Morning Coffee 84: November 20th, 2023

White and red metal birdcage, Nina from Serbia

Good morning. I’m writing you while at a nearby park. The weather is beautiful (72 with a nice breeze). I have New Blue Sun playing low next to me, as I sit at the picnic table, writing and watching the kids play. This was originally written in a physical notebook. I want to start using a lot more paper for writing and planning. Hope this letter finds you well. Press reply. Say hello.

Table of Contents

1. Little Library
2. Weekend Projects
3. The Power of HEY
4. What I’ve been reading

Little Library

Rose had her birthday party this past weekend. For the invitation, I recommended everyone bring a book:

Bring a book. If you’re wondering what to get her, a picture book is perfect. Even better if it’s old and used. We’re hoping to refresh her little library. (She’s read the ones she has a hundred times by now.)

That recommendation was a huge success. Her little library has now doubled. I’m thankful for how much she loves books, and I want to keep feeding into that for her.

Weekend Projects

There was a bunch of little tasks scattered throughout my Things system. As I was doing a weekly review, I decided to batch these small tasks together into one place, called Weekend Projects. I used headers to separate handfuls of them into different categories. I was left with thirty lingering tasks, now brought into one project.

Some of these tasks have been stagnant for months. Giving them a purpose, to be worked on during my off days. This motivated me to complete twenty three of them in just two days.

Best of all, the rest of my Things system is much tidier now because of this. And the thought of lingering tasks is completely gone. Because they’re not for now anymore. They’re for the weekend.

The Power of HEY

My HEY subscription was about to expire a few weeks ago, and I wanted to see what life was like not using HEY anymore. It didn’t take long for me to realize that was a mistake.

What you’re seeing here is my current inbox. Email has never looked so good. That’s thanks to the features HEY offers:

• The Screener lets me decide who enters my email system, removing spam and annoying emails that don’t add value to my life.

• Renaming emails and merging them together allow me turn regular emails into projects and clean lists of what’s going on in my life.

• Paper Trail lets me move receipts and emails that I don’t care about, but also want to have for reference, out the way of my main inbox.

Once you get used to HEY, it’s hard to go back to the old way of managing emails.

Books I’ve been reading

• Make Something Wonderful
• The Bullet Journal Method
• Master of Change
• Clear Thinking
• The Pathless Path

I’ve been reading a lot more lately. Staying mindful of moments that I can be holding my Kindle instead of my phone. Being intentional with my downtime.

This is Morning Coffee: a weekly newsletter that arrives in your inbox every Monday morning. I write about productivity, technology, and cool things I find each week. Subscribe and join my Patreon.