Ilios Digital Organizing Blog

15 December 2020

4 Things to Do Before 2021

Computer Organizing

It’s that time of the year again – time for lists and recollections. Who made the Billboard charts? What were the most newsworthy events? How many different types of bread can you make now? (I can do banana bread, does that count?) What did you listen to on Spotify? That sort of thing.

But instead of looking back at what you’ve done so far, I’m looking ahead to what you can accomplish before 2021 starts. There’s always a big push to get organized at the beginning of the new year – how many times have you put ‘get organized’ on your resolution list – but why not start now?

Today, I wanted to give you a head start on being organized for the new year. Below are four things you can do now to start 2021 off on the right foot. 

  1. Clear off your desktop. Yes, this means your digital desktop as well as your physical desktop. It’s time to get rid of all those temporary downloads you read then forgot to discard, those early versions of your client retention form, and all the various files that accumulate on your desktop. Find a home for the ones you want to keep and discard the rest. Starting off clean may encourage you to keep it that way in the new year.
  2. Weed and purge your phone photos. We all take throwaway pictures – images of a receipt, or a shelf code at the grocery store, or that accidental picture of your feet. Now is the time to scan thru your photo roll and discard those throwaway images. While you’re doing that, keep an eye out for any duplicates that you can narrow down to a single photo. This is an easy task to take care of when you’re waiting in line at the store or sitting on the couch watching reruns.
  3. Update your device. Is your tech up to date on the latest operating system, upgrades, etc? Many of these updates include important safety patches or features. Even if your device is set to automatically update, that might not be enough. If you haven’t restarted your device recently, do so now. There are some updates and changes that require a restart to implement. 
  4. Start your online backup. If you don’t already have your documents, photos, etc. backed up, now is the time to get that process started. There’s no reason to avoid online backup – and it’s cheap for the peace of mind it brings. Don’t wait till there is a disaster to get prepared. For online backup I recommend either BackBlaze or Carbonite. 

Once you’re done with these four steps, take a moment to relax with a cup of cocoa or other holiday beverage. You’re off to a great start!

Have questions about what to do first? Need help with any of the steps? Let me know and we can work on it together! Would you rather receive this information in your inbox? Sign up for my newsletter!

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Ilios Digital Organizing Blog

1 March 2023

Are You Seeing Double?

Productivity

Are you having trouble sticking with a task that you find boring or cumbersome? Like clearing out your email backlog or moving a mess of files into folders. You know how to do it, it’s just making the time to do it. Especially when you’d rather do anything else. So the project sits, unfinished.

This is the reality for many of my clients. And one of the reasons I encourage the use of Action Sessions – a dedicated time together to tackle the “boring” tasks with someone holding you accountable.

That accountability is a big deal for me. Like many people, I tend to get more work done when I know someone is watching me work. It’s why I love having an accountability partner and participating in co-working sessions – they are both forms of body doubling.

Body doubling is a productivity/accountability trick where you have someone present to keep you focused on your task. Your body double may sit there quietly and watch you work, or maybe they are working on their own task while you work on yours. Some body doubles even may carry on a conversation with you while you do a more mindless task like cleaning out your sock drawer. The best thing? Body doubling can be done virtually as well as in person!

“How to ADHD” has a great video about body doubling on YouTube that explains the concept.  Or give me a call and we can talk about the benefits. And if you’re one of my clients and you’re still trying to tackle that overloaded inbox, let’s get an Action Session scheduled so we can get that task finished.

Can’t wait to hear from you!

13 April 2022

Decluttering vs Minimalism

Digital Organizing, Productivity

9 March 2022

Decreasing the noise of daily life

Productivity

It can be hard to think about minimalism in the noise and rush of our busy lives. There’s always something else to do, listen to, or respond to. Our phones go off at all hours of the day, demanding our attention.  I give my husband a hard time because he has email notifications on and I’ll be just about ready to fall asleep when ‘bing’, a new email from Amazon or Ebay or someone like that.

Part of our journey towards digital minimalism involves downsizing and streamlining. App notifications – both phone and computer – are an easy place to make those changes.

Now, there are some notifications we definitely need – text messages are usually on that list, especially for parents. But there are a lot of notifications we can remove from our daily schedule. Do you really need to be pinged when an email comes in or are you checking email on your own schedule? How about this week’s cookie notification from Crumbl? Or an alert when the litter box is full?

