Month: May 2022

All month I’ve been focused on getting things tidy and organized. From rearranging furniture to cleaning up files, I’ve gotten a lot done. It’s no wonder that spring cleaning became a widespread practice. This of course isn’t a completed task, but one that needs to be periodically maintained.

Digital Decluttering

During this month I’ve been able to get a number of tasks done. A big push towards the end was managing digital apps and files.

Reorganizing my Google Drive was surprisingly extremely satisfying. I’ve been looking into this “second brain” and PARA organization structure, and while it took some time to click, I’m thrilled with how I have my files set up now. My files were set up in a way were I knew where things were, but not in a way that felt clean.

Setting up folders for the “Areas” in my life, to use the PARA terminology, give me the high level folders. With each Area having a respective Archive location. The system also uses “Resources” and “Projects” that can be tied to the areas or completely separate. With shortcuts, I can put the appropriate folders in different areas as needed.

I also began a similar process for other apps, but the progress is going a bit slower as the organization wasn’t there in the first place. Pocket, an app I use for collecting articles and websites to read later, is mess of tags and collected articles. I have no notes or highlights on the articles, so if I need a refresher have to skim, or worse re-read, the whole article.

My browser bookmarks are in a similar mess. I have folders with a bunch of pages I saved for one reason or another. The folders help with some organization, but even those can only tell me a loose idea of what the site may be.

Room Rearrangements

Something I hadn’t planned to do at all until getting into the swing of spring cleaning was changing some of the arrangement of my bedroom. For a while now, I’ve been starting to feel cramped spending time in my room. I spend a considerable time at my desk for work, personal projects, and entertainment. The space was previously set up to where my chair was tightly packed between my bed and desk.

By pivoting the desk and some shelves, I was able to make a lot more space. There’s something that is liberating about time in an open space and not just physically, but mentally too.

Another huge success was the cleanup of junk drawers I mentioned last week. Cleaning those out by simply rearranging them or getting rid of the unneeded junk was easy enough. Condensing some of the drawers too opened up shelf space which addressed a small bother of mine, the prior layout of shelves.

In the long run, adding the small task to tidy up as part of my weekly review process should help to keep things organized. As days go by and items fall out of their place, I am at least returning them once a week. The review also includes tidying up my “inboxes” which consist of a physical inbox for various tasks, my whiteboard which may have notes that need to be saved, and of course my email inbox.

With the future in mind, the next trial is a tough one to decide. With summer here, I have several trips coming up, not to mention the simple desire to spend more time outside. This is of course where the year’s theme and now the areas of the PARA system can serve as a guide. Early in this trial, I had wanted to better organize my schedule and that ended up getting pushed to the wayside. For the next month, I’ll be utilizing the planning dashboard that came with the Second Brain template I had mentioned previously. I’ll be digging in to see how to use it, as well as any personal tweaks that may be needed to have it work better for me.

As the summer arrives, plans have wriggled their way into every waking minute of my day. From weddings to trips to mundane daily life, I have a summer that is becoming busier by the day, and it hasn’t even started yet. With this feeling of overwhelm starting to settle in, I’m looking for direction on what to say yes.

When to Start Saying No

There are a lot of philosophies on figuring out what invitations to accept. Because our time is so precious, it’s important to determine what we spend our time on. What can be more painful is spending more time on deciding than the activity itself. Have you found yourself scrolling for something to watch only to run out of time before even choosing something? This is the kind of trap I am looking to avoid.

Creating a system for decision making can solve this problem. The simpler the better. One example is investor Kevin Rose’s (confirm) rule “if it’s not a hell yes, it’s a no.” This keeps only the most important and exciting things on his calendar.

There are of course times when we don’t have this luxury, be it due to opportunities available or a lack of experience in figuring out what the hell yeses are. The latter opens up significantly more options.

There’s no right or wrong approach, but each has it’s pros and cons.

Getting to Yes

For me, the pillars I’ve followed are the pieces of Ben Franklin’s old adage, “early to bed, early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.”

My health is a category that typically has a good showing. There are times that aren’t the best, but I rarely do anything to critically sabotage it. I’ve recently been feeling a strong fitness push. I’m lifting, biking, and climbing more than I have recently. Honing my fitness always has me feeling great. It has a way of cascading out to other areas of health, like my diet, sleep, and even mental health. The latter of which I feel gets the most neglected when we think of health. A lot of my time in the coming months will be spent running, lifting, and thinking, hopefully with the company of friends.

Wealth doesn’t apply to just money, but all resources and more importantly, the people in my life. Being able to deepen relationships are often a major reason for me to say yes to things. This is certainly the most challenging to find the right balance, but time with friends and family is certainly a recipe for a good exeprience.

