if you find yourself constantly striving to match a paradigm, back up. maybe you’re not really meant to work that way. do you have something that works for you?

keep in mind though, some people really might not have a method that works, in which case anything that involves structure might be beneficial.

one random example from my own life: my email. i spent a stupid amount of time attempting to stay on top of sorting email because i was told at one point that organized email is important. i tried tags, rulesets in the hundreds, smart folders, all at the same time, and the results were dismal. best part? i never used it. i never once said to myself “oh, i need this communication from the prime minister of ukraine, let me look under “prime ministers”, tagged “ukraine” “. no, i’d just go to the search bar, click “From” and type ytymoshenko@gmail.com. ta-da.

new solution? 4 inboxes (i have 4 mail aggregating accounts), total of 2 regular folders marked “important” and “not”, and 1 smart folder. the rule for the smart folder is:
- if the email is unread, or the email is in folder important, show it.

the only folder i look at is the smart folder. all unread emails are in there and disappear after they’re read (technically, they disappear after i close the window, which i do as soon as i’m done looking at mail), unless they’re something relevant in which case i drag them to the “important” folder. once they’re solved/answered, they’re dropped in either “not”. every blue moon i drag all emails from the inboxes to the “not” bin, just in case things go bad if the inbox gets too large.

that’s really all i need from email, it works with my actual work flow, and actually uses that CPU power this machine has. i imagine this would work even better with gmail, but at work we have lolexchange so eh.

different example of this: i have a bizarre music writing method. i work in these bursts where i write and record for about 5 hours straight, in which time i like to be alone with no one listening, then when done, i leave it alone for a week while sending it to half the people on my IM list to ask for opinions on what they think of it and where it should go

somehow the conversation process is what lets me mentally decide where it needs to go. it’s silly, but songs which i don’t talk about end up piling up as minute long fragments that never went anywhere. songs i do, end up growing into actual songs. well, not immediately. they go through a bunch of cycles of this. some more than others.

(btw, apologies if you happen to be on the “hey can you tell me if this works? what do you think of the cut up trumpet loop?” and are annoyed by it. just let me know, i wont be offended)

in any case, yes, don’t get obsessed with following footsteps of others, just set a similar goal to what they had and find what manner of movement works best for you. but don’t use that as an excuse to be lazy either.