186 lines
8.1 KiB
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186 lines
8.1 KiB
Plaintext
[1] nic lake(me)
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• [3] Blog
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• [4] About
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• [5] Hello
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• [6] Now
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• [7] Projects
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• [8] Explore
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• [9]
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• [10]
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• [11]
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• Toggle theme
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Going Analog
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1 October 2025 • [16]#Personal [17]#Analog
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I can still remember practically every computer/device setup I've ever had:
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• Family computers, starting in the mid 90s (a PowerMac G4 and an iMac DV SE)
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• My first laptop in 2005 (a PowerBook G4 Titanium), as I went off to college
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• Running 3 laptops (Mac, Windows, and Linux) simultaneously while I did WoW
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raids
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• Getting pissed off that friends would shoot NERF guns in the direction of
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my iMac in college
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• Doing the iMac / MacBook Air / iPad / iPhone lifestyle and thinking it was
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somehow making me more productive
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• Running a Mac and a gaming PC, with all peripherals integrated between the
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two
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• Going from 1 monitor, to 2, to 3 (can't be a True Gamer without 3, right?)
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Over the years, I've attempted to find small ways to disconnect from my
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devices, especially now that I'm a parent. I've tried [18]using notebooks all
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the time, gotten frustrated, and [19]tried to figure out why it wasn't for me.
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I used a notepad on my desk as a general task list, got mad that I couldn't
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take it everywhere with me, and pivoted to using [20]OmniFocus to keep track of
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everything on my phone. I've tried oodles of Focus Modes, making sure only the
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important apps were in front of me.
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But the things that finally got me over the hump?
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• Switching from 3 monitors to 2 ([21]an ultra-wide + second monitor above),
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and
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• Switching to a Mac Mini / doing away with a laptop as my every day machine
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I still have my work laptop that I utilize when necessary, but 99% of the time
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it's parked underneath my desk in my office, and I just remote in to it for
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whatever I need.
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It's been great - at 4pm every day, I stand up from my desk, and often times I
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don't return until the following morning. I'll have my phone on me, but no
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computers make their way downstairs barring a work emergency.^[22][1]
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I've also been much better about not coming up to play many games on my PC at
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night; instead, I've been busting out the Steam Deck as my primary gaming
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device, or picking up my Kindle (or GASP a physical book) to read instead. It's
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been baseball season, so I've been glued to my TV most night... but hey, if it
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helps me break away from my desk a bit more, so be it.^[23][2]
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I was in a good place. I thought I was done. And then... [24]Robb blogged about
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his journaling.
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━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
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Look, I've said it before - I desperately want to be a notebook person. I don't
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know why, but the thought of having a nice notebook sitting in front of me that
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I can write down thoughts about my life, the things I need to do, make little
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doodles in... that appeals to me for some reason.^[25][3]
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I tried the school planners when I was a kid. I hated them, because it forced
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me to be responsible. I tried them again in college. I hated them too, because
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again, they forced me to be responsible.
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And now? I'm trying out using a pen & paper as my primary form of organization
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for a third time, using modified Bullet Journaling, because I have to be
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responsible, and now I feel obligated to force myself to embrace it.
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[26] A photo of my journals
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I totally swiped a lot of Robb's suggestions, mostly because if I didn't, I
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would've been paralyzed as far as where I should start. I picked up the [27]
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Scribbles That Matter Pro A5 dot grid journal (I got the Aqua color with 120gsm
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paper), along with a [28]LIHIT LAB Compact Pen Case. Pens, I'll leave for
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another time, but I wholly recommend the [29]Zebra Sarasa Clip gel pens.
