How should I define “Simplify”?
My goal for 2024 has been “Reduce & Simplify”, but I’m learning that the definition of “Simplify” can be ellusive. I do things in the name of simplification that actually end up making things worse.
A recent example is my computer setup. I was struggling with the fact that my MacBook Pro is not always docked, so all the files I keep on an external drive become unavailable. My NAS (Synology) transfer times were so slow that I decided to “simplify” things by buying a Mac Mini that would be always on. But of course now I have two computers. This neither reduces nor simplifies things.
What’s worse is that in order to clean up and simplify my storage, I bought yet another device and now I have even more places to keep stuff, along with the accompanying decision-making requirements. It’s definitely cleaner and nicer, but it’s not simpler.
And what about blogging? I have baty.net and that should be it, right? It’s running Kirby, which is flexible and pleasant to work with. But I have to “work” with it. I simplified the publishing steps by doing everything right on the server. But that introduces workflow problems when I want to edit templates or CSS or whatever. And also I need to deal with backups and plugins and versions and so on.
Running a blog with Kirby is a lot to think about, which doesn’t feel simple, so I decide to use simple Markdown files for use on this Blot blog. Except I hadn’t installed Dropbox on the new Mini, so there’s no sync, so no blog. I install Maestral (a Dropbox client) and there, my posts just show up on baty.blog. What could be simpler? Except I don’t like needing Dropbox (and the Git sync doesn’t suit my workflow) and I don’t love the idea of depending on someone else for hosting with an app I have no control over. See? It’s pretty simple but there are strings attached that I don’t want to become tangled in.
Then I dip into the Tinderbox blog at daily.baty.net for a few days because it’s a nice, static site that’s fun to use because I love Tinderbox. Except that maintaining things in Tinderbox can get wonky real quick. And I’m totally on my own with dealing with export templates and deployments and here we go again.
The blogging option that requires the least actual thought, and is (for me) simplest is Blot, which is why I’m writing this (using Emacs) here. But the fact is that I’m still running three blogs and that’s the least simple thing I can think of.
Is it weird that I consider Emacs to be the simple option? Its actually the least simple option, but I’ve been using it for so long that it feels simple. That is, until some package update breaks something.
So after the first quarter of 2024 I haven’t lived up to the “Reduce & Simplify” goals nearly as much as I’d like, even though it feels like I’ve tried pretty hard.
Still working on it. I’ll let you know how it goes.