The final piece, wise, is a tough one. Wisdom is a tricky matter, as there are a range of ways to interpret it. Personally, it boils down to unique experiences which allows a more developed perspective on things. An experience can be gained personally or learned through someone else, often through a piece of media like a book or film.

Into Physical Space

This is of course where I shift this thinking to the objects in my life. Over the last few years, I had no trouble getting rid items that found their way into my hands: clothes, furniture, appliances, and more. I found myself regularly asking if a given item was something that I really needed, and often it wasn’t.

One of the most popular philosophies in this regard is Marie Kondo’s spark joy. It’s a slow process, but it’s a simple task, assess all items with the question “does this spark joy?” If not, thank the item and get rid of it. If yes, keep it.

Another approach with a more objective approach is one I was introduced to through The Minimalists. The boxing party involves packing up everything as if moving. When the need for an item arises, retrieve it from a box. After a given period of time, get rid of the packed items. It can be easy to end up with countless things that are never used, not even considering emergency “what if” items.

After moving last year, I’ve slowly accumulated more and more. It’s beginning make my living space feel cramped. A focus of mine this week has been small tasks to improve the organization of that space. While it unfortunately took until Sunday to wrap up the last few, I was able to get them done. The tasks centered around touching up areas that have gotten out of hand, like junk drawers and cable management for computers and game systems.

I was actually able to combine the effects of two junk drawers in an organized way that makes it easier to find the things from each. I did this by moving some of the items around, taking some out for actual use, and placing others, mostly tools and cleaning supplies, in a communal area.

For the last week of spring cleaning, I’m going to shift to the digital to clean and organize some apps.

In the midst of cleaning and organizing, I couldn’t help but think back to this post from Tynan on “consolidation,” a term he uses for these periods of touching up those minor pieces after the big steps are taken. Throughout the process, I’ve been hit with moments of thinking if the current change is helpful or even necessary. This week, I’ve somewhat taken a step back and considered what areas are actual problems, and what do I see as simply something that could be done.

A Place for Everything and Everything in It’s Place

The above heading was an often spoken line of my late grandfather. He was certainly settled into his home, having lived there for many decades. Rooms changed purpose and people came and went, but he seemed to always have a good idea of where anything was at a given time. This was due to everything having a given space where it belonged.

Following this adage is what has been giving me a lot of grievance lately. I have places for some things but not all, and I often leave things out of place, making them a struggle to find. I have what are basically four junk drawers with their own categories in a sense, but it can still be difficult to sift through it all.

When it comes to those things which do have a given space, many are in places I do not like. A number of items have simply found there way into a pile on or next to my desk. I once kept some degree of organization, but lately it feels like I’ve been leaving too many items out to “go through later” and that time never seems to arrive. A focus for this coming week will certainly be to sort through these items.

Stagnation and Distractions

After settling into a space, be it physical or mental, it can be easy to fall into a standard. Whether it’s the first layout of a room or the method to go about a given task, we can settle into the early standards set.

Often as we carry about the day, we can let slide those little things that we don’t have the time to sort out this moment. I went through this a bit with my recent automation trial, but what I’m thinking of now are more so the things that are left behind.

In an attempt to battle some of this stagnation, I did something to betray my minimalist senses and bought a few things. In this case it was things to improve my space, so I think it’s justified. I bought a few picture frames to finally hang up some pictures and posters that have long been sitting in a folder for a few years. I also bought a standing drying rack after using a shoe rack that hangs on the back of a door to dry clothes for once again several years.

Though this isn’t as big of a step as I took a few months ago when I bought a new desk and bed. These two items fundamentally changed my living space. I’m still not sure if I’m completely happy with the layout of the room, but the alternatives seem less ideal. In the coming days, I think I’ll test some minor changes to the current setup, different angles or slight movement of furniture to see if it improves the space or not.

While recent changes were physical, a focus I had for this week was to work on cleaning up and organizing my files on Google Drive. I have a variety of files, documents, and folders that house a range of information that I use across my life. From small projects to quick notes to personal documents a lot of files are sitting in the cloud. Some I use pretty frequently, while others are stored for backup or as part of what will hopefully be future endeavors.

After beginning to move around some files and rename folders, I began to think how useful it was spending the time on that task when there were many more important ones to be done. That is some trouble I am having so far is determining what priority should I focus on these small consolidation tasks. The gist is that they the small tasks that get pushed aside, but in this case it feels like I have so many that some feel more critical than others.

For the coming week, my plan is to pick one item each day to complete. I’m hoping this will resolve the trouble I’m having of choice. With that I’m going to start up a list of what to begin.

