Lately I’ve started a habit that has had profound benefits to me.
I close out of everything when I leave my computer.
This was a choice of necessity. I now have a laptop and a desktop computer that depend on various mechanisms to sync software and documents with each other. Not closing out of a program on my desktop and opening it on my laptop can have dire consequences, so I started closing out of all applications whenever I was going to leave my computer.
This has required a lot of letting go. Letting go of articles I wanted to read in more depth (if I really want to save them I clip them to Evernote), letting go of emails I have open that I want to give more attention, (momentarily) letting go of my to do list in Things for Mac, letting go of levels in a game. Yet doing so has been incredibly freeing, and now that I’ve started doing it, I realize that it is essential to my sanity and peace of mind. I couldn’t imagine doing it any other way now.
Perhaps the biggest revelation is that in doing this, I am letting go of my ridiculous delusions that I will somehow come back to my computer and tie up all the loose ends I’ve left there. I know this is not logical. If I do go back to my computer, I will have moved on to another project, another email, another distraction.
It’s a way of putting everything back in it’s place, digitally speaking. A good practice in the physical world that I’m finding applies perfectly to the electronic landscape.