 It pays to keep things simple. Hey everyone, Dylan Schumacher, Citadel Defense, and we are back with another edition of American Minuteman gear. And today is less, I suppose, actual gear and more of like gear philosophy or how to think about gear. If you've been following this channel for a while, you understand that I think it's very important to step back and think about the why behind what we do, what we do. And in this, I was thinking about simplifying my gear. Now, if you're anything like me, you have a drawer full of holsters that you've tried and never used. You have a couple of different chest rigs, maybe you've tried out, you have some packs, you have some whatever. You have some different gear that you've experimented with or bought because you thought was cool or whatever that may or may not have worked out or maybe you like it and you like this aspect and this aspect, but maybe you don't like this one, et cetera, et cetera. And so you just got several different pieces floating around. Now, when I was reorganizing my gear today and trying to clean some stuff up and clean off my shelves, and I'm always trying to think about how do I keep things simple? Not just simple from like a gear perspective, right? Like what am I gonna use? What's my go-to rig and stuff like that? Side note, my chest rig is still coming out in April and I really hope that that becomes a go-to rig because I'm really proud of it. So when I'm sitting and I'm organizing all this stuff and I'm starting to set aside my seconds and maybe my giveaway kit or maybe stuff that I wanna sell or whatever. And I'm trying to think of how to organize my gear. And I think there's a couple of very important reasons to do that. One, as an American Minuteman guy, right? If you're gonna embrace this American Minuteman idea, which again means being ready to go at a minute's notice, then you have to have your gear pre-staged. You have to have it pre-staged. Mags stuffed, mags in the plate carrier or chest rig or belt kit or whatever it is, your flavor, your rock is loaded. Maybe the canteens aren't full just because you're gonna fill those before you go and you don't want water sitting in plastic for six months at a time or something like that. But like there's food in there, there's some layers in there that's due to the appropriate weather, right? You're changing that as the season's coming out, right? Cause you're responsible. You know, your rifle's lubed, like your dot is zero. Like everything's ready to go. And there's one place in your house where you can go and you can grab that stuff. Right, I can go. I can get my bag full of all my stuff. Maybe you run it that way or maybe I can put it on real quick and I can step out the door. But my rule is 10 to 15 minutes. If you can't be out the door in under 15 minutes, that's a real problem. And really it should be under 10, okay? Minute, man. If it's longer than 15 minutes, we're now like the half an hour, man. Okay, and that's just silly at that point. So that's one aspect. Your gear needs to be ready to go. And that just takes upkeep. That takes work. That takes effort to keep that simple so that it's set up, it's ready to go. Do you know much packing you should have to do when you go to your next training day with the boys, your range session? Zero. Zero packing. Because you just grab your stuff, put it in your car and you're off. That's how it should work. You don't need to do extra special packing. You need your kit, your minute man kit, which you're planning to live out of for, I don't know, eight, 12, 24 hours, maybe more, should have enough stuff to make it through a range session. And if it doesn't, either your range session needs to be adjusted or the kit needs to be adjusted. I'll let you figure that out. So that's one reason. Just a practical everyday readiness of it, right? The other aspect, which I think is under-talked about, is a mental stress, mental fatigue, a mental capacity to this. There might actually be studies done about this. I don't know, but the more choices you have, the longer it takes you to choose. I think that might be Hicks law. Ooh, don't quote me on that one. We'll have to look that one up. But the more choices you have, the longer it takes to choose, okay? And it's an exponential growth, typically, of the more choices you have. And, I don't know, there's probably been studies about this. I don't know them. But the more choices you have, the more stress it causes you, right? That's why you can never find anything to watch on Netflix. Because you have near infinite choices, right? And so you can always just keep looking, oh, you know, maybe go on to the next thing, right? By the way, cancel Netflix, they're communists. So when it comes to your gear, you should really simplify it for your own mental capacity sake. You just need your one go-to rifle, your one go-to rig, side note, should be my rig, the Spectre. Coming out, it's gonna be great. Your one go-to rock, your one go-to setup. And just run that for the next six months, 12 months, whatever. But put some time in there and let your life be simplified. And then when you start looking at these other rigs, you say, yeah, I like it, but it doesn't quite do this. And I'm not saying don't experiment. I'm not saying don't swap out rigs. But I'm saying to have a simplified version where you're gonna cut the chaff a little bit and you're gonna start to take some pieces and set them aside, maybe sell them, maybe give them to a buddy, maybe whatever. Maybe put them in a storage bin where they're out of sight, out of mind so that you can simplify your mental attitude towards your gear that's gonna behoove you. I promise you, you're gonna feel less stressed out. Not that I think you necessarily feel stressed out, but it takes work, boys. It takes work and mental energy to think through all your kit. And when you have a bunch of different pieces and you're constantly trying to mix and match, you need to simplify your life. You need to have your rifle and your setup, your go-to setup, and just work it. Just go out in the field and work it. And I look, I fiddle with kit all the time, okay? I'm making a batch of videos right now. I'm gonna make a video after this where I'm gonna talk about fiddling with kit. Okay, I fiddle with my kit all the time. But what I'm saying is we need to work to simplify it because of that mental aspect. And I just think that's underrated. I don't think we talk about that enough. But remove the mental game of playing with your, not necessarily playing with your kit, but trying to negotiate all your choices. Let's say it that way. Remove that from your life. Have some simplified versions and just run it and work it. So I do hope that gives you something to think about. I really do hope that that gives you some things that are just and think about how we think about gear. We need to think about how we think about gear. I majored in philosophy in college in case you haven't figured that out yet. I hope that's helpful. Do brave deeds and endure.