I am moving house over the next couple of weeks to a lovely barn conversion near Nottingham. This is a Good Thing, as I will be nearer my kid. However, as I prepare to move out of my student digs, I keep finding more and more “Stuff” to move. Where did it all come from? Why do I move it every time I move house, yet never actually USE the Stuff?

Because it is Clutter. Remnants of the Bargain Demon, buying Stuff that I didn’t actually want, but because it was cheap. Or having free Stuff because I didn’t want the previous owner to throw it away. Clutter has to go!

Being most of the way through my dissertation now, I don’t want to lose any data related to it. I also need to back up my business data regularly. Losing any of this stuff would be suicide inducing. Enter Microsofts “Synctoy”, a small, free program designed to sync data between computers using a USB stick.

It’s handy for that sure, but also comes in handy for me an my housemates to back up our data to separate drives on our local PCs, and also to backup across the wireless network… with backups everywhere we can’t go wrong! Synctoy checks the files, and only copies what has changed. Super :smile:

Link

I can’t remember who told me this, but it was some kind of life coach type character.

In the morning, get straight up instead of snoozing. Make your bed. Tidy yesterday’s pots & clothes away. Have a shower. Eat something. Get properly dressed.

This way, even if you are not formally working, you are up and ready to face the day and get stuff done. Instead of sitting about in your pants with the curtains closed and the light on.

I have trouble sleeping sometimes, as I am still wired when I go to bed. I have found it very useful to stay off the PC for a couple of hours before I go to bed. People suggest having a bedtime routine, and this does help. I read, get stuff ready for the next day and hang out with candles & incense on, maybe meditate and write about my day. I am much calmer after all this and tend to sleep better.

In the mornings, I can’t be arsed with talking to people for an hour, so try and avoid everyone until I am fully awake and ready to go. If I get annoyed first thing, It affects my whole day.

I first saw the term “lifehack” on 43folders.com, and was trying to find an article on there about focusing on work / study or whatever to link to here. Ironic, that on a site that tells you how to beat information overload, I can’t find the article I am looking for

Anyway, what it said was something along the lines of “turn off all forms of communication for a period of time”. This is so simple, but so effective. I work so much better with MSN off, email closed & headphones on. My brain has a limited amount of processing power, so if I concentrate on one thing, it gets done faster and better than if I am trying to “multitask” or keep getting distracted by things that really can wait. People nattering, the noise of a TV or text messages wreck my focus. Earplugs work well while studying too.