niclake-me-dfeqiz.txt (8321B)
1 [1] nic lake(me) 2 3 • [3] Blog 4 • [4] About 5 • [5] Hello 6 • [6] Now 7 • [7] Projects 8 • [8] Explore 9 • [9] 10 • [10] 11 • [11] 12 • Toggle theme 13 □ Dark 14 □ Light 15 □ Auto 16 17 Going Analog 18 19 1 October 2025 • [16]#Personal [17]#Analog 20 21 I can still remember practically every computer/device setup I've ever had: 22 23 • Family computers, starting in the mid 90s (a PowerMac G4 and an iMac DV SE) 24 • My first laptop in 2005 (a PowerBook G4 Titanium), as I went off to college 25 • Running 3 laptops (Mac, Windows, and Linux) simultaneously while I did WoW 26 raids 27 • Getting pissed off that friends would shoot NERF guns in the direction of 28 my iMac in college 29 • Doing the iMac / MacBook Air / iPad / iPhone lifestyle and thinking it was 30 somehow making me more productive 31 • Running a Mac and a gaming PC, with all peripherals integrated between the 32 two 33 • Going from 1 monitor, to 2, to 3 (can't be a True Gamer without 3, right?) 34 35 Over the years, I've attempted to find small ways to disconnect from my 36 devices, especially now that I'm a parent. I've tried [18]using notebooks all 37 the time, gotten frustrated, and [19]tried to figure out why it wasn't for me. 38 I used a notepad on my desk as a general task list, got mad that I couldn't 39 take it everywhere with me, and pivoted to using [20]OmniFocus to keep track of 40 everything on my phone. I've tried oodles of Focus Modes, making sure only the 41 important apps were in front of me. 42 43 But the things that finally got me over the hump? 44 45 • Switching from 3 monitors to 2 ([21]an ultra-wide + second monitor above), 46 and 47 • Switching to a Mac Mini / doing away with a laptop as my every day machine 48 49 I still have my work laptop that I utilize when necessary, but 99% of the time 50 it's parked underneath my desk in my office, and I just remote in to it for 51 whatever I need. 52 53 It's been great - at 4pm every day, I stand up from my desk, and often times I 54 don't return until the following morning. I'll have my phone on me, but no 55 computers make their way downstairs barring a work emergency.^[22][1] 56 57 I've also been much better about not coming up to play many games on my PC at 58 night; instead, I've been busting out the Steam Deck as my primary gaming 59 device, or picking up my Kindle (or GASP a physical book) to read instead. It's 60 been baseball season, so I've been glued to my TV most night... but hey, if it 61 helps me break away from my desk a bit more, so be it.^[23][2] 62 63 I was in a good place. I thought I was done. And then... [24]Robb blogged about 64 his journaling. 65 66 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 67 68 Look, I've said it before - I desperately want to be a notebook person. I don't 69 know why, but the thought of having a nice notebook sitting in front of me that 70 I can write down thoughts about my life, the things I need to do, make little 71 doodles in... that appeals to me for some reason.^[25][3] 72 73 I tried the school planners when I was a kid. I hated them, because it forced 74 me to be responsible. I tried them again in college. I hated them too, because 75 again, they forced me to be responsible. 76 77 And now? I'm trying out using a pen & paper as my primary form of organization 78 for a third time, using modified Bullet Journaling, because I have to be 79 responsible, and now I feel obligated to force myself to embrace it. 80 81 [26] A photo of my journals 82 83 I totally swiped a lot of Robb's suggestions, mostly because if I didn't, I 84 would've been paralyzed as far as where I should start. I picked up the [27] 85 Scribbles That Matter Pro A5 dot grid journal (I got the Aqua color with 120gsm 86 paper), along with a [28]LIHIT LAB Compact Pen Case. Pens, I'll leave for 87 another time, but I wholly recommend the [29]Zebra Sarasa Clip gel pens. 88 89 [30] A photo of my weekly task list setup 90 91 I have a couple different sections set up currently: 92 93 [31] A photo of day 1 of Inktober 94 95 • A yearly calendar, with holidays, birthdays, and major events that I know 96 are coming down the pipe 