Strive Notes

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For the last week, inspired by Kyle Flaherty, I’ve endeavored to follow a ‘one app at a time’ policy. That means I have one application open on my desktop any one time.  The idea is to try to cut down the noise and be more productive.

So TweekDeck stayed open only when I was using it.  If I was writing, only Word remained on my desktop.

So one week later, how is the experiment going?

It was a lot harder to do than I expected.  In fact, I found it almost impossible not to have a browser open most of the time.  When writing, if I needed to look up a fact, up came the browser.  When sending an email and I realised I needed to include a link, up came the browser.

By the end of Day One I realised that it was pointless to close Firefox so I left it alone. However, overall I found the experience to be positive. I got an incredible amount of writing done.  I felt less stressed and more in control.

Key to this was email.  Previously I’d have kept an eye on email and read messages as they came in.  Then I’d have them in the back of mind the whole time until I was able to deal with them. Now, they are off my radar until I have time to respond or action emails.  It’s a bit of relief.

Some of my Tweeple were looking for me.  I had a few tweets asking where I am, but interestingly I gained more followers than usual this week, despite being significantly less active. That’s probably just a coincidence though.

So will I keep to the regime?  I’m certainly going to try, but it’s easy to slip into old habits.  You all will have to help me.

Filed under: writing