piles, piles, everywhere a pile

[interimlover]

Have you ever noticed how much of life consists of pile reduction? Tasks where your sole involvement is to take the pile, let's call that N, and make N = 0, where 0 is really 0, nothing... or some state of equilibrium. Examples that come to mind:

• emails
• open tabs
• reading through rss feeds, blogs, friend's lists
• books to read
• items on to-do

Comments

[skyvillain]

This is an awesome post, and something I was recently thinking about..

The problem I have, is that I find it really difficult to get anything creative or productive done without cleaning up most of my piles first. The clothes on my floor, the stacked up bills, the unanswered voicemails and emails, the miscellaneous everyday crap, etc. Not having a TV helps free up some time, but I find I waste a lot of it by procrastinating (for example, livejournal right now).

eh, screw this -I'm gonna get rid of some piles so I can work on some fun stuff ;)

[interimlover]

thanks, I figured anyone reading this would probably be a good candidate for someone who could relate :)

In fact, this post was mainly me being frustrated with how much is on my to do list and how many unanswered emails I currently have sitting in my inbox (very little of which will have much impact on anything when I get to answering them).

It's a much easier mental exercise to pick up clothes and do your bills, and since the mind naturally wants to go the path of least resistance, this is the predicament so many of us find ourselves in. I also wonder, what if suddenly all these piles were to vanish and it was just me, my thoughts, and nothing else in the way. Now that's what's truly frightening ;)

[evan]

#1 pile: LJ. But I don't want to be rid of it.

I think there's a real value add in pile-reducing services. That's not only hiring landscapers or secretaries to manage a pile completely, but there's also an in-between level of having someone reduce your pile to a smaller but more interesting pile. For example, relying on blogs to make your TV show pile smaller. I've often wished there was more software in this vein: like one that could automatically prioritize my email, or one that could answer "give me the most interesting 10% of these n unread blog posts".

[evan]

Heh, wow, super old comment of mine seems oddly prescient now!

[interimlover]

nice one! What's your next big prediction?

[netlon]

the way I deal with piles -

drink heavily.

seriously tho (actually i was also being serious with the above) your totally on... that's why minimalism works so well, easier to get into the optimal flow without piles of obstruction.

ehh, time to go drink heavily :)

but sometimes the piles lead to flow...

[anonymous]

maybe the sorting through the piles on occasion leads to that feeling, that being engaged and being challenged at the very same time: flow. maybe sometimes it is escapism, maybe it might be procrastination. maybe it's the hope that once in a while, like reading something like your post, which popped up in my RSS reader takes me outside of my piles, is truly satisfying, and engaging, and interesting. maybe just conversing and identifying with a similar feeling is what it is about.

emma

[skiplogic]

Netflix, ugh.