3 ms·

How cow, this guy is the world's most organized person. I operate in the exact opposite way. The more disorganized, temporary, inconvenient, and cluttered my wo

How cow, this guy is the world's most organized person. I operate in the exact opposite way. The more disorganized, temporary, inconvenient, and cluttered my workspace is, the more I can ignore the outside world and focus on the abstract problem at hand.

noir_lord 8y ago
Funny how people are so different. My desk has to have exactly, 1 keyboard, 1 mouse, 1 A4 5mm graph paper pad and that's it. I used to struggle to work on a slightly cluttered desk but these days it has to be basically empty. In terms of paperwork, it goes behind me on shelves sorted by "Important, will need soon, Important, will need later, Not important" everything else goes in the bin. Periodically I rip the pads apart and put them through the bypass scanner on the MFP in the main office and store the resulting PDF's. First time my partner saw my office at work she was positively shocked because at home (other than my work space) I'm a messy, "leave it where I had it last" type.
- agumonkey 8y ago
  Younger I loved having all my shit around me on my desk. It was hyper natural and hyper efficient. Nowadays ... nope. It feels a bit like reading your own undocumented one night epic project .. with age you just love a bit of structure and cleanliness
  - copperx 8y ago
    Same here. Brain shrinkage is real; one can't deal with so much disorganization as one gets older.
    - agumonkey 8y ago
      Maybe that's me being in denial but I don't consider it to be shrinkage. In the recent years, it seems that motivation went from small to broad. I'm not less capable intellectually [1]. I'd say it's a decrease of energy and blind passion and more things to handle that divide attention and care. There's also a bit of energy saving dimension.. as a programmer we oughta know that a well maintained structure avoid worst-case complexity.. same goes for your drawers :) [1] I'm actually a lot smarter than my college self, I tested few years ago when wildly sick trying to do proofs from scratch on stuff I knew nothing prior (theorems on fibonacci series). And after a bit of sweating and pencil twisting I managed to have insights and solutions. So it's not a linear decrease in brain power, it's more like a rotation or shapeshift.
- voltagex_ 8y ago
  What's a "bypass scanner"?
  - noir_lord 8y ago
    Bypass tray is the auto feeder on the top of the big copiers, ours can also scam to mailbox via that so it chews through 50 pages and emails it before I walk back to my office. Beats doing it by hand.
    - laurentl 8y ago
      > ours can also scam to mailbox This would be a Nigerian scanner then? ;) “Dear sir or madam, I have come in possession of a very valuable document scan which I am unable to get out of the country...”
- graeme 8y ago
  How do you process the files in the three shelves?
  - fudged71 8y ago
    Haha this guy doesn't know how to use the three seashells ;) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdnuOa7tDco https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdnuOa7tDco
  - noir_lord 8y ago
    I pile stuff up neatly left to right and periodically (usually last hour on friday when brain is done, go through it and either move or bin it). The goal isn't to have everything meticulously organised (that becomes a task that takes more time than you save, it's yak shaving for me at least) but to be able to find it quickly (few minutes) if I need to and crucially out of my sight line, at my desk it's completely out of view.
- Myrmornis 8y ago
  Flat wooden table top, laptop, sketch pad with plain unlined paper, colored pens. Are you sure you wouldn't like to try a plain sketch pad rather than graph paper with all those nasty lines?
  - noir_lord 8y ago
    I use the faint grey line pads and my drawing/handwriting is terrible so quite sure :)
- FabHK 8y ago
  That reminds me of when I attended a "Getting Things Done" ((C) (R) (TM)) seminar, sponsored by work. The speaker spent hours explaining how to organise the to-do-lists and calendars and how to label tasks (can be done on the road, calls, can be done offline, importance vs urgency, ...) and how to prioritise them, a really elaborate system, the whole shebang. And it results in the one task you should be doing right now. He presented it, looked content, and invited questions, when someone asked, "ok, suppose now I know what I should be doing now. But what happens if I just don't feel like it? What then?". The presenter was dumbfounded, seemed confused, and had basically no answer (that I remember).
Sileni 8y ago
Completely unqualified thought, but I think it has to do with how you organize information in your brain. Are you spatially oriented or do you think in lists? I'm a chemist, and I definitely think spatially. Creating images of physical objects in my head and reorienting them is a major part of my job, and the "memory palace" has been the most valuable memory tool I've found. I can't think if there's an extra set of papers on my desk. I tend to organize my tasks using the physical space on my desk, so the most urgent item is about 3 inches from my keyboard at any time. I start to get anxious if too many things pile onto my desk without intentionally organizing them into priorities.