(That last one  is a definite yes for me!)

Digital minimalism looks different for each of us. When minimizing notifications, it’s up to each of us to stop and think about why we need to be notified, what purpose the notification is serving, and what we do because of the notification. (How we respond is key to finding our distraction points during the day) Then we can make deliberate decisions about what stays and what goes.

How is your journey into digital minimalism going? Any surprises? Anything I can do to support you?

19 January 2022

The first step is awareness

Productivity

After our talk last week about digital minimalism, I had a reader mention the phrase ‘attention management’ when it comes to working with intent. It’s a great phrase because, with our digital life, so much of what we do is mindless.

This is especially true when it comes to surfing and Internet usage. How many times have you fallen down an Internet rabbit hole? Or turned on your phone just to kill time while waiting?

We all get caught up sometimes, and the first part of minimizing your digital use is figuring out how you actually use your time. I use a great software called RescueTime that tracks your digital activity across all devices it is installed on – phone, computer, Internet, and tablet. The software allows me to see, for example, that I spent 15 minutes playing Alien Hive on my phone last night when I could swear it was only a couple of minutes before bedtime.

I’ve written an App Review on RescueTime before, which you can find here: App Review – RescueTime

Check it out. It’s a great tool to try as we work on digital minimalism.

Questions? Let me know! Otherwise, I’ll see you next time!

12 January 2022

Starting with Digital Minimalism

Productivity

We all want a more peaceful life. Less stress, less clutter. The minimalists out there say the way there is through less stuff and more intention.

There are Instagram feeds and Facebook groups devoted to decluttering your kitchen, your closet, any part of your house. But in a world full of tech and information streams and social media, what does digital minimalism look like?

It’s more than just organizing your files or purging your email. More than giving up Facebook for a month or two. Digital minimalism is about being intentional with how you spend your time online. Intentional with what you consume and how you consume it.

Cal Newport, the writer of “Digital Minimalism: Choosing a focused life in a noisy world”,  defines digital minimalism as “a philosophy of technology use in which you focus your online time on a small number of carefully selected and optimized activities that strongly support things you value, and then happily miss out on everything else.”

Easy enough to say. But not necessarily easy to do.  There’s a lot of noise out there and a lot of suggestions of what to do to embrace digital minimalism.  A lot of discussion about how much minimalism is enough.

According to research, you’re likely to check email and chat every 6 minutes, spend 4 hours or so on your phone a day, and use something like 50 or more tools and apps a day.  Few of us want to give up technology and all the great things the Internet has to offer. But there is a way to minimize your tech without giving everything up.

How to turn down the noise and surf with intent is going to be our focus for the next couple of months.  We’ll talk about apps, notifications, values, and goals as they relate to digital minimalism.

Stay tuned for more details!

Want to get this information in your inbox? Click to sign up for the Ilios Digital newsletter!

29 September 2021

Why Inbox Zero Won’t Fix Your Email Problems

Email Management

How many times are you checking your email each day? Either because you’re bored or because you’re trying to stay on top of your unread count? How much spam are you getting? Cat memes you didn’t ask for (but why not, they’re about cats!), and messages you didn’t need to be cc’d on. That’s not including all the newsletters and ads you subscribed to at one point.

The business world runs on email.

Love it or hate it, you can’t leave it behind or pretend it doesn’t exist.  But beyond basic communication, email can be just as much of a distraction as it is a tool. This is where Inbox Zero comes in.

You’ve heard of Inbox Zero, right? It’s a productivity hack, a system that was developed as a way of managing email clutter and distractions. The goal is to keep the inbox empty – or nearly empty – at all times. Inbox zero. It’s a great goal, one that a lot of people work hard to maintain on a daily basis. This is not about those people.

This is about other people. Those whose inbox will fill up with emails, into the thousands, and they’ll set aside a day to try and achieve Inbox Zero through mass deletions and processing.  It’s a one day blitz and after achieving their goal, and celebrating, the user goes back to business as usual.

Using Inbox Zero this way is just like putting your inbox on a diet.

