Editor's note: This was originally sent out in the newsletter on 02/22/18
While I have talked about ways I am trying to be better, a big part of all of our lives is the digital world. We all have devices and files and photos and accounts that we need to take care of but how often is this done.As I set out to have more focus this year, my digital life seems to be kind of a mess. I have some 387 apps on my phone, I have notes in like seven different note apps, and my contacts have many duplicates.My biggest issue seems to be that I will see a cool way people are doing things or an interesting looking new app, and I want to try it for myself. I am obsessed with how people work; I love seeing people’s home screens, Lifehacker’s How I Work series and basically anything on MacStories. I thought I had coined the perfect term for myself on this; a digital anthropologist, I thought this was pretty clever, but of course, Simpsons did it. I spend so much more time looking at ways to be productive than actually being productive.Doing this has also lead to a lot of fragmentation in many forms of my digital life. I want to bring this all back together, so I am currently working on going through all the different apps I have on my phone and my computer and trying to figure out what I am actually using. I want to stop myself from moving between a bunch of different apps that do that same thing and just stick with one for a while.Sometimes this can go too far the other way though. Part of the reason I slow down with these newsletters when I am on days at work isn't that I don't have time while I am at work, it's just that I prefer to use Ulysses on my laptop, and it isn't available on my PC at work. I need to be better about not letting my preferences get too far in my way that the work isn't getting done either. Google docs work just as well.I am also going to try and catalog what I am using. I am going to make a master document that will stand as a guide, so I keep consistent. Maybe I keep my book wish list in one place but my automotive records in another. With one master document to guide me, I will be able to hold myself in check a bit. I also need to be better with accounts and passwords, but that seems like a topic for another day.A few quick, thoughtful links that are unrelated to the topic at hand;