From the monthly archives:
This is part of an ongoing series called Blinders where I explore some of the ways I streamline my computer workflows to minimize distractions.
I have a good chunk of writing to do in the next week. Friday, I was hoping to get a good head start. It was a catastrophe.
This afternoon, I took drastic measures. I turned my wireless off. It was a stunning success.
Okay, back to writing. You are dead to me, world.
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Yesterday, I raved about Leap. This weekend, as hoped, Leap is half-price at MacZot.
The handful of video tours available from the makers of Leap offer a look at how useful Leap is. If you’ve ever spent more than three minutes looking for a file, then consider Leap.
Popularity: 40% [?]
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This is part of an ongoing series called Blinders where I explore some of the ways I streamline my computer workflows to minimize distractions.
Spring seems to be reluctant to make it’s way to the Pacific Northwest this year. I decided to coax it along with a good spring cleaning in my documents folder.
Documents folders can get messy. Fast. I have over 2000 files nested within my documents folder. That’s after a recent purging — it only includes files that have been accessed in some way in the last six months.
A few years ago, I decided to get serious about organizing my documents. A handful of broad general folders contained layers of nested folders getting more specific at each level. It was working. I could find most any file, assuming I was patient enough to navigate through subfolder after subfolder to find it. The problem is, it was cumbersome. Sometimes the logic I used to save the file wasn’t the same I was using to retrieve it — I would have to rifle through a few folders to find a needed document. Thank goodness for spotlight.
With tags providing such a handy way to organize ideas in Yojimbo, I decided it was time to find a way to do the same thing with my documents folder. I’ve developed a system this is working well using Leap and Hazel. Here’s a rundown of what I did:
Tagging - Considering it is a version 1 release, I’m happy with the interface Leap offers for tagging and sorting files. (Watch their guided tour to see how it works.) I haven’t completely abandoned folders, because Leap allows me to see all files in subfolders. I was quickly able to tag all files within subfolders. Getting many files tagged quickly was a good start. Then, I sorted by tag (see the image below) to see which files still needed tags. Within half an hour, everything was at least broadly tagged, and life was good. I can quickly sort through tags and find a needed file within a few seconds. Now, it is just a matter of setting aside a few moments every few days to tag any untagged files in Leap. Here’s my motto about tagging: “If you tag, tag like crazy.” The more tags you use just make it all the easier to narrow down what you might be looking for.
This system might not be best for you, but I hope it gives you some ideas on how you can do some spring cleaning of your own. Feel free to share some of your own ideas for creating a manageable documents folder in the comments.
And for the record, I’m a paid and happy customer of both Leap and Hazel. I haven’t been compensated to promote either. I did get both of them heavily discounted through the likes of MacZot and MUPromo, so keep your eyes open there. The makers of Leap have stated that Leap will be discounted at MacZot by the end of this month.
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Yep is available for $20 from MacZot today only. It’s a spiffy little program for, well, spiffing up your workspace by reducing paper clutter. It’s worth a look if you don’t have it.
Thanks to the recommendation of Unclutterer, I picked up a Fujitsu ScanSnap to use with Yep. They are pricey but worthwhile if you are serious about getting rid of papers. (I found an older model on ebay at well below half the retail price last summer, so you might want to see what becomes available there.)
On a related note, the makers of Yep also make Leap. Leap is a spiffy program for, well, spiffing up your documents folder. I’ll be talking about how I use Leap as part of the Blinders series. There is some discussion in the Maczot blog about a potential discount on a Yep/Leap combo, so check there later today to see if the developer has worked out a package deal.
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This is the introduction to an ongoing series called Blinders. I’m going to explore some ways I try to help my oft distracted mind stay focused on what I’m doing.
Last week, I started meandering through A Perfect Mess. I’ve only read about a tenth of it, so I probably shouldn’t comment on it yet. I’m going to anyway.
The premise of the book, or at least the first tenth of it, is that messiness isn’t as bad as we make it out to be. So much time can be spent maintaining organizational systems that it is counterproductive. I wouldn’t argue this…it wasn’t long ago that I said something similar.
