On this day, one year ago, I wrote a post titled "Reduce & Simplify". In that post, I wrote about how I planned to get rid of complexity and remove unnecessary "stuff" from my process.

I did almost none of those things. In fact, I may have made it worse.

So, I'm going to try again in 2025. This time, instead of switching to "simpler" apps, I plan to use the ones I'm already invested in. Mostly, that means Emacs. I'm pretty good at using Emacs. I've been at it for more than a decade. It has everything I could need for notes, publishing, etc. It can be a difficult app, but after all this time, it's actually simpler than the alternatives, because I don't need to learn anything to get stuff done.

I'm planning to apply this thinking to as many things as I can. It's not easy for me. I like to play with software. It's fun to try new ways of doing things. As long as I can distinguish between playing with something new and "OK, THIS is the way I'm doing everything from now on!" I should be fine.

Here's the idea, as of today:

• Notes: Emacs (avoid Tinderbox or Obsidian or TiddlyWiki except for specialized tasks)
• Tasks: Org-mode (with OmniFocus for capture and mobile)
• Photos: Lightroom Classic (Trying to wean myself from Capture One. If I get really ambitious, I might even drop back to using only Bridge and Camera Raw.)
• Terminal: Apple Terminal (Ghostty is cool, but I don't live in a terminal, so Terminal.app should be fine)
• File management: Finder. (No more DEVONthink, which I love, but is unnecessary.)
• Notebook: Still working through this. Probably just one, the Midori "MD Notebook" lined. Not sure if I'll use the Hobonichi.
• Camera(s): Leica MP, Olympus OM-2n, Hasselblad 500C/M, Ricoh GRIII. (There's no way in hell I'm going to be able to limit myself to one camera/one lens)
• Blog: Just this one. Using Kirby. (Any bets on this?)

I am finding it difficult to make some of these decisions. I may determine that I don't want to decide on some of these things. Still, the background noise throughout all of it will be "Reduce & Simplify". It's good to have goals.