The problem with so many diets out there is that they are focused only on achieving the result. Drink this shake and lose 10 pounds. Try this meal plan for a month and lose 15 pounds. The thought is you go on a diet, then eventually you go off a diet and return to your normal life. With this approach, there’s no permanent change in how you behave. Once you’re off the diet you go back to living the behaviors that got you there in the first place. 

Too many people use Inbox Zero like a diet for your inbox. They focus on getting the result – zero emails – thinking this will solve all their email problems.  But an inbox diet isn’t the answer to email management. Better habits are.

So what can you do today to better manage your email?

  1. Make a decision about that email the first time you read it – action item, reference item, or trash. Read and react.
  2. Create filters to keep your inbox uncluttered. Get those urgent items front and center instead of hidden in the spam.
  3. Set specific times to check emails and turn off your notifications. Theses dings and flags interrupt your workflow and decrease your productivity.
  4. Be the change you want to see in the world. Send the type of messages you want to receive and model positive email behavior to others.

And remember, better email management is a lifestyle change, not a diet. Instead of chasing the goal of trying to get down to zero emails in your inbox, focus on building better habits as the way to manage your inbox and incoming email!

Need help getting your email under control? Call me and let’s talk about how!

Ilios Digital Organizing Blog

1 March 2023

Are You Seeing Double?

Productivity

Are you having trouble sticking with a task that you find boring or cumbersome? Like clearing out your email backlog or moving a mess of files into folders. You know how to do it, it’s just making the time to do it. Especially when you’d rather do anything else. So the project sits, unfinished.

This is the reality for many of my clients. And one of the reasons I encourage the use of Action Sessions – a dedicated time together to tackle the “boring” tasks with someone holding you accountable.

That accountability is a big deal for me. Like many people, I tend to get more work done when I know someone is watching me work. It’s why I love having an accountability partner and participating in co-working sessions – they are both forms of body doubling.

Body doubling is a productivity/accountability trick where you have someone present to keep you focused on your task. Your body double may sit there quietly and watch you work, or maybe they are working on their own task while you work on yours. Some body doubles even may carry on a conversation with you while you do a more mindless task like cleaning out your sock drawer. The best thing? Body doubling can be done virtually as well as in person!

“How to ADHD” has a great video about body doubling on YouTube that explains the concept.  Or give me a call and we can talk about the benefits. And if you’re one of my clients and you’re still trying to tackle that overloaded inbox, let’s get an Action Session scheduled so we can get that task finished.

Can’t wait to hear from you!

13 April 2022

Decluttering vs Minimalism

Digital Organizing, Productivity

9 March 2022

Decreasing the noise of daily life

Productivity

It can be hard to think about minimalism in the noise and rush of our busy lives. There’s always something else to do, listen to, or respond to. Our phones go off at all hours of the day, demanding our attention.  I give my husband a hard time because he has email notifications on and I’ll be just about ready to fall asleep when ‘bing’, a new email from Amazon or Ebay or someone like that.

Part of our journey towards digital minimalism involves downsizing and streamlining. App notifications – both phone and computer – are an easy place to make those changes.

Now, there are some notifications we definitely need – text messages are usually on that list, especially for parents. But there are a lot of notifications we can remove from our daily schedule. Do you really need to be pinged when an email comes in or are you checking email on your own schedule? How about this week’s cookie notification from Crumbl? Or an alert when the litter box is full?

(That last one  is a definite yes for me!)

Digital minimalism looks different for each of us. When minimizing notifications, it’s up to each of us to stop and think about why we need to be notified, what purpose the notification is serving, and what we do because of the notification. (How we respond is key to finding our distraction points during the day) Then we can make deliberate decisions about what stays and what goes.

How is your journey into digital minimalism going? Any surprises? Anything I can do to support you?

19 January 2022

The first step is awareness

Productivity

After our talk last week about digital minimalism, I had a reader mention the phrase ‘attention management’ when it comes to working with intent. It’s a great phrase because, with our digital life, so much of what we do is mindless.

This is especially true when it comes to surfing and Internet usage. How many times have you fallen down an Internet rabbit hole? Or turned on your phone just to kill time while waiting?

We all get caught up sometimes, and the first part of minimizing your digital use is figuring out how you actually use your time. I use a great software called RescueTime that tracks your digital activity across all devices it is installed on – phone, computer, Internet, and tablet. The software allows me to see, for example, that I spent 15 minutes playing Alien Hive on my phone last night when I could swear it was only a couple of minutes before bedtime.

