Thank you for being a subscriber to my Plain Text; Paper, Less Substack-hosted blog! I’m incredibly grateful for everyone who has read, commented, and financially supported my work over the past year.

My time on Substack has come to an end. I’ve answered the call to move to a more independent home on the web; a space that I own and control. New posts will now begin on ellanew.com and then be syndicated elsewhere — the POSSE approach.

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Dear Synapse-Maker,

Thank you for all the yummy food you’ve been giving me lately, I really appreciate it. without you, I wouldn’t have the energy or the strength to get up in the morning, never mind carry your 15kg mobile office from place to place!

You know, it’s pretty dang cool that you’re giving me enough fuel to run a 10 kilometer race everyday! But until you actually do run that race, or need the energy for something else, I’ll just pop the extra supplies out of your way. Best place for me to store it till needed is your belly, I reckon; though I’ve also found some pretty good stashing spots in your thighs, butt, upper arms, and double chin.

Sorry to hear you’re not happy with the aesthetics of the storage facilities, though. So I’ve had an idea that I think will help you get the look you want, and help me not to run out of room for the excess fuel: cut the density of each delivery, so I can put most of it into immediate output for you. Also, I’m certain I can get by with a lower quantity and frequency just fine.

There’s a glitch in the system, I’m afraid, where sending more than I need, especially of those premium goodies, sets up an automated re-order that I haven’t yet figured out how to cancel.

FYI you can tell the difference between a legit order and the rogue ones by checking out the signature at the bottom: please ignore any that are signed “Feed me sugar, fat, and flour in any combination”, and be especially wary of the co-signers “Do it now or I will die”, “I absolutely deserve this”, “You know it’ll make you feel better”, and “Just this once won’t hurt.”

Best way to avoid the glitch is as I said; match the density and quantities of each delivery to the level of activity you’ve been asking of me lately. Honestly, I really don’t need much to fuel a mostly sedentary working day, followed by a nice walk around the neighbourhood.

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Uh, yeah, sorry about the inflammation thing. I’m trying to get that down, but it’s kind of a good thing because it means the good guys are mopping up the mess caused by some of the poor quality fuel I’ve been receiving lately (I’m sure you’re working on that 🤍). Hey, if feeling under the weather gets your attention, it’s a good thing, right?

Let’s put our heads together on this and I’m sure we’ll come up with something that works for both of us. I really do love you, and I promise I’m doing the very best I can to protect you and give you the energy you need for all that awesome stuff you want to do!

Let’s chat again soon,

Your Body

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Scratchpads can be paper or digital or foggy shower glass or a patch of hard dirt. Keep a Cutting Room Floor section at the end of your writing drafts, to encourage yourself to cut the finished result down to its finest bones without losing what couldn’t stay (this time). 

I draft my writing in Obsidian, and have [[cutting room floor]] as a tag page at the end of each file. Clicking on that link creates a file that looks empty, until you check the backlinks! Then you’ll see all your loose treasures in one rich and inspiring list.

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This is your invitation to keep a scratchpad of your own; a place you can write or draw free from thoughts about how it looks or sounds.

If you’re already in the scratchpad habit, go back through some of your past pages and look for a gem to pull out and make into a note in your knowledge management system. Here’s one of mine:

What gems are waiting to be rediscovered in your scratchpad, or on your cutting room floor? Go find them!

I apologise to anyone wanting to get the 1 month free Setapp trial after reading my enthusiastic treatise on their 240+ Mac apps in one subscription.

Use my affiliate link, and enter the coupon code Ellane to get the full month rather than just 7 days. The article has been updated with this information.

Notes is a new space on Substack for us to share links, short posts, quotes, photos, and more. I plan to use it for things that don’t fit in the newsletter, like work-in-progress or quick questions.

Go to Notes

How to join

Head to substack.com/notes or find the “Notes” tab in the Substack app. As a subscriber to Plain Text. Paper, Less., you’ll automatically see my notes. Feel free to like, reply, or share them around!

You can also share notes of your own. I hope this becomes a space where every reader of Plain Text. Paper, Less. can share thoughts, ideas, and interesting quotes from the things we're reading on Substack and beyond.

