A 25-year career without goals—and why that worked better than the alternative This guitar is more than 15 years old. It’s my second one—the first was bought and sold in the ’80s. I tried lessons. Self-teaching. Regular practice. Still couldn’t play a recognizable song. Now it collects dust, remindi…
A few days ago, I had a conversation with a former colleague who interviewed for a new job because she couldn’t stand her current one. Getting a new offer made her feel relieved and optimistic again: She had escaped.
Many others may not be so lucky this year.
Tech layoffs are accelerating. The economy—if we’re honest and look past the AI boom—looks shaky. Gold prices are spiking, which historically signals uncertainty ahead. And if you’re reading this feeling worried about your job, your future, or the general state of things, I know well how you feel.
Over 27 years and five major crises, I’ve learned one thing: the difference between thriving and drowning isn’t luck—it’s knowing what you can change and what you can’t.
I remember a colleague, let’s call her Sarah, who was checking her phone every minute during our 30-minute meeting, apologizing for being distracted, mentioning her endless to-do list. She was drowning, and she didn’t even know it. Sounds familiar? Here’s what I learned: overwhelm is not a time mana…
I’m a big fan of Cal Newport and his books. Currently, I’m reading his latest one: “A World Without Email”
Every email comes at a small cognitive cost to the sender, and a small cognitive cost to the recipient. It has become easier than ever to “just send an email”, instead of diving deeper, solving the issue, or using a more appropriate, more efficient, or less stressful way of communication. Multiplied by the amount of companies, employees, emails per employee, the wasted time and cognitive cost of (over)using email for everything has become enormous. And instant messaging only amplifies the problem again.
I’ve become very good at filtering and processing email over the last years. But this is just trying to solve the receiving end of the problem. Now I’m curious about learning ways to fix the problem at the source. Not just for me, but for my colleagues, too.
War is waging in the galaxy. This time it’s not the Rebels against the Empire, or Good vs. Evil.
No, this war is different, and it has been going on ever since products designs companies entities existed.
What I mean is the war between Quality and Popularity.
Let me explain:
(Drumroll, Roman fanfare, then dramatic Anime action trailer a la Mortal Kombat, etc.)
As of May 21st, Google officially declared war on the Apple iPhone.
Sure, there was some teasing here and there for weeks, if not months, but this is serious.
Yesterday, I cleaned up my home directory at work. I went from ca. 15 GB of data down to 1.1 GB. And I only stopped there, because I didn’t want to spend too much more time cleaning up. Here’s how to do it.
In the previous post of this mini-series, we looked at why it’s important to have our emails and files organized, then attacked our INBOX to reach zero-message-nirvana. I’m happy to see that others are living by these principles, too. Thanks, Gregor!
Now let’s look at that other dark spot in our IT lives: Our Desktop and file system. If you’re like me, you see this very often, too: Cluttered desktops with so many files and folders and downloads and icons and stuff, you can barely make out the underlying desktop background.
Spring’s around the corner and the Easter weekend is upon us, giving us some time to sit back, relax and do some spring cleaning!
This also applies to your data, in particular your Email folders and your home directories. In this two-part series, we’ll clean up our email INBOX to zero (yes: null, nada, zip) emails, simplify email folders, then clean up our home directory file structure. That’ll save us time, help us find peace of mind and make us more efficient so we can concentrate our energies on what really matters to us.