I’ve written an App Review on RescueTime before, which you can find here: App Review – RescueTime

Check it out. It’s a great tool to try as we work on digital minimalism.

Questions? Let me know! Otherwise, I’ll see you next time!

12 January 2022

Starting with Digital Minimalism

Productivity

We all want a more peaceful life. Less stress, less clutter. The minimalists out there say the way there is through less stuff and more intention.

There are Instagram feeds and Facebook groups devoted to decluttering your kitchen, your closet, any part of your house. But in a world full of tech and information streams and social media, what does digital minimalism look like?

It’s more than just organizing your files or purging your email. More than giving up Facebook for a month or two. Digital minimalism is about being intentional with how you spend your time online. Intentional with what you consume and how you consume it.

Cal Newport, the writer of “Digital Minimalism: Choosing a focused life in a noisy world”,  defines digital minimalism as “a philosophy of technology use in which you focus your online time on a small number of carefully selected and optimized activities that strongly support things you value, and then happily miss out on everything else.”

Easy enough to say. But not necessarily easy to do.  There’s a lot of noise out there and a lot of suggestions of what to do to embrace digital minimalism.  A lot of discussion about how much minimalism is enough.

According to research, you’re likely to check email and chat every 6 minutes, spend 4 hours or so on your phone a day, and use something like 50 or more tools and apps a day.  Few of us want to give up technology and all the great things the Internet has to offer. But there is a way to minimize your tech without giving everything up.

How to turn down the noise and surf with intent is going to be our focus for the next couple of months.  We’ll talk about apps, notifications, values, and goals as they relate to digital minimalism.

Stay tuned for more details!

Want to get this information in your inbox? Click to sign up for the Ilios Digital newsletter!

29 September 2021

Why Inbox Zero Won’t Fix Your Email Problems

Email Management

How many times are you checking your email each day? Either because you’re bored or because you’re trying to stay on top of your unread count? How much spam are you getting? Cat memes you didn’t ask for (but why not, they’re about cats!), and messages you didn’t need to be cc’d on. That’s not including all the newsletters and ads you subscribed to at one point.

The business world runs on email.

Love it or hate it, you can’t leave it behind or pretend it doesn’t exist.  But beyond basic communication, email can be just as much of a distraction as it is a tool. This is where Inbox Zero comes in.

You’ve heard of Inbox Zero, right? It’s a productivity hack, a system that was developed as a way of managing email clutter and distractions. The goal is to keep the inbox empty – or nearly empty – at all times. Inbox zero. It’s a great goal, one that a lot of people work hard to maintain on a daily basis. This is not about those people.

This is about other people. Those whose inbox will fill up with emails, into the thousands, and they’ll set aside a day to try and achieve Inbox Zero through mass deletions and processing.  It’s a one day blitz and after achieving their goal, and celebrating, the user goes back to business as usual.

Using Inbox Zero this way is just like putting your inbox on a diet.

The problem with so many diets out there is that they are focused only on achieving the result. Drink this shake and lose 10 pounds. Try this meal plan for a month and lose 15 pounds. The thought is you go on a diet, then eventually you go off a diet and return to your normal life. With this approach, there’s no permanent change in how you behave. Once you’re off the diet you go back to living the behaviors that got you there in the first place. 

Too many people use Inbox Zero like a diet for your inbox. They focus on getting the result – zero emails – thinking this will solve all their email problems.  But an inbox diet isn’t the answer to email management. Better habits are.

So what can you do today to better manage your email?

  1. Make a decision about that email the first time you read it – action item, reference item, or trash. Read and react.
  2. Create filters to keep your inbox uncluttered. Get those urgent items front and center instead of hidden in the spam.
  3. Set specific times to check emails and turn off your notifications. Theses dings and flags interrupt your workflow and decrease your productivity.
  4. Be the change you want to see in the world. Send the type of messages you want to receive and model positive email behavior to others.

And remember, better email management is a lifestyle change, not a diet. Instead of chasing the goal of trying to get down to zero emails in your inbox, focus on building better habits as the way to manage your inbox and incoming email!

Need help getting your email under control? Call me and let’s talk about how!