Creative reformatting — perhaps every once a year (at least), reformat your Mac, iPhone, iPad, devices, life, etc.
Some thoughts:
The strategy
The general strategy is simple — optimize for less.
Get rid of superfluous apps, get rid of options in the sidebar and windows, etc.
What makes life easier?
When in doubt, reduce.
Fewer options means greater focus, and more leveraging your power and focus to accomplish more of that which you desire.
Streamline.
Also, to streamline things. For example, making screenshots on the Mac default into JPEG, not PNG. Smaller file size.
All you gotta do is open up ‘Terminal’ and type out: defaults write com.apple.screencapture type jpg;killall SystemUIServer
Then when you shoot screenshots, it will default to JPEG on your desktop. Benefits:
- Smaller JPEG size is superior to PNG.
- JPEG can immediately be uploaded to WordPress media library, or directly into blog post, without needing to be re-saved or reformatted.
In praise of reformatting your hard drive (no backup, no time machine)
I keep all my files synced on Dropbox (professional paid version). And every new year, I keep all the files to ‘online only’ mode.
When you start with a blank slate, a brand new blank folder… the opportunity we can fill it.
“Horror vaccui” is what the ancients called it (horror or being scared of a vacuum). The general idea is if you have a vacuum and empty space, physics will just naturally fill it.
For example, we all know with a home, the amount of stuff you accumulate in order to fill it is proportional to how big your home is.
For example, if your home is 300 square feet, you won’t procure as much stuff, as if you bought a 100,000 square foot home (you will naturally hoard more stuff).
Or with traveling and stuff, we all know, depending on the size of your luggage and/or bags … you will bring that much stuff.
For example, if you just bring one backpack (only carry on) you will naturally travel light. However if you bring 2 rolly-luggages, you will naturally bring more stuff.