I’m many years out from going back to school, but I’m still a sucker for the fresh start via school supplies. New pens? Sure. In 24 colors? Absolutely. A new ruler? Maybe! What about some three-ring binders? 

But I’m putting all that new-backpack energy into using what I have. Make do and mend, as they say. Repair and reuse. For starters, I’m trying to accept that I have enough notebooks. A new one isn’t going to make me more organized or more talented. There’s probably a dozen of them lying around, all half-used or never touched, and I’ve been training myself to tear out those old pages of notes that no longer make sense and simply start writing on the next available page. It stings a little, sure, but it’s also fine. 

A new planner also isn’t going to help me, either. Not now or in January. And of I’m honest, I can’t stand the structure of a planner, forcing me to squeeze all the ideas and responsibilities I have for one day onto a single page—or worse, a section of a page, or just a line. 

What I’ve come to accept is this: maybe (maybe) the habits I currently have in play are working for me. My current stable of very basic apps (Google Calendar, Reminders, Notes) serve me just fine, as long as I label things thoughtfully. Any structure more formal or complex  than this gets abandoned. Evernote, Notion, Asana, Smartsheet, Airtable, Basecamp. I’ve tried them, or been asked to try them, and it always feels like being in a funhouse maze, trying to figure out where I left that one half-decent idea that I can’t fully recall. 

Sometimes, there’s also the need for The Long List. The Long List is handwritten and has two tiers: one is made up of What Needs to be Done and the other is a list of Things I Want to Make Time For. Activities migrate from one tier to the next depending on the week. Sometimes what needs to be done is for me to read more novels; sometimes things I want to make time for is to learn a new skill that scares me a little. Sometimes there are doodles. Or snippy rebukes. Everything is in service to the success of The Long List.

Let me be clear that this is not intended as advice on how to organize your tasks and responsibilities. It’s only a note from the depths of my own search for order in a chaotic world. 

But I’ve talked enough about myself. What do you think you’re ready to get rid of? What are you keeping, even if it seems old and tired, but it still miraculously works? The question applies to your post-it note collection and your Sharpies, but also, the less tangible supplies: ideas, strategies, structures. 

How can we start over in a way that feels fresh without starting completely from scratch? It takes effort, doesn’t it? To look at the tired method or the old tagline, or that same font that isn’t bad, necessarily (but also doesn’t send you to the moon) and find new life in it. To tear all those old cryptic notes out of that notebook and begin again on the clean page seems like a great idea some days. 

I love nothing more than a new topic, or even a well-worn idea revived from a different perspective. What questions haven’t I taken time to consider? Or, casting my gaze even further, what questions am I not even aware of yet? That feels like a recklessly luxurious question, but is it? Where’s the data? Do we always need to look at the metrics? 

What I’m working toward here is a little more mental space, and a little less dithering time. Please note that “dithering time”–for me—is very different from “creative time.” It’s a subtle distinction: the former means I’m too anxious to accomplish anything, and the latter means I’m playing around with stuff and letting those random ideas click together. The sign of success? Additions to The Long List. If it makes it to The Long List, it has a fighting chance of making it out into the world.