Highly recommended research for me is BPL website, Andrew Skurka the ultra light backpacking super star and Mike Clelland gear improv genius.

I will share with the readers the links that it took me a while to gather:

BPL: http://www.backpackinglight.com
Mike Clelland: http://ultralightbackpackintips.blogspot.com/
Andrew Skurka: http://andrewskurka.com/

Look on Youtube for very cool video tutorials by both dudes. I'm a geek fan, can you tell?

Basically, it starts with a simple gram/ounce kitchen food scale.
Weigh every item, and log its description and weight.
an awesome free reporting tool is Gear Grams.

http://geargrams.com/

If you are slightly OCD, or highly organized, this is very cool. For people that are intimidated by checklists – walk away now and stop reading.

So, first, weigh all your gear and log it on Gear Grams, the graphs are really cool. I saw that my favorite Buck knife weighed over a pound, so does a can opener etc…

I replaced heavy items with lighter options, that still serve the same purpose, but at few ounces, instead of lbs.

example: leave the MagLite flashlight with 8 D Cell batteries, and take a headlamp with spare AAA batteries.

The top 3 anvils are the tent or shelter, sleep system and the backpack.

The Backpacking Light philosophy is that when you reduce that 45 lbs pack weigh does to 25 lbs, you can probably go with a smaller lighter back, instead of WWII bomber pack.

The easiest thing to do is de-duplicate items with same function, multi-use gear.
MUG: http://www.backpackinglight.com/cgi-bin/backpacki…

example: 6 ft of Duct wrapped around a sharpie marker is the ultimate in multi-use. it's tent repair, shoe repair, blister patching, etc.

Your day clothes and emergency clothes should all be your night sleep clothes.

Some people get into the hobby of inventing and improving their own gear: this is called MYOG http://www.backpackinglight.com/cgi-bin/backpacki…