Call it "lifehacking," or just call it, "paying attention to how you stay organized" - I don't care what you call it, I am an ardent practitioner of it.
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If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
https://pluralistic.net/2026/01/16/interrupt-driven/#ping
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Some thoughts prompted by @pluralistic today:
During the past couple years, a change in my role at work created the need for me to be significantly more organized. I sometimes wonder if people think I have a good memory. I actually tend forget things within a day but I have adopted processes that prompt me to address outstanding issues at the appropriate time.
One mistake I made when first attempting to be more organized was trying to follow "best practices". My most valuable processes were not recommended by anyone. I experimented with ideas and found what works for me.
One area of organization that has significantly improved my life is budgeting. I have never found a budgeting program that has all the features I want, but I have found a flow with Actual Budget that has decreased my and my wife's finance-related stress by ~90%.
In my experience, commercial SaaS productivity tools are a waste of money. In their effort to appeal to the lowest common denominator, they often make it difficult to find a way to use the software that works for me. Simple versatile tools combined with personally-enforced habits work best for me. Automation is often overrated.
I like improving my processes because I like what I do, and the more efficient I am at all of it (with apologies to Jenny Odell), the more of that stuff I can get done:
I want to do a *lot* of stuff. I am one of those people who is ten miles wide and one inch deep (it probably has something to do with imbibing Heinlein's maxim that "specialization is for insects" at an impressionable age).
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There's a million waterways I want to dip my toe (or my oar) into, and the better organized I am, the more of that stuff I'll get to do before I kick off. I'm 54, and while there's a lot of road ahead of me, I can see the end, off there in the distance. It's coming, and I'm not done - I'm barely getting started.
I've been around lifehacking since the very moment it was born. I was there.
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I published the notes on Danny O'Brien's seminal 2004 talk at the O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference, "Life Hacks: Tech Secrets of Overprolific Alpha Geeks":
https://craphound.com/lifehacksetcon04.txt
In the years since, I've cultivated a small - but mighty - repertoire of organizational habits and tools that let me get a hell of a lot done.
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Weirdly, many of these tools are things that other people hate, and I can see why - they use them in *very* different ways from me. That's true of browser tabs (I *loooove* browser tabs):
https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/25/today-in-tabs/#unfucked-rota
And to-do lists, which will totally transform your life, once you realize that the most important to-do list is the one you maintain for *everyone else* who owes you a response, a package, or money:
https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/26/one-weird-trick/#todo
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@pluralistic I'm a fan of the "one big text file", which serves as both a Todo list and diary. I added syntax highlighting to distinguish between tasks done and tasks not done.
Other essential tools languish in neglect, artifacts of the old, good web - the elegant weapons that dominated a more civilized age. First among these? RSS readers:
I will freely stipulate that people have a good reason to hate all this stuff.
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"Productivity porn" is often proffered as a mix of humblebrag (a way to make other people jealous of your almighty "productivity") and denial (fiddling with your systems is a ready substitute for actually *doing* things). Many (most?) of the foremost self-appointed pitchmen for "lifehacking" are cringey charlatans peddling "courses" and other nonsense.
But if you keep digging, there's a solid foundation beneath all the rot.
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