Trying Out This ‘Febles’ Thing
Okay, so I decided to give this thing I’m calling ‘febles’ a shot. Felt like my usual ways of keeping track of stuff just weren’t cutting it lately. Too many digital lists, notifications pinging all the time, you know how it is. I wanted something more… touchable, I guess.
So, the idea was simple enough. I remembered seeing something about using physical cards or whatever. My take, ‘febles’, was basically using small envelopes. Found a pack of those little brown ones, the kind you used to get seeds in, perfect size. Then I grabbed a stack of index cards.
Getting Started:
First thing I did was just dump all the tasks buzzing around my head onto these cards. One task per card. Tried to keep it short. Things like “fix that leaky pipe under the sink”, “draft the project report”, “call the insurance guy”. Nothing fancy.
Then, each card went into its own little envelope. Why envelopes? I dunno, felt neat. Maybe to keep the task ‘contained’ until I was ready? Seemed like a good idea at the time.
The Actual Doing Part:
I set up three spots on my desk. Just cleared spaces, really. One for ‘To Do’ – that’s where all the envelopes started. One for ‘Doing’ – I’d only put one or two envelopes there at a time. And one for ‘Done’ – the satisfying pile.
- Woke up, picked an envelope from ‘To Do’.
- Read the card inside.
- Moved the envelope to the ‘Doing’ spot.
- Actually did the thing on the card (or tried to!).
- Once finished, tossed the card, put the empty envelope in the ‘Done’ pile. Felt pretty good, that part.
I ran with this for about a week. Used it for work tasks, home chores, everything I could think of writing down.
How It Went
It was… interesting. Having that physical thing to move definitely made the tasks feel more real. Less likely to just disappear into a long digital list. Picking just one or two ‘Doing’ envelopes forced me to focus a bit better, I think. Couldn’t just glance at a hundred things at once.
Some Snags Though:
Writing everything down took time, especially for small, quick tasks. Felt a bit silly writing “make coffee” on a card and putting it in an envelope sometimes. And the envelopes started piling up. The ‘To Do’ stack got kinda big and messy.
Also, carrying it around wasn’t practical. This was strictly a desk system. If I thought of something while I was out, I had to remember to make an envelope for it later. Sometimes I forgot.
Final Thoughts:
So, ‘febles’. Was it a game-changer? Nah, not really. But it wasn’t useless either. I liked the physical aspect for bigger, more important tasks. It helped me commit to them. For the little day-to-day stuff, maybe not so much. Too much fiddling around.
I think I’ll keep a few envelopes on my desk for those main project things I need to tackle. But for the rest? Probably back to my slightly chaotic mix of digital notes and memory. It was a decent experiment, glad I tried it.