I think it goes something like this:

A caveman is drawing a bull on the wall of the cave, and says to himself, “Simplify, simplify, simplify.”

Then again, maybe you have to be an artist or art historian to find this funny… or I should work on my delivery, but the mantra is similar. (BTW, if anyone has seen this cartoon, I’d love to know the source.)

I went through the same endless quest (at times I still do because, well, it’s fun to try new things) then I decided to think through it backwards. My thought process went like this:

1) What aspects of my organization tools need to be mobile?
2) What am I willing to carry around on a day to day basis?

Those two questions got me pared down to a my 1) blackberry phone which syncs my addresses and calendar to my computer, 2) a moleskine memo accordian folder and 3) a pen.

I use each compartment in the accordian folder as an @category and file index card accordingly. Write down thing I want to focus on in a given day on one index and keep that in the front. When don’t have time to whip out the writing tools I send myself an email from my blackberry to my gmail account for processing later.

I’m an Arthurian going way back, and have spent countless hours studying the legends. Even learned Ancien Francais and some Welsh, Breton and Latin (including vulgar) to read the original texts. I regard quite highly the work of Chrétien de Troyes, Wolfram von Eschenbach, and the anonymous authors of the Mabinogion, Perlesvaus, Didot-Perceval and the Vulgate Cycle (among other tales). And I dream of the day when the lost Perceval of Robert de Boron is found.

As I said above, though, I hope other Arthurians would give me a little latitude in how I mix some of the legends (in a much abbreviated way) in my effort to prove a point, as in my mind there is no definitive version of the legend, not even Wolfram von Eschenbach’s. Like the rest of the Arthurian mythos, there is a constant shifting of ideas, characters and story elements within the basic plots, not to mention the merging of the tale with other legends.

Were I to get into this, though, I have no doubt I would lose 99% of my readers.

[…]

Simplify
Simplify
Simpliy
— Henry David Thoreau

and then the first two “Simplify” and the “Henry David” are struck through. Draw it on a page, and you’ll see why it’s funny.

In the recent stripping down of my life into the essential component parts, I’ve come to realise how sticking to the basics enables me to create content without distraction. In a way, it’s very much in line with my return to a paper planner: eliminat…