So sometime last year I heard a fateful podcast about algorithms that could be applicable to day to day life, and I learned about the dangerous idea of Temporal Locality :
- This algorithm posits that the paper you're most likely to use next, is the last one you touched. So that pile of papers on your desk? You have a scientific reason to never organize them. The most relevant stuff will rise to the top.
This algorithm was really self serving to me, as I'm the kind of guy who likes his unfettered cereberal freedom while- so for the last year I've pretty much had two folders, Desktop and 0cleanup (which in the Desktop), where every now and then I'll select all and drag everything to the 0cleanup folder and maybe if I need something in the future I'll dig for it.
Fast forward a year or so, and now I have a gigantic 0cleanup folder that I dread going into because it's a big dump. I don't even need to go in too often, but if I do it's usually that I usually could just get off the internet again, and if it's project related, it's usually saved in the WYSIWYG editor in some way, or available in an email or something. But even this is it's own stress, because there's no one project folder for things anymore, it's just a bunch of hunting.
So yeah, I deem this algorithm impractical for my life. What do you guys do?
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My laptop recently broke, and I've been back on my trusty backup x220 (love this thing) for my daily driver. It's a good time to do a reset on my digital life. I'm trying to think of some new rules for myself.
I've been on a Marie Kondo kick lately, and I've been trying to figure how to simplify my digital life, especially because I spend so much time on the internet. It's difficult because I have a lot of interests and avenues for those interests, and I also have a lot methods for sustaining those interests.
Here are the rules I have for myself so far:
- Don't collect humorous pictures or design inspiration (you can easily find them again)
- Don't bookmark things to read them later or try them out later (you'll never get to them)
- Finish comments or forget about them (Forces me to write and choose battles correctly)
Do you guys have any personal rules of your own?
I read Marie Kondo in one evening while preparing for my move. You know when you're at a party and you accidentally mention a topic that the other person knows way too much about, and now you're stuck in a two hour lecture? That's what reading Marie Kondo in one sitting felt like. At least it got me to throw away a bunch of stuff I otherwise wouldn't... Digital drives are so cheap these days that there is little reason to throw much away. I keep all of my digital files from all of my university classes, for example. The only thing you need is a decent file organization or a great search tool, and I don't want to depend on the latter. My general file system is rather straightforward: have one (solid state) drive with all the important files on it and categorize them in a way that makes the most sense for you. I advice you to separate your operating system drive from this file drive, which allows you to do clean installs whenever you want and have everything file where you left it. Plus, it makes backups super easy because I can just drag one folder to my backup drive and press 'overwrite all'. I organize mostly by what kind of file it is, because when I look for a file, I probably know what type I'm looking for. My main folders are: Creativity (for things that I make that don't fit in a project) Documents (subfolders based on document types, like books or notes) Downloads Films & Series Games Geodata (only the cool stuff, I use a slow HDD as a scratch disk) Music Pictures (subfolders by year, then by album) Projects Study (subfolders by year, then by course) Your current Temporal Locality implementation might not work, but that doesn't mean the concept is garbage. I use my Downloads folder in a similar way. Have you trudged through Getting Things Done by any chance? One of its highlights for me is the idea of an (in the book physical) In Tray, which is where documents and files and whatnot enters your system. I only keep stuff in there that is temporary or that I will put in the correct category at a later date. Once in a blue moon I clean that folder up and move stuff to the right folder. The desktop is only for files that I need right now. Applications (only those that benefit from being on an SSD)
I sort of follow but can you be completely explicit here just to confirm for me that I'm not missing out on any low-hanging fruit? I basically have a cloud-located archive of all my personal documents, accessibly from anywhere. Is that the same thing?separate your operating system drive from this file drive, which allows you to do clean installs whenever you want and have everything file where you left it.
Not entirely. I'm assuming a Windows machine here, but what I am arguing for is a complete separation between the drive with your OS and all of your personal files; in my case, I have a C: drive with the OS and some small applications, and a D: drive with my file system as described above. The idea is that I can take my D: drive and plug it in someone else's computer and have all the files that I need ready to go. So my C: drive will never contain any file that I care about. This means I can do a clean install of my OS yearly, meaning that in an afternoon I can have a fast and clutter-free OS running. Note that I didn't mention archives. Never depend on your archives for daily or weekly use, because then it isn't an archive any more. On top of the above, I have two drives that I archive copies of my D: drive on, as well as two different cloud backup services.
Ok, so you're advocating two hard drives for any computer you use. I have a 250GB solid state drive on my main and only laptop (Macbook Pro) that houses both the OS and personal files, though 80%+ of my personal files are on the cloud. Archive is a misnomer, it's actually just a database/set of folders I use to organize my principal files. The other 20% of my personal files can't fit into the cloud storage solution I have without ponying up some money, though I'm not totally averse to ponying up for a decent cloud solution, which I'm sure are super cheap these days.