With spring upon the Midwest, it’s time to clean out everything that’s been piling up over the last year. Winter clothes are put away and piles of dust are wiped clean. While the practice is often done in our physical spaces, I want to share that time with my digital spaces and my routines. As mentioned in the last post, adding things to a clustered schedule is always more difficult than finding what to remove.

Physical space

After a year of my current living arrangement, I’ve finally decided to take steps of getting more settled. When I first moved in with my friend, I didn’t have a plan for what was next. In the midst of the pandemic, I didn’t know if I wanted to stay in the Chicago area or head out of state somewhere. With proximity to family, friends, and a lot of great activities, I plan on staying for the foreseeable future.

With that in mind, I started to unpack a bit more as well as take in bigger items that would make moving more difficult, such as a bed and desk. Because of these additions, I’ve had to completely rearrange the room. So far, it’s been pretty successful setup, but I want to explore changes that might improve things even more.

There are also a lot of items I’ve been holding for far too long. I have some items intended for small projects, like an old book found for free at the library, though its cover is completely torn and broken. I wanted to take time restoring it, but never got around to it. This is one of a handful of these items and I need to either plan a specific time to execute these plans or move on.

While there are items in this limbo stage, I also have a slew of items from various homes before that haven’t been needed with roommates but make sense to hold on to, kitchenware, furniture, and more.

In the past, I gave a shot at the “minimalist’s challenge” to get rid of an item every day with an additional items each subsequent day. It helped me part with a lot of things I no longer needed or used. While I don’t plan on following a specific challenge, I’ve already donated some clothes and some other things I no longer use.

Beyond the Physical

Many of us know how important it is to keep our physical spaces clean and organized, but when opening our devices we have cluttered work spaces and files all over the place. Along with cleaning, unpacking, and organizing my room, I want to clean up my devices and apps.

I’m pretty happy with how I’ve set up my files and how I use things like Google Drive and Notion, the primary place I store notes, ideas, and information. However, I think there is room for optimizing some things. Coming up with clearer organization and workflows for getting information in can offer a better experience. I recently bought a whole Notion system from a productivity creator that I’m excited to break into more.

Thomas Frank’s Ultimate Brain series of templates takes the “second brain” concept and productivity workflows and makes them work incredibly well in Notion. I’ve been using the system since it launched and I know there’s a lot of ground that I still need to cover. As of now, I’ve done some work with projects, including these blog posts, but haven’t really worked into the task processing end of things. I’m excited to see if it improves how much I get done.

I also want to better organize how I set up my days. As mentioned in last post and others in the past, I have a hard time adding things to my life. Trials where I’m adding a new habit or practice can become more and more challenging as I settle into routine. I want to take a look at the ways I’m spending my time, remove what isn’t adding value, and encourage what is.

Another trial complete, and I’m hoping to break a bad habit with this one. Rather than the usual taking a break at the end, I’m going to do my best to keep the momentum going and continue regular harmonica practice. All in all, I enjoyed the experience, but it’s a category of trial I’ve had a hard time keeping up with, adding new hobbies to an already busy day.

Slow and Steady

Even with some knowledge of music, I’ve had a tough time feeling great about what I played during practice. Whether I was just playing tabs for a song or just improvising a tune, I doubt it sounded any good.

This is somewhat expected, as I sometimes forget just how short four weeks actually is. Switching to the video lessons after the first week was a major improvement to the overall experience. I appreciated the design of the course as it focused on mastering a specific element before moving on. Whether it was a simple warmup or a specific song. That little bit of tangible progression was satisfying.

There are a few times that something clicked or just felt right that feels so incredibly rewarding. I’m looking forward to developing more and more, being able to play something more impressive. I’ve long believed that music is an important part of culture.

One of the major things I had to keep reminding myself of is that slow and steady progress is not only okay, but expected. I’m not looking to become an overnight sensation, just have some fun learning something new along the way.

Eyes Forward

I’ve had a lot of fun learning the harmonica and revisiting music after many years away. On the surface it seems like a simple instrument, but there is an extreme depth to be found when sought out.

As mentioned, a long habit I’ve had after trials is to take a brief break after immersing in them for so many weeks. This of course leads to ceasing to continue the habit or practice of a given trial. While I don’t plan to continue a daily practice, keeping practice on my calendar a few times a week should help practice while not over booking myself.

A reason for this bad habit stems from the challenge of adding things to a daily routine that already feels cumbersome at times. With this ease of removal in mind, I’m avoiding some other trials on my radar at this time. For the next few weeks I’ll be revisiting a previous trial, minimalism. Though this time with a focus on organization, schedules, and habits.