>I don't think I have ever thrown away a book. I used to be that guy. Then I got tired of hauling all that stuff every time I moved. Now, if I can reasonably expect my library to have it, I don't keep it (unless it's a reference book I need to consult often). And when I buy new books, I prefer ebooks. They don't take up much clutter.
I can certainly understand the feeling, but if you don't want it, donate it. One man's trash...
>I can certainly understand the feeling, but if you don't want it, donate it
I do donate them. Or even sell them. But either way, I get rid of them.
I don't think I have ever thrown away a book. Some day, I hope to have one of those Victorian style libraries with a rolling staircase to house all of my books...
I read that as "spiral staircase", and now I want to figure out how to build a Archimedes-screw-like rotating spiral staircase that also doubles as a bookshelf.
I'd go for a double-helix staircase. Reference on one side, fiction on the other.
You could get pretty nuts with bookcase staircases. Alternating tread double-helical staircases with books on the inside and outside faces of the stairs, and shelves on the underside of the treads above as well? Probably not to code, but it's would be pretty cool.
What works for me on my computer is put things into general buckets of downloads, things I don't care about, things I need to keep, and programming projects. This really basic organization allows me to be able to delete lots of files without worry while taking almost no time to organize. With search finding things is easy but deleting everything you don't need can still be hard.
I found it striking how similar the system that I have settled into is to yours, and also the similarity of the benefits that you ascribed to it. I love having my /home/name/tmp folder and being able to delete everything in it without worry when I find it becoming a bit crowded. I find that it takes care of most things I don't need but there are a lot of small projects and downloaded libraries that sit in my programm…
The way I do it on both Linux and Windows is: all the downloads go into Downloads folder. I keep the folder sorted by date (newest top) - 90% of the time I'm looking for something recently downloaded, and for the remaining 10%, I usually have an estimate in my head how old the file is, so I can do a visual binary search on the dates quickly. When I need to free up some space on the drive, I resort the folder by size (descending), and start deleting from the largest files down.
I misunderstood you. So don't really want a staircase, you want a platform that moves up and down along a screw mechanism? If the column were big enough, you could have the shelves set deep enough to prevent collisions. The doors could shut automatically (weighted mechanism), and a sensor that would prevent the platform from moving if a door was open. Edit, I guess it could still be a staircase, several steps up and…
The platform wouldn't move up and down; the staircase would just rotate around the central axis. It's just a spiral staircase, not an elevator, albeit one that rotates. The more I think about this, the less reasons I can think of for having the damned thing rotate - aside from the possibility of storing books inside the central cylinder, in which case rotation the staircase would give you access to more space.
Ok, misunderstood again, but I get it now.
Depending on the size of it, the whole column may be accessible without rotation, but may require you to stoop low for some items and maybe reach a bit for others.
In 2011, Whittaker and colleagues published a research paper with the title “Am I Wasting My Time Organizing Email?”. The answer is: yes, you are. People who use the search function find their email more quickly than those who click through carefully constructed systems of folders. I used to organize email into folders meticulously, later using tags and rules. What a complete waste of time. These days I refuse to spe…
The best trick I found so far for managing my inbox is the one I learned from "Deep Work" - just unsubscribe from every goddamn newsletter and notification service that isn't very important to you. I did that over the course of two weeks, and now I get a dozen or so mails a day on my personal account, instead of 100+...
I've found the easiest stuff to organize is the stuff I no longer have. I used to feel obligated to file a lot of stuff that came in the mail, like addendums to insurance policies, annual reports for stocks or funds, credit card statements, etc. But it dawned on me long ago that I virtually never need to refer back to that stuff. So it goes straight into the trash. When the bookshelves in my office fill up, I cull th…
I operate in a similar way. If I get a new thing a old thing goes. I bought a lot of new shirts over the last six months and realized I needed to donate half my closet over the last couple week. Same goes for electronics, cutlery, books, ect.
In 2011, Whittaker and colleagues published a research paper with the title “Am I Wasting My Time Organizing Email?”. The answer is: yes, you are. People who use the search function find their email more quickly than those who click through carefully constructed systems of folders. I used to organize email into folders meticulously, later using tags and rules. What a complete waste of time. These days I refuse to spe…
The best trick I found so far for managing my inbox is the one I learned from "Deep Work" - just unsubscribe from every goddamn newsletter and notification service that isn't very important to you. I did that over the course of two weeks, and now I get a dozen or so mails a day on my personal account, instead of 100+...
Yes. Every single unwanted email I get I take the time to unsubscribe. I get far less email now and it makes for a much cleaner inbox.
In 2011, Whittaker and colleagues published a research paper with the title “Am I Wasting My Time Organizing Email?”. The answer is: yes, you are. People who use the search function find their email more quickly than those who click through carefully constructed systems of folders. I used to organize email into folders meticulously, later using tags and rules. What a complete waste of time. These days I refuse to spe…
> Spending any effort whatsoever organizing files on your computer is equally worthless.
Absolutely. I've been practising this for more than 20 years. When the NT 4.0 Option Pack came out in 1998 I was delighted because it gave me a search engine on my desktop and I could stop feeling guilty about my lack of organisation. I don't have trouble finding things.
In 2011, Whittaker and colleagues published a research paper with the title “Am I Wasting My Time Organizing Email?”. The answer is: yes, you are. People who use the search function find their email more quickly than those who click through carefully constructed systems of folders. I used to organize email into folders meticulously, later using tags and rules. What a complete waste of time. These days I refuse to spe…
The worst I have seen is people using the Trash folder to store mail, without eve emptying it. At work, I once had to clean out about 10000 mails from user's mailbox and thought it polite to empty the trash. Oh, was she mad...
The first time I saw this I was floored. After seeing it a few times, I was curious: "what establishes this pattern?", "how do people arrive at thinking of the trash folder as an archive?"
In most cases they are using the delete key something like a surrogate for the read/unread flag. Keeping the inbox 'clean' of old email. I tried testing with view filters set to only show unread email, but that didn't work because the read flag is toggled too easily. Effectively they want a button that says "I'm done with you go away" to an email in their inbox.
I found it striking how similar the system that I have settled into is to yours, and also the similarity of the benefits that you ascribed to it. I love having my /home/name/tmp folder and being able to delete everything in it without worry when I find it becoming a bit crowded. I find that it takes care of most things I don't need but there are a lot of small projects and downloaded libraries that sit in my programm…
The way I do it on both Linux and Windows is: all the downloads go into Downloads folder. I keep the folder sorted by date (newest top) - 90% of the time I'm looking for something recently downloaded, and for the remaining 10%, I usually have an estimate in my head how old the file is, so I can do a visual binary search on the dates quickly. When I need to free up some space on the drive, I resort the folder by size…
And it just occurred to me that along with sort by date (usually modified), we can do sort by accessed date. Which is now what I'm doing with my downloads folder and probably a few more.