So, I did what anyone would do. I backed up everything I thought I’d need, made lists of the stuff I’d want to reinstall, and went ahead with the erase job.

Two things happened:

• I erased everything and reinstalled just the OS, only to find my problems remained. It turned out to be faulty RAM that I had installed six months before. Yes, I ran hardware tests, but they didn’t show any problems. Major thanks go out to Mariam, the angel on the Mac forum who saved my bacon. Ever since getting my new RAM, everything has run perfectly, like a Mac does when you don’t put junk in the engine.
• I realized that the way I had been working, managing information, and handling my digital life was way outta whack. I had backups, I’d worked efficiently, I’d streamlined my processes… yet until I had to start completely over from scratch, I had no idea how much fat there was still was left to trim.

Welcome to the butcher shop.

Now, I’m pretty sure—without Googling—that there are umpteen posts similar to this one out there in the world. I mean, productivity “hacks” are a dime a dozen, I realize. And, it’s not my intention to just air my laundry, so to speak.

But along with that little observation, my internal censor tells me I should just stop writing now. But to that censor—and yours, if you got one—I say two things:

1. I don’t care. I mean, I think it’s great that other posts are out there, but since this is my virtual soapbox and my life, and this was a meaningful event that has shaped every day since, I’m going to write about it.
2. I’m not a “productivity guru” writing about getting things done faster, easier, etc., as means to their own end. Gawd knows, everyone who has tried to implement increased-productivity measures in their lives has hit the point where they were tweaking their system more than actually doing things with said system.

But that’s not my intent here.

I don’t write about this to help you shave 0.4 seconds off your email time; I write about this because if you can walk away from your desk/laptop/iPhone with a few less knots in your shoulders and a clearer mind, then I’ve done my part. It’s about peace of mind, clarity of thought, and ease of being. Not to mention creating less waste and saving resources, both external (paper, space, time) and internal (thought, stress, and your creative potential).

That said…

I honestly don’t know if I could track every change that has come into my life since my self-induced electronic colonic, but I’ll share with you the biggies: the ones that I notice many times a day have improved my workflow and left me feeling much more peaceful about how I flow from from one task to another.

The big mind-shift happened as I went to download the software I had been using before the crash. I had taken screenshots of my Applications folder, so I could get everything back to the way it was. As I looked over the list, I realized that:

1. there was a bunch of stuff I had downloaded that I just didn’t use any more (surprise, surprise),
2. there were a few programs that were redundant, because other, better solutions existed… and now was the perfect time to take advantage of them.

Case in point…

Email.

I had been an avid—and satisfied—Thunderbird user for some time, after leaving Eudora years before. But I had also been hearing good things about just using Apple’s Mail, because of Address Book integration.

So, I Googled “mail vs thunderbird”, and I found this post by Dave Moyer, about using Gmail instead. Brilliant.

Why Gmail? Because:

• you can receive, and send from, other email accounts through Gmail. So, you’re not limited to just youraccount@gmail.com.
• all of your mail is automatically archived, just in case. Never lose an email again. And, because it’s all online, it takes up zero space on your own computer.
• there are plenty of helpful features (and extensions, via Google Labs) to manage your mail effectively, from labels to stars to filters and more.
• it runs out of your browser, so you don’t have to have yet another program running, taking up screen real estate, system memory, or time to download new messages. Translation: it’s faster.
• thinking of getting a new computer, ever? No more migration hassles; just log on from you new machine—or any machine, for that matter—and all your stuff is right where you left it. Translation: no fear of ever losing your stuff.

In Dave’s article, he said that everyone he talks to who actually gives it a shot ends up loving it within a week. It only took me a day.

Once I had embraced the “computing in the cloud” concept with GMail, I was curious to see what else was out there that would supplant my previous on-my-machine solutions. Next up…

Task Management.

Here is one place I’d been trying out all kinds of solutions for years, with never a clear winner emerging. I’ll spare you the exhaustive rundown, but the last program I was using to manage my projects and to-do’s was Things. Things rocks. I’m not a GTD’er, and Things is flexible enough to let me keep my projects managed how I wanted.

But again, I wanted something that was stored/synced automatically online, so I wouldn’t ever lose data. And, at the same time, I was examining how I stored the information related to my projects, and tangential snippets of stuff that invariably surface while working on a project. Saving everything to files, folders, and browser bookmarks just didn’t seem like the way to go, not when so much savvier solutions are out there.