If you encounter any issues, you can always refer to the Notes FAQ for assistance. Looking forward to seeing you there!

Go to Notes

If you’re struggling through lack of air, water, food, shelter or safety, nothing else is going to matter until the basics are covered. With regards to other things, you can change your perception of how much you have by walking around to see it from a different angle.

Notice your immediate gut reaction when you consider if you currently have enough — 

1. time

2. money

3. clothes

4. furniture

5. accessories

6. pens/notebooks

7. apps

8. tech

9. patience

10. recognition

11. success

12. peace

13. clear, uncluttered space

Now, granted, it’s very difficult indeed to have too many pens, notebooks, and apps, but it’s not outside the realm of possibility 😉.

This week, when frustration grates on your nerves, you’ll probably find a sense of ‘not enough’ somewhere near the root. But what might you see if you walk all the way around to the shadowy side of the problem, and look at it from a new angle?

“A grateful person is rich in contentment.” — David Bednar

This is not a call to unrealistic Pollyanna-ism. Rather, it’s a gentle invitation to be thankful for something you thought was lacking, but which you truly do have enough of.

“Happiness will never come to those who fail to appreciate what they already have.” — Bilal Zahoor

For most of us, enough is a perspective, not a sum. But not for all.

May we do all in our power to bring the basics (air, water, food, shelter, safety) to those who truly do not have enough. Everyone should have the luxury of being able to choose to whether or not to buy just one more notebook.

When you’ve seen something that you think someone you know would appreciate, it’s natural to want to share it with them. So you send them a link. Nice! You’re a thoughtful, caring kind of person.

But are you really coming across that way?

Your time is precious, and so is the time of the people who receive your recommendations. Try this: when sending someone a link to something you think they’ll benefit from, tell them why as accurately as you can, in as few words as possible.

If you’re having a busy day and I send you this message — 

So cool! Check it out! https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586–023–00709–7

— you’ll probably set it aside for a later that never comes.

But if the message looks like this — 

Hey, thought this might help S with that homework assignment. They’ve mapped the brains of fruit flies, and it’s helping research on degenerative brain diseases. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586–023–00709–7

— you’ll know exactly why I think you should take a look, what I think you’ll take away from it, and you have enough information to know if it’s relevant to something you’re doing right now, or can be looked at later.

The practice of summarising links before we share them can help us get better at writing atomic notes, and the busy people we share cool finds with will appreciate us honouring their time.

If we’re surrounded by shiny, clever apps (and we are), will the abundance eventually make them look ordinary, and thus not so attention-suckingly attractive?

That’s kinda what happened to me with all those AI-assisted notes apps that are popping up everywhere. There are so many new players in this space that none of them are standing out to me any more. I know what I value most, and they don’t have it.

I recently heard someone say, “No one wakes up in the morning and hopes they’ll have new software to learn that day” — and I thought, brother, you do NOT know me…!

Happily, I found the path out of productivity/note taking app addiction/compulsive switching. It’s so nice to wake up each morning and feel like diving into my real work, rather than feeling compelled to search for a better tool, a better way, to approach it. Learning new software is still something I enjoy and indulge in from time to time, once my most important tasks for the day are done.

Are shiny objects keeping you from your best work? Try paring things back to the basics and see what happens. What might you learn about the way you think? About what’s needed for you to do your best work?

• Use a notebook for a week instead of an app

• Plain text users: do things manually for a while, without plugins

Any time you run into friction, write it down. No need to analyse (yet).

You can discover more about what your productivity needs by stripping your task management system back to the barest of bare bones, than you ever could by adding complexity on top of complexity.

That way, when you need more, you’ll know it. It won’t just be a false hunger for empty productivity promises.

So start with a list—just one list. Written in pencil on a scrap of paper, if you like, or in a plain text file, or in your notebook, or on the back of your hand.

The first time this method starts to chafe, write down why that is. Make one change to your list (either the list itself, or the way you’re keeping it) and see if it fixes the problem.

Repeat.

Enjoy the freedom of a system that does what you need it to do, not what a fancy app tells you you need.

Remember that how you structure things reflects your thought processes, but the output can look very different from person to person even with the same way of thinking, the same principles.