noir_lord 8y ago

Funny how people are so different. My desk has to have exactly, 1 keyboard, 1 mouse, 1 A4 5mm graph paper pad and that's it. I used to struggle to work on a slightly cluttered desk but these days it has to be basically empty. In terms of paperwork, it goes behind me on shelves sorted by "Important, will need soon, Important, will need later, Not important" everything else goes in the bin. Periodically I rip the pads apart and put them through the bypass scanner on the MFP in the main office and store the resulting PDF's. First time my partner saw my office at work she was positively shocked because at home (other than my work space) I'm a messy, "leave it where I had it last" type.

agumonkey 8y ago
Younger I loved having all my shit around me on my desk. It was hyper natural and hyper efficient. Nowadays ... nope. It feels a bit like reading your own undocumented one night epic project .. with age you just love a bit of structure and cleanliness
- copperx 8y ago
  Same here. Brain shrinkage is real; one can't deal with so much disorganization as one gets older.
  - agumonkey 8y ago
    Maybe that's me being in denial but I don't consider it to be shrinkage. In the recent years, it seems that motivation went from small to broad. I'm not less capable intellectually [1]. I'd say it's a decrease of energy and blind passion and more things to handle that divide attention and care. There's also a bit of energy saving dimension.. as a programmer we oughta know that a well maintained structure avoid worst-case complexity.. same goes for your drawers :) [1] I'm actually a lot smarter than my college self, I tested few years ago when wildly sick trying to do proofs from scratch on stuff I knew nothing prior (theorems on fibonacci series). And after a bit of sweating and pencil twisting I managed to have insights and solutions. So it's not a linear decrease in brain power, it's more like a rotation or shapeshift.
voltagex_ 8y ago
What's a "bypass scanner"?
- noir_lord 8y ago
  Bypass tray is the auto feeder on the top of the big copiers, ours can also scam to mailbox via that so it chews through 50 pages and emails it before I walk back to my office. Beats doing it by hand.
  - laurentl 8y ago
    > ours can also scam to mailbox This would be a Nigerian scanner then? ;) “Dear sir or madam, I have come in possession of a very valuable document scan which I am unable to get out of the country...”
graeme 8y ago
How do you process the files in the three shelves?
- fudged71 8y ago
  Haha this guy doesn't know how to use the three seashells ;) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdnuOa7tDco https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdnuOa7tDco
- noir_lord 8y ago
  I pile stuff up neatly left to right and periodically (usually last hour on friday when brain is done, go through it and either move or bin it). The goal isn't to have everything meticulously organised (that becomes a task that takes more time than you save, it's yak shaving for me at least) but to be able to find it quickly (few minutes) if I need to and crucially out of my sight line, at my desk it's completely out of view.
Myrmornis 8y ago
Flat wooden table top, laptop, sketch pad with plain unlined paper, colored pens. Are you sure you wouldn't like to try a plain sketch pad rather than graph paper with all those nasty lines?
- noir_lord 8y ago
  I use the faint grey line pads and my drawing/handwriting is terrible so quite sure :)
FabHK 8y ago
That reminds me of when I attended a "Getting Things Done" ((C) (R) (TM)) seminar, sponsored by work. The speaker spent hours explaining how to organise the to-do-lists and calendars and how to label tasks (can be done on the road, calls, can be done offline, importance vs urgency, ...) and how to prioritise them, a really elaborate system, the whole shebang. And it results in the one task you should be doing right now. He presented it, looked content, and invited questions, when someone asked, "ok, suppose now I know what I should be doing now. But what happens if I just don't feel like it? What then?". The presenter was dumbfounded, seemed confused, and had basically no answer (that I remember).

Sileni 8y ago

Completely unqualified thought, but I think it has to do with how you organize information in your brain. Are you spatially oriented or do you think in lists? I'm a chemist, and I definitely think spatially. Creating images of physical objects in my head and reorienting them is a major part of my job, and the "memory palace" has been the most valuable memory tool I've found. I can't think if there's an extra set of papers on my desk. I tend to organize my tasks using the physical space on my desk, so the most urgent item is about 3 inches from my keyboard at any time. I start to get anxious if too many things pile onto my desk without intentionally organizing them into priorities.