And then I found a program that could handle my task management AND my incessant exploration of the web, all synced online, and all free. I danced my everloving jig, bowed in gratitude to the universe, and promptly fell in love with Evernote.

Evernote allows you to capture notes, screenshots and images, and URLs of anything, anywhere, anytime. It works on Macs and Windows, it works on iPhones and mobile devices, and it automatically syncs with a web-based version. It’s simple and intuitive to use, allows you to tag entries, create multiple “notebooks”, and search easily.

And, get this: it even scans the images you put in, and any words that are in the images will also be searched. Daaaay-ang, that’s sweet.

Here’s how I use Evernote:

• I have a Design notebook that’s my default, and as I browse the web and learn new tricks related to my webdesign business, I grab screenshots and the address of the page for later. No more saving webpages in overstuffed folders on my hard drive, no more endless browser bookmarks, no more “I know I saw a solution for that once… where was that/what did I do with it?” This alone saves me hours. Hours.
• Each note that I make from something online contains a screenshot, for easier visual browsing and memory-jogging. I also make sure to take advantage of Evernote’s tagging and url-linking feature, so I can easily find notes later, and jump to the site I got it from when I need more info (I sometimes save big chunks of code, but typically just save a snippet of the original to save time and stay in the flow of what I’m doing).
• I make a new notebook for each of my design clients, and while I often create individual notes within it to store various chunks of info, there’s one “master” note in each one where I keep lists of what needs to be done. I use sections to keep everything organized, and label them @Next, @Questions, @Waiting, and @Launch. Once glance and I know exactly what’s next for each client.

I can’t imagine working without Evernote, it’s that universal for me. And, sometimes I lose track of how all my projects need to be managed and what’s next. Rather than go through each notebook one at a time, I rely on Remember the Milk.

Remember the Milk (RTM) is another online, free-to-use service that excels at to-do list management. It can be used via the web and/or mobile devices, but my two favs are the Mac Dashboard Widget and the Google Mail add-on. My RTM list, made up of the top “@ Next” items from my projects, shows up in the right sidebar of my Gmail page, so not only do I see it every time I’m in Gmail, but I can also easily add tasks that come up as a result of communicating with people.

Update: As cool as RTM is, I found that I was still waffling a little when it came to knowing exactly what task to do next. It’s that tendency to re-evaluate every time you look at your list that does you in, I believe… so when I heard about Now Do This, I said, “Hallelujah!” It’s a to-do list at its simplest, and finest.

Oh, and appointments? I ditched iCal, too, in favor of Google Calendar. No more Address Book, either; Gcal stores contact information, too. It’ll even pull data straight from those that email me… I rarely even have to enter anyone’s information in manually.

See the theme emerging, here?

Online, backed-up, accessible from anywhere, one less program running… all these simplifications mean less “mental overhead” for me, faster computer performance, and the peace of mind that I’m not going to lose my data if my machine breaks. I breathe regular sighs of relief, believe me.

Now, it’s possible, I suppose, to lose my data if Google’s/RTM’s/Evernote’s servers were to somehow all crash. But which is more likely… that I’ll mess something up, or they will? Besides, if I was ever really concerned about it, I could always sync their machines with mine, and keep local copies. Ultimately, that’s a great idea, I just haven’t gotten around to it yet (pray that those aren’t famous last words!).

I do, by the way, use an automatic data backup service, too: Mozy. Pre-crash, I used to backup all kinds of stuff. Now, post-crash, I’ve realized that most things I can put on cd’s or dvd’s and back them up myself; it ties up less internet bandwidth that way. But I do backup my applications settings, passwords, keychains, and such through Mozy, because those are the essential bits of information that will allow me to reconstruct my system easily, should a problem arise. And because I’m constantly using, revising, and changing that information, an auto-backup setup is ideal for keeping my backups up-to-date, whereas I can backup photos once a month and still be pretty well-protected.

Your Mileage May Vary

I realize, of course, that these solutions aren’t for everyone. And, I may never have made some of these changes if I weren’t forced to by my crash. In that way, the crash was one of the better things that happened to me this summer.

I’d whole-heartedly recommend that you examine the way you work, and see if any of the kinds of solutions I’ve come up with here could help you be more productive or more at peace. Who knows, moving webward may be one of the better moves of your life.

Image by CaptPiper.

© Adam for Adam Kayce, 2008. | Permalink | 12 comments