I am a creature of routine. Some of my friends tease me about this, and I can appreciate their point, to an extent. Routines can trap us, and the word itself doesn’t spark much in the way of creative process. But for me, and I suspect for many, routines can actually free us.
When I wrote about Evernote and my own set-up using it, I shared that my system is drawn in no small part from David Allen’s Getting Things Done (GTD) System. One particular piece of the GTD system that appeals to me most is “your mind is for having ideas, not holding them.” This doesn’t just apply to emails and to do lists. A routine, for me, puts me into autopilot for the menial, everyday tasks, and frees my mind to be creative, or allows me to focus on the tasks at hand, without worrying I’m forgetting something important. Routine doesn't have to be a dirty word - we all have routines. I’m sure you don’t do laundry by staring at your dirty clothes and wondering where to start. No. You sort, load the washer, add detergent, start the washer. The washer’s done, and you move the clothes to the dryer. That’s a routine, and one you don’t put much thought into. Why?
So, how do you create a routine?
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You’d be hard pressed to find anyone who claims they don’t enjoy traveling. I think that’s an unfair description; most of us enjoy vacations, but traveling for business or other reasons can be a headache. I’ve done my share of business travel over the years, and still recall how excited I was for my first trip. So excited that, by the time I was done packing and adding “one more thing,” I ended up with enough luggage that it looked like I was embarking on a cross-country tour.
Over time, and lots of fine-tuning, I came up with my own system to avoid the headaches and enjoy the journey, so to speak. Today, I’m sharing the headache prevention parts of my system - pre-trip, homecoming, and everything in between. Be it an episode of Hoarders, or news of people dying in their homes (or in recent news, of an elderly, legally blind woman who had unknowingly been living with her own son’s corpse for possibly 20 years without knowing), we all watch in horror and find inspiration to clean our houses whenever we see hoarding situations. Here’s the thing - most of us are not in danger of becoming actual “hoarders.” Most of us are just regular folks who have too much stuff. (NOTE - if you are being consumed by your stuff, reach out. Hoarding doesn’t begin at the first scene of a TLC episode, and none of us plan to go through life only to end up so consumed by our possessions they literally consume us. As humans, we have a complicated relationship with our belongings and that can spill over into our mental health (and vice versa). So, if you suspect that’s you, or becoming you, again, REACH OUT.) Minimalism, a concept of owning minimal items, has taken off in recent years (I blame Pinterest, personally). While the concept of owning less and organizing what you do have better isn’t new, in my opinion, the concept of “minimalism” is relatively new. As a former pack-rat, I was intrigued by minimalism when it first started showing up in my Pinterest feed, and even more so when one of my friends started to embrace the concept and raved about how much more free she felt with less. When I say I was a packrat, y’all, I mean it. I never kept “trash,” but I damn sure kept a whole mess of stuff I wouldn’t need. I had binders of high school and college notes I kept because I may need again. Old phones, in case I could find a use for them. Toys and books from childhood. Clothes I hadn’t worn in years but they were still cute. The list goes on. I’d like to tell you all that stuff was organized. Some of it was, but truth be told, it wasn’t. Case in point: I once rented a two bedroom townhouse with the thought I would convert the second bedroom into a home office of sorts. I never did. Lived there for two years, and the room served more as storage. I would walk in with “stuff,” get overwhelmed, and just throw it on a desk and walk back out, closing the door behind me. It was embarrassing, and when my partner at the time and I moved into a new place, he convinced me to toss quite a bit. I eventually got all that crap organized, neatly packing things into tubs, labeling them, and all that jazz. It took a few years, but after all my friend’s raving about minimalism, I realized that while I had organized everything, it was all taking up space. And I wasn’t just wasting space, I was creating clutter. And so my journey into a pseudo-form of minimalism began. I started slow, but after I went paperless and realized the freedom I felt over there could be applied to other physical stuff, I wanted more. There are any number of systems and methods out there to help us all combat the “stuff;” organizing it, sorting it, labeling it. I won’t knock these - some have proven helpful to millions (and some are total crap, in my opinion, but that’s a topic for another day). But here’s the thing - above all, more than anything, the decision to go minimal begins within all of us. Not exactly groundbreaking information, I know. But I’ve read and pinned enough methods and tips and fought my own good fight against my “stuff" long enough to know all the methods in the world aren’t going to do diddily squat for us if we don’t start inward first. Most of us have too much stuff. This isn’t lecturing - we just do. Things we don’t need, things we don’t want, things we love, and things we don’t. We want more, too, so we get more only to watch it accumulate. I’m not exempt from this. Far from it. And I often think I’m controlling how much and what I own well, only to find myself finding I still have too much and want less. So now, while I won’t claim to be a full-fledged minimalist, I will claim that I only own things I want, or need, and am much happier in this state. That being said, it’s not a one and done project. I find myself having to give myself a pep talk of sorts often. Sometimes it happens when I go to find something and can’t find it. Sometimes its when I come home with new clothes and run out of hangers. Always, when I move. Disclaimer: I’m not paid by Evernote. Yep, all this love is pure and provided by me free of charge.
