Notes on working slowly: paper, plain text and a tidy desk.
This is where I write down what worked and what didn’t at my desk. Nothing here is advice, only habits I tried for long enough to have an opinion about.
In September I moved my notes, to-do lists and drafts into a single folder of plain text files. No app, no sync service beyond a shared folder, and every file readable in any editor from the last twenty years.
The surprise was how little I missed formatting. Search is instant, backups are trivial, and I stopped fiddling with templates. What I do miss is tables, so those still live in a spreadsheet, and I’ve accepted that.
My desk used to collect cables, cups and half-read books. For the last few weeks it holds a lamp, a notebook and the laptop. Everything else goes in a drawer at the end of the day, even if it comes straight back out the next morning.
It takes about two minutes. I don’t think the desk is any more productive for it, but starting the day with an empty surface feels like starting with an empty page, and that is worth the two minutes.
For years the weekly plan lived in a calendar app, and I never looked at it. Writing it on one sheet of paper on Sunday evening changed that, mostly because the sheet stays open next to the keyboard all week.
The rule is simple: five lines at most per day, and anything that doesn’t fit gets moved to next week without guilt. By Thursday the page is messy, crossed out and slightly coffee-stained, which is how I know it’s being used.
I work from home and write here a few times a month. It’s a hobby site with no ads, no tracking and no comments, kept small on purpose. If something on it is useful to you, that’s a nice bonus.