Every day brings its endless list of things to do. And we forget that we overestimate what we can accomplish in a day and underestimate what we can achieve in a month or a year – if we just keep at it.
“Today I’ll finally clean out my email inbox, it’s got 9GB of data in there now.” Epic projects like this can drag on for years. Usually they stay projects that never get done.
Then there are times when nothing works and times when the spring wind brings fresh motivation. You should use that momentum and get started. Spring isn’t in the air here yet, but our decision to stay in Australia gives me the push I need to put everything under the microscope and consolidate. Take it easy to make it easy.
We always have so much unfinished business staring us down. It’s stressful. Yet we’ve already accomplished so much.
The following list won’t mean much to you. But for me, several heavy rocks just fell off my shoulders (and my heart).
Here’s what I’ve managed in recent weeks:
Uberspace web server: transferred web domains and email domains to a single Uberspace server. Deleted (and didn’t replace: kimai timetracking, nextcloud).
This Australian Life: created new template and added extra content.
Downgraded from iPhone SE 2nd Generation to my old iPhone SE 1st Generation (my son gets the newer one, I don’t need more).
Created a GIT mono-repository “Website” on my Uberspace (replacing the Bitbucket repositories).
Deleted website podcast.reinergaertner.de. Instead created simple podcast RSS feed on audio.reinergaertner.de. See instructions.
Uploaded new posts to reinergaertner.de.
Moved from OneDrive to iCloud (deleted OneDrive), bought 2TB plan for iCloud
Backups of all Apple devices in the household to iCloud
Cleaned up iCloud, deleted unnecessary files
Consolidated DevonThink: deleted redundant documents
Copied boards from Trello to my own Kanboard.
Delete Bitbucket repositories.
What was still missing:
Delete Github repositories. ✅ 2024-12-05
Photos on Mac OSX - remove duplicate images. ✅ 2024-12-05
I made a big mistake while working through this list. I tried to tackle multiple things simultaneously. We all know multitasking doesn’t work. In August I changed my strategy and picked out individual areas (the most relevant ones first) and worked on them until “done.” That worked much better – I got more done.
Recommendation: Think through your Definition of Done right from the start.
When we create a list of things we’ve already accomplished, we immediately feel better. Does it work that way for you too?
From reinergaertner.de, est. 1997. Translated with the help of an AI that speaks better English than I do. Which isn’t saying much, after 25 years of Denglish.