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[30] A photo of my weekly task list setup
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I have a couple different sections set up currently:
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[31] A photo of day 1 of Inktober
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• A yearly calendar, with holidays, birthdays, and major events that I know
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are coming down the pipe
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• A section that has some of the top games, books, movies, and shows I want
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to consume
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• My weekly task lists, which is the primary purpose of this journal for me
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(I totally swiped the layout of this from Robb too, but to be fair, it's a
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really nice one)
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• Moments of Joy, which is what I was doing with my pocket journal when I
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first tried picking it up
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• An activity tracker, so I can see how I'm choosing to spend my free time
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• A book & game log (so long, spreadsheets)
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• Task list for some projects
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• Work meeting notes
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• Pages set aside for [32]Inktober
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I also picked up a [33]Lochby Pocket Journal, for carrying around and jotting
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things down on the fly. I've been telling my phone to remind me about things
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later, but writing it down and then triaging that list as I go has helped a
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bunch. I'll also put my shopping lists into that notebook, and let my daughter
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"help me" by crossing things off.^[34][4]
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We'll see how this goes. I feel better, and like I have a better understanding
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not only of my current day, but also what's coming up through the rest of the
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week. I've been doing this since late August, and it seems to have stuck over
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these 6ish weeks. I've also already gotten my 2026 journal (PURPLE!), and have
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planned out all the sections for it.
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[35] A photo of my journals
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(I fully admit, I used to think Notebook People™ were a little crazy and a lot
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extra... but I get it now.)
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I guess I'm a [36]Big BuJo Boy now.
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━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
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1. I did take my laptop down last week to do something while I watched a
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baseball game, and it felt VERY weird. So, I guess the conditioning has
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worked. [37]↩︎
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2. We'll see how that changes after the Red Sox season ends. [38]↩︎
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3. Just like commuting to work on a nice cafe-racer style motorcycle, with a
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nice backpack that holds the laptop, notebook(s), pens & pencils, water,
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and whatever amazing things I, a late-30s nerd, have been conditioned by
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Big EDC™ to Need In My Life. [39]↩︎
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4. My 3 year old has stolen a lot of my Field Notes journals to scribble in,
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which is great until we're out shopping and she wants to scribble in my
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pocket journal. I'm really trying to not be precious about this. [40]↩︎
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© 2025 [41]Nic Lake • All rights reserved
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References:
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[1] https://niclake.me/
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[3] https://niclake.me/blog/
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[4] https://niclake.me/about/
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[5] https://niclake.me/hello/
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[6] https://niclake.me/now/
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[7] https://niclake.me/projects/
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[8] https://niclake.me/explore/
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[9] https://bsky.app/profile/niclake.me
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[10] https://mastodon.social/@niclake
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[11] https://niclake.me/feed.xml
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[16] https://niclake.me/blog/tags#personal
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[17] https://niclake.me/blog/tags#analog
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[18] https://niclake.me/pocket-notebook/
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[19] https://niclake.me/understanding-notebooks/
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[20] https://www.omnigroup.com/omnifocus/
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[21] https://niclake.me/desk/
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[22] https://niclake.me/going-analog/#fn1
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[23] https://niclake.me/going-analog/#fn2
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[24] https://rknight.me/blog/five-months-of-journalling/
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[25] https://niclake.me/going-analog/#fn3
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[26] https://niclake.me/assets/images/going-analog/journals.jpeg
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[27] https://a.co/d/2Id5DxR
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[28] https://a.co/d/hN50xl7
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[29] https://www.jetpens.com/Zebra-Sarasa-Clip-Gel-Pen-0.5-mm-10-Color-Set/pd/6384
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[30] https://niclake.me/assets/images/going-analog/journal.jpeg
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[31] https://niclake.me/assets/images/going-analog/inktober.jpeg
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[32] https://inktober.com/
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[33] https://www.lochby.com/collections/journals/products/pocket-journal?variant=42350526365732
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[34] https://niclake.me/going-analog/#fn4
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[35] https://niclake.me/assets/images/going-analog/next-journal.jpeg
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[36] https://ruminatepodcast.com/201/
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[37] https://niclake.me/going-analog/#fnref1
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[38] https://niclake.me/going-analog/#fnref2
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[39] https://niclake.me/going-analog/#fnref3
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[40] https://niclake.me/going-analog/#fnref4
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[41] https://niclake.me/going-analog/
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