I first discovered Evernote in 2013. At the time, I was looking for something I could use to keep, well, notes. I had been using a composition notebook to jot down information as it came across my desk (phone numbers, figures, “remember to do this” lists), but it wasn’t ideal. One, they quickly filled up, and two, I had to furiously flip through pages when I needed to find the info again. Evernote seemed like a decent solution, and I kinda/sorta used it. I also had this sneaking suspicion that as useful as the service seemed, I was definitely not using it to its full potential. Then, I stumbled upon this article and as they say, the rest is history (note: yes, this article was written in 2013, but its still relevant). It took some time for my brain to train itself to go to Evernote by default. Now, it serves me on a daily basis. My workflow within Evernote has changed a few times, expanding and adjusting as my use for it increased. So, what IS Evernote? Right out of their own mouths, Evernote is…. "From inspiration to achievement, Evernote is where your work takes shape. Write, collect, discuss, and present, all from one workspace." And, WHY Evernote? For me, the fact its cross-platform and accessible from anywhere I have an Internet connection is ideal. I switch between devices throughout the day, so writing a note on my phone and knowing it’s also right there on my MacBook is a plus. I love that it has the option to encrypt text. Most of all, while I’ve tried other services, I've found Evernote to be the easiest to use, yet still packed with the features I need. I use Evernote primarily as my digital filing cabinet. Unlike a regular filing cabinet, I also create and file “notes to self,” recipes, meeting notes, etc. So while I like to think of it as a filing cabinet, I also consider it more of an inbox, as well as a fully-functional place to work WITHIN. For example, I wrote this post in Evernote, and drew and annotated all the images on my iPad, again, within Evernote. I’m going to share some general Evernote organization options, then how I personally use it. Remember - Evernote can be designed to work for YOU. This is what works best for ME, but we’re all different, as our workflows. Before I go into my system, note that if you’re familiar with GTD and David Allen, you’ll recognize that I use a fair amount of his principles in how I set it up. If you don’t know about GTD, then I encourage you to start here. I can’t say I use his system religiously, but I am a big fan. Within Evernote, you have notes. Those notes are filed into notebooks. Notebooks can be “stacked.” Notes can capture text, files, pictures, audio files, tables, etc. You can also annotate .pdfs, draw, add reminders, and present notes. Notes can also be tagged, which is a feature I use heavily. This post contains links to apps or reviews I found helpful and are shared for informational purposes only. Confession: if you had ever looked inside any office I had between 2006 to roughly mid 2014, you would refuse to believe I could ever declare myself to be “paperless.” Don’t get me wrong; I was organized, and tidy. All that paper had homes in labeled folders, alphabetized and many times, color coded. But it was paper, and it was A LOT.
When I went to the corporate sector in mid-2014, I also had to move. I had binders and binders of paper, a filing cabinet, etc. During the packing process, I realized that the majority of my paper collection could be electronic, and I rage packed everything while vowing I wouldn’t move it again. Thus began my geeky ways, and I was a woman on a mission: no more paper. I could sing the benefits of being paperless a thousand different ways, but for me, personally, it’s the lack of “stuff.” Sure, having everything I need just a few keystrokes or mouse clicks away is awesome. I’ve become more organized, and more productive. The environmental benefits are obvious. But the biggest perk for me was, and remains, having everything I need available whenever I need it without throwing my back out lifting it or having to go through files and choosing what I need to have on me for my next meeting. That being said, as a former paper junkie, I know taking the leap isn’t an overnight process. Is it a worthy process? Absolutely, and one I recommend to everyone, but it’s not necessarily a quick one. Which is why, when people ask me how to go paperless, I always recommend starting with implementing a good system. This system will go into effect immediately for all the paper you’ll continue to have roll in, and is a good framework for “catching up.” This isn’t just how you’ll handle tasks, appointments, meeting notes, and so on, but also how you’ll store your documents. |