97 • A section that has some of the top games, books, movies, and shows I want 98 to consume 99 • My weekly task lists, which is the primary purpose of this journal for me 100 (I totally swiped the layout of this from Robb too, but to be fair, it's a 101 really nice one) 102 • Moments of Joy, which is what I was doing with my pocket journal when I 103 first tried picking it up 104 • An activity tracker, so I can see how I'm choosing to spend my free time 105 • A book & game log (so long, spreadsheets) 106 • Task list for some projects 107 • Work meeting notes 108 • Pages set aside for [32]Inktober 109 110 I also picked up a [33]Lochby Pocket Journal, for carrying around and jotting 111 things down on the fly. I've been telling my phone to remind me about things 112 later, but writing it down and then triaging that list as I go has helped a 113 bunch. I'll also put my shopping lists into that notebook, and let my daughter 114 "help me" by crossing things off.^[34][4] 115 116 We'll see how this goes. I feel better, and like I have a better understanding 117 not only of my current day, but also what's coming up through the rest of the 118 week. I've been doing this since late August, and it seems to have stuck over 119 these 6ish weeks. I've also already gotten my 2026 journal (PURPLE!), and have 120 planned out all the sections for it. 121 122 [35] A photo of my journals 123 124 (I fully admit, I used to think Notebook People™ were a little crazy and a lot 125 extra... but I get it now.) 126 127 I guess I'm a [36]Big BuJo Boy now. 128 129 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 130 131 1. I did take my laptop down last week to do something while I watched a 132 baseball game, and it felt VERY weird. So, I guess the conditioning has 133 worked. [37]↩︎ 134 135 2. We'll see how that changes after the Red Sox season ends. [38]↩︎ 136 137 3. Just like commuting to work on a nice cafe-racer style motorcycle, with a 138 nice backpack that holds the laptop, notebook(s), pens & pencils, water, 139 and whatever amazing things I, a late-30s nerd, have been conditioned by 140 Big EDC™ to Need In My Life. [39]↩︎ 141 142 4. My 3 year old has stolen a lot of my Field Notes journals to scribble in, 143 which is great until we're out shopping and she wants to scribble in my 144 pocket journal. I'm really trying to not be precious about this. [40]↩︎ 145 146 © 2025 [41]Nic Lake • All rights reserved 147 148 References: 149 150 [1] https://niclake.me/ 151 [3] https://niclake.me/blog/ 152 [4] https://niclake.me/about/ 153 [5] https://niclake.me/hello/ 154 [6] https://niclake.me/now/ 155 [7] https://niclake.me/projects/ 156 [8] https://niclake.me/explore/ 157 [9] https://bsky.app/profile/niclake.me 158 [10] https://mastodon.social/@niclake 159 [11] https://niclake.me/feed.xml 160 [16] https://niclake.me/blog/tags#personal 161 [17] https://niclake.me/blog/tags#analog 162 [18] https://niclake.me/pocket-notebook/ 163 [19] https://niclake.me/understanding-notebooks/ 164 [20] https://www.omnigroup.com/omnifocus/ 165 [21] https://niclake.me/desk/ 166 [22] https://niclake.me/going-analog/#fn1 167 [23] https://niclake.me/going-analog/#fn2 168 [24] https://rknight.me/blog/five-months-of-journalling/ 169 [25] https://niclake.me/going-analog/#fn3 170 [26] https://niclake.me/assets/images/going-analog/journals.jpeg 171 [27] https://a.co/d/2Id5DxR 172 [28] https://a.co/d/hN50xl7 173 [29] https://www.jetpens.com/Zebra-Sarasa-Clip-Gel-Pen-0.5-mm-10-Color-Set/pd/6384 174 [30] https://niclake.me/assets/images/going-analog/journal.jpeg 175 [31] https://niclake.me/assets/images/going-analog/inktober.jpeg 176 [32] https://inktober.com/ 177 [33] https://www.lochby.com/collections/journals/products/pocket-journal?variant=42350526365732 178 [34] https://niclake.me/going-analog/#fn4 179 [35] https://niclake.me/assets/images/going-analog/next-journal.jpeg 180 [36] https://ruminatepodcast.com/201/ 181 [37] https://niclake.me/going-analog/#fnref1 182 [38] https://niclake.me/going-analog/#fnref2 183 [39] https://niclake.me/going-analog/#fnref3 184 [40] https://niclake.me/going-analog/#fnref4 185 [41] https://niclake.me/going-analog/