After mucking around with the new macOS Catalina beta on my laptop [and corrupting my hard-drive upon installing a new Beta Update], I did a fresh new install of the OS.
It is great. I feel lighter, more free, and more pumped to create new things. There was great joy in re-installing files and applications I needed. Also, I only re-installed the essential apps, files, and folders. Thus a lot of my old ‘legacy’ apps [that I no longer used]. are no longer on my hard-drive. This means more hard drive space, and my laptop runs faster, and more lean.
Which made me wonder–
Perhaps in life, we should regularly do a fresh new ‘reformatting’ of our mind, possessions, and life in general.
Everyday uninstall one app
One idea I have for our ‘techno-zen‘:
Everyday uninstall one app from your phone, laptop, tablet, etc.
MacOS Laptop Minimalism hacks
I have a lot of practical hacks on my laptop:
1. Install ‘Bartender‘ app to clean up your taskbar.
2. Keep your sidebar on Mac as clean as possible. Only the essentials.
3. Hide all superfluous interface things. I don’t show time, battery, or anything on my menu bar.
Remove distractions
I don’t know how to “FOCUS” [in a positive/active sense], but I know what my distractions are. Thus, it is better to identify and REMOVE your distractions (in order to focus), than to try to sit down in a chair and ‘force’ yourself to ‘focus’.
Fresh start
What I love about my nomadic lifestyle:
Whenever I move to a new place, I am forced to cull down my personal belongings, FORCING myself to become more simple, direct, and to only keep the essentials.
For example in a few weeks I am moving to Providence [Rhode Island, east coast]. This will be a fun way to truly pare down my life to the essentials. A fresh ‘reformatting’ of my life.
Why reformat your mind?
I don’t think the point is to have an empty mind for the sake of having an empty mind. The point of emptying your mind is this:
Empty your mind of superfluous junk, in order to maximize the quality thoughts you have.
Or in other words:
Empty your mind, in order to think new epic thoughts.
Why you probably shouldn’t check your email first thing in the morning.
My biggest critique of modern technology is this:
It has turned us into ‘reactive’ [defense] mode, rather than active/spontaneous thinking mode.
When is the last time you woke up, and just naturally let random thought drift into your mind? If we check email, news, social media, etc, it puts us into ‘reactive’ mode in which our thinking is just a reaction to outside external stimuli, rather than responding to our own internal stimuli.
Reformat your mind in order to do new things, create new things, approach things differently.
Beginner’s mind. Child’s mind.
Steve Jobs even warned us about this– not to let our minds get stuck into pre-grooved patterns [like etching into a vinyl]. We must allow ourselves to create NEW PATTERNS and NEW WAYS of thinking.
Even for myself– I am always striving to innovate. To create new things, to think of new things, to dream up of new things. To not become a slave and prisoner of my past. To be like a child– to see a world with only opportunities and newness, rather than a crusty and old adult.
To create new things, with a fresh new mind — without fatigue, boredom, ennui, or nausea is the goal.
ERIC