TIL I'm an idiot. I can't stop cackling and cringing at this, this would have saved me so much time and stress over my life. I read the book and the manga, and the manga I like because things are just a lot less threatening in comic book form. Fuck, I just donated GTD after reading the magic of tidying up. Weirdly enough, this actually makes me want to commit to reading it again. I read GTD when I was a freshman in college, and I remember that my big takeaway was to reduce tasks to their under 2 minute essence- I even tried a system out with a physical tray with notecards because my digital solutions for GTD weren't really working for me. I didn't really give GTD my 100% shot, it didn't feel very applicable to me when I was in college and everything was intrinsically interesting to me. =============== An aside, because it just occurred to me that there is a common theme to the self-help books I like and tend to embrace: I tend to choose embrace philosophies that can be potentially self-serving in the moment, all the while glossing over maintenance. (Simple Rules)[https://www.amazon.com/Simple-Rules-Thrive-Complex-World/dp/0544705203] is probably the most egregious example, because I break and selectively forget and make up new rules all the time in my head, and no amount of leaving post-it-notes around can change that. =============== But shit, I'm doing the OS thing right now. I advice you to separate your operating system drive from this file drive, which allows you to do clean installs whenever you want and have everything file where you left it.
The idea to separate it like that was given to me by a friend a year or two ago and I was equally surprised at why I never thought of it before. I don't think reading GTD again is necessary - it really isn't that applicable when you're a student, and it's getting more outdated by the minute. Your time is better spent on what GTD really is about, which is building a system for yourself: And / Or, read Cal Newport's Deep Work, which I loved. Maybe his tips for focused work can get you to focus better on the maintenance tasks:
:\ I rely on search tools and bookmarking systems. Grep and Projectile. A few library based applications like Steam, Darktable, and Calibre to organize for me. The rest is a pile. I've got a remote backup and local rolling filesystem snapshots and they're all basically your 0cleanup folder. My home folder is a sea of jpegs that I exported from raw files but couldn't be bothered to put into a subfolder. plz, send help.
My philosophy is that deleting is as important as organizing. If I can't bring myself to delete something, then I have to turn it into something. If I don't want to use it and I don't want to delete it then it's a stagnation in my life and I need to assess that stagnation.
I second this. Sometimes I get sick of how much stuff I have saved on my To Check Out Later list. So I'll get to deleting. But it pains me that I'm so callous to my former self that saved all these things. I'm reminded of a Mitch Hedberg quote. I sit at my hotel at night, I think of something that's funny, then I go get a pen and I write it down. Or if the pen's too far away, I have to convince myself that what I thought of ain't funny.
Using shortcuts is something I haven't thought of at all, but it's elegant! There are times when I can't decide where something should go, and there have been times when I've looked for something in multiple places. I'm unsure what you mean by having a script to check for directories, do you have to recheck the organizational structure of your directory?
My only experience with experience with linux was to distrohop to see the differences between them. It was finals week and my procrastination took me through Ubuntu, Mint, Bodhi, and Crunchbang, and I'm sure the MD5 checksum is something I've seen while installing these things. I never really got it. I learned how to drive manual last week, and I was surprised at how many things I've taken for granted driving automatic. I have an idealized romanticism with driving manual and just wanted to take it on. Is this similar to why you would check for a collision that according to this is likely never going to happen to you?
I like your rules and follow them myself, rarely bookmarking or saving images I don't have a specific use for. I need to cleanup my files too. I have a folder called "Stuff" with everything in it, and these subfolders (I'll copy Devac): Articles 2 Brain Turds Education Film GWR Evidence Music Photos Etc Film is movies, music is music and photos are photos. Education is all of the stuff from my undergrad and master's - it's huge, not very tidy and in dire need of cleaning up. GWR Evidence is the stuff from my barefoot record. Brain Turds is the folder for any little bits of writing I've done. (There's not a whole lot in there.) Which leaves us with Articles 1 and Articles 2, a situation that reveals the true lack of organisation in my files. Articles 1 is basically a big folder full of interesting essays, journal articles or books, some of which I've read and some of which I haven't. I've pruned it a few times, but I'm always left with a bunch of stuff I don't want to delete despite completely forgetting that it's there (which is a fairly useful criterion for getting rid of things in general.) I started Articles 2 because I didn't want to have to properly organise the first one. There's a bit of the "shove everything into messy cupboards and boxes" method of tidying at work here. Articles 1
I have two programs for saving bits of writing, Tomboy Notes (I found a windows version) and Zim, both of which catalogue writing in a similar way, and the reason I have both is because, yeah, I didn't want to properly organize the first one.