Starting Fresh.

Probably after my third or fourth security briefing, I made a decision that work would not travel home. My phone (and iPad) have access to my work email and calendar if I need it, but not to documents, or source code. The computer stays at the office. How luxurious.

This presents an opportunity. I can have a computer at home that doesn’t need email, or messages, or other work distractions. If I really needed those, I have my phone. My personal computer could be for hobbies—for my creative outlets.

So I started thinking about what I wanted to do, and tangentially, what I needed from my tools.

An old colleague of mine had an interesting policy for the computer where he developed: No notifications. His thinking was simple: Why pollute your creative space with messaging, social media, and email, if you’re already carrying a device purpose built for them? You probably have a phone and/or tablet within reach.

Even better, the processing load on your computer goes down when you stop running distracting programs. You get a faster computer by running less. Instead of the catch all, do-everything computer, I can choose any form factor that suits me.

This is gonna be fun.