Hello fellow tinkerer 👋 -

Happy Wednesday. ICYMI, I'm creating a new course: 30 Days of Writing Online: Prompts to Spark Creative Ideas.

I know a lot of people who want to start posting (mostly on LinkedIn) but don't know where to start. This 30-day email course will deliver one prompt per day to your inbox. General enough that they'll apply to any professional, but specific enough to get your creative juices flowing.

You can sign up for the waitlist here and I'll let you know when it's available!

In the meantime, you can check out my other digital products here.

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1) Reflection:

My house is undergoing a big home improvement project right now. There has been a LOT of noise (hammering) over the past few days.

Client work had to come first. That's how I get paid. But it made me sad when my own projects fell by the wayside, simply because I couldn't focus.

I've struggled with this in the past. When things come up that disrupt my writing time, it's hard for me to "catch up."

It's a balance of giving myself grace and also knowing that sometimes I have to push myself to reach my goals. I'm still trying to figure it out.

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2) Product:

If you're like me, you have about 8,742 contacts, all in different places. I had contacts in my phone, contacts in Google, contacts everywhere.

And then something like our dishwasher would stop working and I'd ask my spouse, "What's the phone number for the repair company we used last time?" Because that info was stored in his contacts.

A few years ago, we streamlined this as a household. My spouse and I have a shared Google account (which is helpful for other things, like utility bills, bank statements, etc). All contacts are stored in that account. Then we both have that account synced to our phones (iPhone for me, Android for him). Contacts aren't saved to the phone: they're saved to the Google account. At least, for the most part, everything is in one place.

That doesn't solve the problem of contacts on social platforms though... for that, I use a personal CRM.

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3) Tip:

A few weeks ago, I saw a suggestion on social media: 7 Things to Get Rid of Today. It included "phone numbers from people you've only met once, never called, and don't even have a last name for."

I think that's terrible advice. Like... why? I have thousands of contacts I've accumulated over the years. It would take hours and hours to go through them and delete the contacts I don't need.

And it serves no purpose. Not like I'm going to run out of space in Google just because I have so many contacts stored. The search works just fine and I can locate any contact I need.

If you're going to spend time cleaning up your digital life, find a more useful project.

(The one exception is to delete contacts from people who have caused you pain or problems in your life. Delete, block, get them out of your phone!)

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That's it for this issue of Tinkering! See you again in two weeks.

Cheers,
Anna

​LinkedIn | Threads | Medium | Substack​

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Want more ideas?

→ I'm fiercely dedicated to writing quality. But here are a few ways I'm using AI to make some of the boring parts of writing more efficient.

→ I recently discovered that I can sync Google Drive folders to Airtable and it is a game changer! Read more here.

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