more lines from them. Finally, around the little figure
there was:

 * _Housing needs,_
 * _fitness,_
 * _clothing,_
 * _hygiene._

The last line he directed to the center of the body with a simple note: _excretion_.

[⌊Result of Karel's thinking⌉⌊Result of Karel's thinking⌉[

Capture of Karel's drawing while thinking about sustainable household.

And since excretion is somehow where it ends for a person, we'll end today's article
too.

Karel's tips:

 1. Did you notice that Karel uses the back sides of invoices for scribbling and breaking
    down thoughts and ideas? Similarly, you can use mostly non-recyclable receipts.
    They're great for daily mind maps or task lists, which you can gleefully crumple
    up at the end of the day after scribbling on them.
 2. What things could you get rid of? What's been lying at the bottom of your drawer
    for years? You can donate, for example, on nevyhazujto (don't throw it away). For
    selling, I prefer aukro. I haven't written an article about that yet, which I probably
    should. 🤔