But that misses the point of why I find value in having some organization. The main benefit of trying to create order and structure is this — my mind, and my life, are easily distracted. I need to create some space to reflect and be creative. Here are some thoughts out of my daily pages from a few weeks ago that gave birth to this series:
Why the drive to organize my spaces when my brain is such a mess? Ha. It’s not really a mess, but there is more distraction going on there than there ever is on my desk or my comptuer screen. It is my mind that shifts me over to see what is happening on another space. Not the distraction of my screen that takes my mind away. Oops…another one to incubate.
The blessing of a computer is that it can be a great tool for productivity and creativity. Unfortunately, it can also be a portal to, well, everything. It is a distraction machine. It is not uncommon for me to find a window buried on my screen that represents something I was working on half an hour ago, and completely forgot.
In the two or three posts to follow, I will be sharing some of the ways I try to beat my computer into submission. (If you are a computer rights activist, please note the use of metaphor and sarcasm.) I have posts coming on how I am simplifying my documents folders, as well as how I have streamlined what my workspace looks like.
If you have tips on what is helpful for you, you are welcome to share them with the rest of us in the comments.
Popularity: 40% [?]
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While traveling the past few weeks, I read The Starfish and the Spider for a research project I have due later this month. I read it on my Amazon Kindle. The Kindle experience is turning out to be all I hoped it would — other than having to turn it off for takeoff and landing.
I obsessively, er, avidly collect notes from books I read. I have a database of quotes and thoughts stored in Yojimbo for most of the books I’ve read in the last 4-5 years. In my typical workflow, I underline or make notes in the margin as I read. If there is something I really want to remember, I will dog ear the page. After finishing the book, I go back through it and manually enter the quotes and thoughts I want to remember into Yojimbo. This part often feels tedious, and I admit I have 4-5 recent reads stacked up that I need to do this with. (Maybe I’m not so obsessive after all.)
Reading the book on my Kindle has saved me an hour or more, because I’m not going to have to review my highlights and scribbles. All of them were saved in the clippings file on the Kindle. When I attached the Kindle to my computer, I just opened up the clippings text file, highlighted all the notes from the book and pasted them into a Yojimbo note. When it comes time to write, I’ll drag that note into Scrivener. Bada bing, bada boom. (I can’t believe I just typed that, but I can’t bring myself to delete it.)
Now if only I could figure out how to do Chicago style citations of a Kindle book…
Popularity: 41% [?]
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Some of my favorite links on creativity and workflow from the interweb the past few weeks:
Post post reflection: Hmm…I find that I am coming to despise blog posts that are just list of 4 ways to do this or 17 ideas about this. And I just linked to three posts like that.
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The Only Moment When We Were Alone - Explosions in the Sky.
Go ahead and listen to it right now. I’ll wait. (If you don’t have it, get it. You need to have it.)
The 4:26 mark in the song is… Wait, what are you doing? Don’t jump to that part. Let it build so you can hear it properly. Like I said, I’ll wait.
Every time I get to the 4:26 mark in the song, I feel my soul surge out of my chest. It calls me to something more. Without fail, when that blessed 4:26 mark arrives, I wish I were sitting with my computer in front of me. I am quite certain in those moments that I could write words that would echo for ages to come.
Unless, of course, my computer is actually in front of me.
More than once, my loyal Macbook has sat on my lap when The Only Moment We Were Alone strutted into the “Now Playing” window. Many of those times, it was even while doing some writing for a paper or blog entry. Everything is aligned for those blessed words to stream from my fingers.
The song builds through the four minute mark. I feel it coming. It crescendos into 4:26, and I…
stop typing.
I close my eyes, wishing that I could somehow step into the music itself.
I hope you can find moments like this too, whether from a few lines of poetry, a stunning image, or staring into the wonder of a child’s eyes. These are moments where the beauty that comes from another offers so much that it’s not about what it causes me to do, but who it causes me to be.
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