Cut out process clutter

After a few months of work I finally finished converting my old note-taking system to my newer one.

I've already seen a lot of benefits with the new system (e.g. picking out random notes for writing inspiration). One surprising thing was how worthless a lot of ideas become over time.

I'd say I kept only about 10% of the actual notes from the old system. The other 90% was either too wordy, failed to remain useful, or was just repeating what I already had. It's not a bad thing to have all that extra. It probably just wasted a lot of time over the years to keep it around.

It was interesting that I lived so long with all that extra for so long. Since I didn't have a good system to review my notes, they lingered.

My hope with the new system (and its one-idea-per-file) is that it'll be easier to keep it pruned and useful. Or as the fancy people call it, it'll be more "organic".

Every now and then you should consider setting aside time and pruning your own processes. Do you really need all 10 steps? Would 8 do? What about 5?

Progress, technology, and even just plain-old experience can help you see extra waste. Cutting it out now will freshen up the whole process and could become one of those tiny improvements that stack up.

Directive: Cut out extra steps from your processes regularly.

Eric Davis