{"id":38705,"date":"2022-02-09T11:57:03","date_gmt":"2022-02-09T01:57:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jenkuo.com\/?p=38705"},"modified":"2023-03-26T23:51:42","modified_gmt":"2023-03-26T13:51:42","slug":"declutter-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jenkuo.com\/declutter-part-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Digital Workspace Makeover: Declutter Part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

You can find Part 1 here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you’re a knowledge worker or creative professional like me where most of your work happen on your computer, and how you create value for others is dependent on the knowledge, expertise and experience you share, as well as your ability to consume and process information to help others solve problems…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You may need to declutter and reorganise your digital workspace to set yourself up for success.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before I dive into my process for transforming my digital workspace, I need to give you context on my journey with personal knowledge management (PKM).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I started taking PKM seriously since the beginning of 2020 when I became more conscious and intentional about how I’m capturing, saving, organising and using the information I come into contact with everyday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, my digital PKM journey started in 2011 when I got an Evernote account as I attempted to capture and save all the information I was learning in business and online marketing as a newbie entrepreneur.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For a decade, I’ve been searching for better ways to organise and manage all the information around me<\/strong> before I even heard of the term “PKM”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because I’ve already committed to restructuring and reorganising my digital workspace in an effort to continue to improve my workflow as well as my ability to produce quality content, this “digital workspace makeover” is just a continuation of the work I’ve already done in the last 2 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So I’m only going to focus on the areas I’ve worked on as part of this decluttering project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What’s Not Working<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Even though I’ve already been on a 2 year journey, there were still lots of areas in my digital workspace that’s been bugging me. While I’ve periodically worked on improving different parts of my systems, I’m still far from reaching 90% done, since it’s impossible to complete everything at once (the project is way too big).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As I’ve upgraded my Macs over the years, I’ve always migrated everything from the old computer to the new computer to not lose files, bookmarks, settings etc. That also means, I haven’t started with a proper clean slate ever since I switched from PC to Mac in 2005.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Digital clutter inevitably accumulates over time, just like your physical possessions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even though I tried decluttering my digital workspace in the past (uninstalled apps I don’t use anymore, deleted files I don’t need, reorganised my folders and files etc), I didn’t do enough damage to feel like I got a fresh start with my digital environment.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Knowing what I know now, part of the problem was because I haven’t been able to let go of what didn’t serve me. I also didn’t have clarity of what I actually wanted to do in life, what type of work suits me nor how I wanted my workspace to support how I work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maintenance of various tools and apps was a problem due to my lack of vision and clarity with my own life. I would try a bunch of new productivity tools, then abandon them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Needless to say, the mess and disorganisation of my mental and emotional state manifested itself into my digital workspace too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Remember:<\/p>\n

Your outer world affects your inner world. Your inner world affects your outer world.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Every time I see the disorganisation within my digital workspace, a little voice pipes up and says “You better do something about that Jen!”<\/em>… The mess I’ve exposed my eyeballs to was eating away my mental bandwidth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So I decided to ride the momentum wave<\/strong> I gained from my physical workspace makeover into my digital workspace, and rolled some of the smaller projects I’ve been planning to do into this bigger decluttering project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My Ideal Vision<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Since I’ve been on a mission to optimise my PKM system for the past 2 years. My goals were to:<\/p>\n\n\n\n