When I’m not doing my actual work (writing music, recording, rehearsing, performing, etc) I’m usually eliminating the points of friction I take note of when I’m working. For example, if I’m working on recording something in GarageBand and realize there’s a gap in my knowledge of the program, instead of stopping what I’m working on to go down a rabbit hole and learn more about that program, I’ll jot the issue down and deal with it later.

In other words, I’m either working on the work itself, or working on how I do that work. Spending time on the latter makes time spent on the former more enjoyable and easy.

getting rid of that little red badge

Email is the worst thing to “do” in the morning.  I’ve gone through periods where I only check it once a day.  But lately I’m fine with just staying off email (and any social internet sites) until noon.  Willpower is necessary here, but some system tweaks can really help.  Starting with notifications.

The ding is horrible. I’ve never had the ding go off for email notifications. That would drive me insane. But the little red badge in the dock…

…I didn’t even know you could get rid of that! And so often when I’d be doing work in GarageBand or wherever, I’d flick the cursor down to check that badge. So often that eventually it seemed as bad as the ding.

So I got rid of it. (It’s easy to do: mail > preferences > general > dock unread count)

This is just one example of a tiny little thing that makes a huge difference in my life.

It also shows that I’m a geek.