2007-06-13 Organize Life Using Emacs

I found a post by dto on his blog on the struggle for organization. I remember a time a year or two ago, when I felt like my projects were pulling me apart. I was interested in WilhelmTux, a FreeSoftware advocacy group here in Switzerland, the FreeSoftwareFoundation, CreativeCommons, OpenLaw (the CC legal lead for Switzerland), various Emacs projects I should have been working on (patches to AnsiColor, patches to SqlMode, patches to ColorTheme, adding MIME to the Rmail mbox branch, my Oddmuse:Plans... It was spiraling into chaos.

dto

on the struggle for organization

WilhelmTux

FreeSoftware

Rmail

Oddmuse:Plans

Yes, there was PlannerMode. And then there was OrgMode. And other cool ideas on “how to get things done”.

But then I decided to chop it up and let go. I left Wilhelm Tux, I did not get involved in the GPLv3 discussion, I pulled out of Openlaw here in Switzerland, no longer cared about the translation and adaptation of the licenses, found new maintainers for all my Emacs packages, abandoned the Rmail mbox branch.

The solution to project overload is not to organize better. The solution is to *do less*.

Disengage.

​#Emacs ​#Life

Comments

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Agree entirely. It’s easy to become swamped with good intentions and end up achieving less (or nothing) instead of just completing one or two things.

I guess the problem is that humans dilute really easily 😄

– GreyWulf 2007-06-14 15:37 UTC

GreyWulf

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Indeed. I did feel very productive for a while. But then I started feeling like Bilbo – “spread thin”. It sucked the fun out of everything. It’s a slow death, when you’re not enjoying yourself.

– Alex Schroeder 2007-06-14 15:50 UTC

Alex Schroeder

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Emacs is good for that. If your life can’t be organized by a handful of modes in Emacs, then you *know* it’s your life that’s the problem and not Emacs.

– AaronHawley 2007-06-15 16:21 UTC

AaronHawley

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Hahaha! :D 8D 👌

– Alex Schroeder 2007-06-15 19:01 UTC

Alex Schroeder