May 2, 2008
monotask, reducing clutter, os x, tools
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Spirited Away is a free program that will autohide your inactive applications. If you haven’t used a program for a predetermined number of minutes, spirited away will hide the program — the icon will still be in the dock, but when you use expose, it won’t show up. I’m a big fan of spirited away, because it’s a gentle way to encourage you to monotask rather than multitask.
[Click here to download Spirited Away]
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Header photograph by peasap
April 21, 2008
tips, reducing clutter, tools
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On your desk live a bunch of miscellaneous objects: scissors, coins, a stapler, hole punch, etc. These are not objects you use every day, but you do use them frequently enough that putting them in storage is inconvenient. Slowly they spread across your desk, cluttering the space and annoying you in worst way possible: just below the threshold of doing something about it.
The solution to this desk detritus? The mess box. To reign in my desk clutter I took the lid from an old shoe box, turned it upside-down and decided that all miscellaneous desk stuff would live in there from now on.
The mess box makes a surprisingly profound difference. First, it gives a clear border to the mess — it will never be more than a square foot of space. Instead of slowing creeping across my desk when I’m not looking, the hole punch and its friends are confined to that box. Secondly, the mess box discourages me from carelessly leaving random things on my working space. With undefined stuff on a surface, adding one more item makes little difference. By having a mess box to hold cluttery items, the desk is always clear for whatever needs working on.
Instead of just letting the mess happen without thinking about it, consciously put boundaries around it. This lets you stop repeating the thought: ‘my desk is a mess’. You can let go of that constant, nagging thought because you’ve made a decision about it. I suggest looking over the mess box during your weekly review and decided what objects you want to keep in there.
Go flip over a box top and get your desk mess under control.
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Header photograph by Syntopia
April 8, 2008
productive mess, tools
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Ever notice that the first ten hits on google are almost identical, no matter the search term? The first link is wikipedia and the remaining nine are commercial sites. Getting tired of that yet? I know I am.
The book The Perfect Mess suggests a different kind of search engine: Banana Slug. Banana Slug bills itself as the ‘long tail’ search engine. When you type in your search query, Banana Slug adds one random word before scanning its index. Type in ‘Wellington Grey’ and Banana Slug will actually search for ‘Wellington Grey +Foxtrot’. It’s amazing how well adding this bit of noise cuts through the usual search result cruft.
While I still use google for most things, Banana Slug has become an excellent backup and a great assistance when I just can’t quite find something on google.
[Click here to try Banana Slug]
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Header photograph by David Sifry
March 25, 2008
os x, tools
No Comments
Monolingual is a program that strips your mac of the extra languages installed on it by default. How much space could this possibly take up? Lots. As sample results, monolingual cleared 3.4 gigs from my MacBook Air and 2.8 gigs from my wife’s powerbook.
[Click here to save space with Monolingual]
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Header photograph by Gaetan Lee
March 18, 2008
reducing clutter, Office Supply Fetish, tools
2 Comments
The last time I was in San Francisco I stumbled across a utopia of organization: The Container Store.
Leave it to San Francisco — a mixture of the free spirited and intensely productive — to have such a place. Outside the entrance to The Container Store, dirty hippies mumbled psudo-zen nonsense through the fog of drug smoke that surrounded them.
“Woah,” said one to the other. “They only sell containers? Like, with nothing in them?”
“Yeah man, emptiness is the product.”
“That’s deep. Like really deep.”
Having no patience for such things, I knocked down the hippies, rushing past them to satisfy my office-supply-fetish glee.
Inside, The Container Store was everything I hoped for: shelves filled with empty containers of all shapes and sizes. Each box whispered seductive promises of a life more organized if only I would take it home. Had I not just been passing through San Francisco on a road trip. I would have emptied my wallet and taken all I could carry.
It’s worth a pilgrimage to San Francisco for the organizational faithful.
[Click here to visit The Container Store]
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Header photograph by photohome_uk