Simple

Episode #611

October 17, 2020

K.I.S.S. your life.

“Simplify” sometimes means less.
Less is more (efficient).

Referencing and collecting can be the key of simplifying your life.

All my email addresses point to one email address.
i simply pick up all my email in one inbox.

i strive for a zero Inbox. If i deal with, move or delete everything that arrives in my Inbox, there is nothing more for me to do. It is simpler to riffle through 5 or 6 new mail messages than it is to contemplate 2000 emails waiting for attention.

All my accounts charge to one credit card.
i pay one credit card bill for everything.
Consequently, i only have one credit card.

One bank makes finances simple.
One credit card, one checking account, one savings account.
Funds can be passed simply between credit, checking and savings on one website.

Each Time Machine backup refers back in time to previous backups so that it doesn’t have to copy my entire hard drive every time. For every point in time there is a complete snap shot of my computer.

All my data gets funneled to my computer and Time Machine backs it up onto one simple hard drive. If i have to, i can unplug one cable and take my entire digital life with me by grabbing a portable hard drive.

Most of my online databases are in one account (iCloud).
Email, contacts, calendar, notes, bookmarks, passwords, news, photos, music, finances, online storage and the control of my home are all part of my Apple ID.

iCloud is a portable file cabinet i can open wherever i am.
Simply go to icloud.com to see what you keep in your Apple ID.

Each collection you maintain makes your life simpler.
Databases like calendars, notes and contacts are one stop shops for information.
When i kept a paper address book it made no sense to keep more than one.
Let’s say that i have half my contacts in one address book and the other half in another.
If i do not find the contact in one address book, i have to take out the other address book to find the contact.Since every email account includes an address book, many users find themselves entering contacts into multiple places. This can be avoided by maintaining only one email address and one address book.

The definition of a collection is that it is collected into a single space.

Other agents of simplicity are playlists in Apple Music, albums in Photos and groups in Contacts. These playlists, albums and groups are subsets of the larger collections.

In Contacts i have many groups… Family, Friends, iMentor, Mac experts, PC experts, bLog subscribers. Any one contact from my Contacts collection can belong to one or more of my groups.

Having contacts grouped together also make it simple to email everyone in the group. When entering the group name in the BCC field of a Mail composition window, Mail auto-enters all the members of the group.

Also, looking for someone in a group is simpler than searching through everyone i know.

You already practice maintaining collections for efficiency. 
All the kitchen utensils are in the kitchen. All the silverware is in one drawer.
All the home entertainment components are next to the monitor.
All internet savvy devices get the Internet from one router.
All my socks are in the sock drawer.

A project is simpler if you do not have to scurry from place to place to accomplish it

If i asked my father-in-law where the yellow glue was in his wood shop he would say, “It’s in the glue department.”
Simple.