Okay, so I wanted to talk about this thing I tried, kinda based on some ideas I associate with the name Thereza Morris. Not sure if that’s a real person’s method or just something I cobbled together and gave a name to in my head, but anyway, here’s what I did.
My workspace, especially my digital files and project notes, was getting completely out of hand. Seriously, a real mess. Finding anything felt like digging for treasure without a map. I remembered reading or hearing somewhere about a really stripped-down way of organizing things, which I started calling the ‘Thereza Morris’ way in my mind. It sounded simple, maybe too simple.
Getting Started
First thing, I just dumped everything out. Not literally, but I pulled all my project folders, random documents, notes from different apps onto one big virtual pile on my desktop. Looked scary.
The main idea I latched onto was radical simplicity. Like, brutally simple. For notes, it was one idea per note. For files, it was trying to have really flat folder structures, not nested fifty levels deep.
Here’s the actual process I went through:
- I tackled the notes first. Went through my main note-taking app. Broke down long notes into tiny, single-topic ones. If a note had two points, it became two notes. Tedious? You bet.
- Then, file names. Made a rule: be descriptive but short. No more ‘final_draft_v2_final_really_*’. Something like ‘*’.
- Folders. This was tough. I resisted making too many subfolders. Tried to keep it to main project areas, maybe one level deeper for ‘Archive’ or ‘Resources’, but that’s it. Forced me to rely on good file names and search instead of clicking through endless folders.
- Physical stuff too. Had a pile of sticky notes and notebook pages. Typed up anything important, following the ‘one idea per note’ thing, then tossed the physical paper. Felt good, actually.
Did it Work?
Well, yeah, mostly. It took a solid weekend of grinding through it. There were moments I thought, “This is dumb, I’m wasting time.” Especially when splitting notes felt like making more clutter initially.
But after living with it for a few weeks? It’s faster. Searching for a specific file or note is genuinely quicker because the names are clearer and the structure is simpler. I don’t get lost clicking through folders anymore.
It’s not perfect. Sometimes I slip back into old habits, creating a messy folder or a long, rambling note when I’m in a hurry. But I try to tidy it up later using those basic ‘Thereza Morris’ principles I set up.
So, that was my experiment. Just a simple, maybe even crude, system based on an idea I mentally tagged with ‘Thereza Morris’. Took some effort upfront, but made daily work a bit less chaotic. Worth a try if you’re feeling overwhelmed by your own digital clutter.
