What Endures: Ideas I use every day — Part 5
I have a confession.
I don’t always take my own advice. For example, today I was going to write about making “it” easy, which happened to be this very thing you’re reading right now.
But I have also been making things more complicated. These posts have an accompanying photo, and there’s no dedicated caption slot for it on LinkedIn, so I decided to photoshop it onto the photo myself.
One problem, that is an extra 5 mins of work to every future post of this nature. I want to write this series several times a week for months, so those 5 mins add up. It’s one more barrier between myself and consistency. But it doesn’t need to be that way.
I worked in a photocopying store in 2019, where we had an action recorded in photoshop that conveniently made portrait photos into a 4x4 grid ready for printing. It saved us tens of hours over the course of the 17 months I worked there. I think you can see where this is going.
The little caption you see on the photo was created with the press of a button. All I had to do was ctrl+v the text.
“Okay Adam, you streamlined a simple task. So what?”
…Yeah, this doesn’t sound like a big deal, because it’s not. But there are many small things like it getting in the way of whatever I need to do on a daily basis.
Like my laptop set-up. I have one of those things that elevate it, and a nice mechanical keyboard I like using, but everything is a pain in the ass to set-up in a way that makes writing comfortable.
There’s a couple of reasons why, but I’ll save you the boring details. In short, I ditched the laptop stand and keyboard. It’s easy and comfortable to just sit down and start writing now.
Other similar things I did:
I got a big water flask
I managed my cables in a way that made charging stuff easier
I save templates, cover letters and answers I send on job applications so I can use them later
I recently moved into a new home with my family and chose the room with direct access to sunlight in the morning so I don’t need to go out for it
So on and so forth. Whatever you’re doing, be it work, fitness, creative output or simple habits, streamline the tedious parts.
TLDR: Make “it” Easy.
This is part 5 in my new series of stuff I find useful every day. I call it “What Endures.” Stay on the lookout for more!