Category Archives: technology

If there is one truth I have learned in my short time in this world, is that there are filers and there are pilers. Most people are very squarely one or the other.

For instance, I am a filer. I like to keep things in nice sensibly organized containers. I like to take disparate objects and group them into a semblance of order. A place for everything and everything in it’s place. Few things make me more content than creating order where formerly chaos ruled. Ask me where anything is and I can likely point you to it easily (“User guide for the TV? Look in the green file cabinet in the blue folder marked Manuals. Oh, it will be towards the back of that folder because the items in there are alphabetical”). When I work, I love to have what I am working on on the desk and nothing else. It allows me to focus and not be distracted by other things.

My wife is the exact opposite of me. She loves piles. Especially, when she is working on a project she likes to have all of her work strewn about. To see it all at once gives her comfort and purpose. I am sure that if I asked her right this moment if there was any order to these piles she would hem and haw and claim that there was, yet I would be able to find in mere seconds a half dozen examples proving otherwise. The only order is the picture she keeps of each pile in her head. Ask her where something is and she can likely find it for you fairly quickly even if she can’t point you directly to it (see, you lack the mental picture and she lacks the patience to paint it for you).

You see, people who are pilers by nature think spatially. When I see a cluttered space or computer desktop, I don’t assume someone who is crazily disorganized and living in chaos. I think, here is a person who could be a piler and is able to find things amongst the clutter because they remember where it is from a spacial perspective on the desktop. They remember in relation to other files, the quadrant of the screen, even what part of the desktop picture it is covering. Piling is not only how they work, it is who they are.

There is a sub group of people I have not yet mentioned. That is the person who is a filer by natural desire but a piler in practice. These folks would love nothing more than to get things organized and “under control” (in quotes because I want to further stress that most natural pilers have things perfectly under control). Things are not that way for them because they don’t even know where to begin. Things are so far disorganized that they are quickly overwhelmed by it.

I got some feedback following the day one post that it seemed like moving the items from the Desktop and into your Documents folder was just a whole lot of “sweeping the problems under the rug”. Could be. It all depends on who you are.

To a filer, that may be true. To them, the problem is not solved until everything is organized to the nth degree. To a piler, if they dared to follow my instructions from day one, well, they would be lost. They would not be able to function working out of anything with inflexible structure or hierarchy. For the sub group, those who long to know where to start, that was it Ð a starting point. For them the exercise elicited a sigh of relief that may have been just the step they needed. From there, should they so choose, they can now get organized in a way that makes sense to them.

There are countless ways to further break this stuff down. Some may choose to group documents and files alphabetically. Some, by date. Some, by topic or project or area of life (Personal, Business, Family, etc.). If it makes things easier for you, quicker to locate, faster to quantify, then you should do it. Some may choose to dump everything into a single folder and let Spotlight, Quicksilver, Launchbar or some other tool do the finding.

But these are all second steps. These are all optional steps. The first step is simply admitting you have lost control and are now assuming the power to snatch it back again.

In previous days, I have talked a lot about the methods, ideas and choices you can use to reduce clutter. Now, I’m going to talk about tools. There are many third party apps that can help you keep your Mac clutter free – far more then I will cover here. I am also sure that for every one of these I mention, I will get feedback on others that people feel I have missed or should be added. That said, this list is in no way comprehensive. Just things I have used and like. Also, almost everything here will cost some money. Good software generally does:

Hazel – This is a great little app. It can watch any folder you tell it to and automatically organize your files according to rules you create. For instance, I have it watching my desktop and any file that is on there for more than two days, and has not been modified in the last 3 hours, gets moved to a “Working” folder I have. It can also do other magic little things like auto empty the trash on a schedule and delete all the associated apps for an application if you move it to the trash.

Appzapper – The uninstaller Apple forgot. This also will clean up all traces (preferences, support files, etc.) when an application is dragged into it. One kind of nice feature is The Hit List which allows you to sort your applications by most recently used (see: day 4) and zap those you don’t use at will.

Yojimbo – Just about any of the “everything boxes” (Evernote, Shovebox, etc.) will work here. The idea being that all of those items that don’t otherwise seem to have a good place can go in here. Heck, even a good deal of the things that do. I store all sorts of things from PDF’s, eBooks, receipts, serial numbers, bookmarks, web archives. It is a tag and fast search enhanced digital shoebox. Yojimbo gets my vote because not only is it the most “Mac Like” to me, but it also does a good job of allowing you to export your data out in the format it was put in (i.e. TXT, RTF, PDF, etc.).

Daisy Disk – There are many apps that can analyze your disk and tell you what is taking up the most space. That said, none do it more elegantly then this. In fact, the darn thing looks so pretty you may not want to delete anything.

So there is my short list. Do you have any you want to suggest?

For someone who is a Mac Consultant by trade and curator of a Mac centric website by labor of love, nothing is more prone to clutter then my Applications folder. Whether it is downloading and installing software to replicate a client’s setup or something to write about here to report to you, it is one of those things I am obligated to do that flies clearly in the face of everything I believe in and espouse here.

Because of this, every couple of weeks or so, I find myself going through my Applications folder and cleaning house. I throw out anything I have installed that does not meet a specific personal need and, while there, taking the time to question everything else as well. The internal dialog usually goes something like this…

Me: Do I really still need Firefox even though I have switched to Safari?
Me Too: Well, I do some web development for clients so I need it for testing.
Me: But can’t I just delete it and download and install it again when I need it?
Me Too: Sure I could but that takes time. What is more valuable, my time or that disk space?

I think you see where this is going. My point being that every need is different and can be apparent and fluid all at the same time. As I have said before, if you need two browsers to get the job done (or three, or four) then it makes sense to have them – but never be afraid to question that decision. In fact, do so as often as it makes sense. For me, and the amount of apps I install on a regular basis, that is once or twice a month. For most, I argue that should be at the very least once a year.

Do it now. Go through your Applications folder. Anything that came with your Mac, leave pretty much without question. For everything else, have this internal Q&A with yourself as you look at every other application you have installed:

Do I need this? When was the last time I launched it? Why? Is there another app that can do the same thing? If I delete it, would it be easy to install again should I need it?

There are no right answers here – unless it is an application you no longer use and have no plans to use again. In which case, the answer should be obvious.