Alright, so I kept seeing this name pop up everywhere, you know? Sarah Simic. It was like, one day she wasn’t there, and the next, bam, Sarah Simic this, Sarah Simic that. Mostly about her so-called ‘effortless organization’ system. Sounded like a load of something, if you ask me, but hey, I was in a bit of a rut.
You see, my last project wrapped up, and the next one was delayed, so I had some time to kill. Don’t you just love it when they say “it’s just a minor delay” and then weeks turn into months? Classic. Anyway, I thought, why not? Let’s see what this Sarah Simic magic is all about. Maybe I could finally get my digital life in order, or at least pretend to.
My Grand Experiment with the Simic Method
So, I dived in. The first thing I tried to tackle was her ‘Inbox Enlightenment’ technique. Sounded fancy, right? The core idea, as far as I could tell from the bits and pieces I gathered, was:
- Only check emails twice a day. Twice!
- Respond immediately if it takes less than two minutes.
- Archive everything else into a complicated folder system that looked like a map of the London Underground.
- Unsubscribe from 90% of newsletters.
Okay, the unsubscribing part? That actually felt good. I clicked ‘unsubscribe’ like a man possessed. My inbox did look cleaner for a hot minute. But the ‘twice a day’ rule? That was a joke. I’m trying to coordinate with people, actual human beings, not send messages into the void hoping for a reply sometime next Tuesday.
Then there was her ‘Mindful Media Consumption’ strategy. This involved curating your news feed to only show ‘uplifting and productive’ content. I tried. I really did. I unfollowed a bunch of accounts that, sure, were probably time-wasters. But my feed became so bland, so… sterile. It was like eating plain rice cakes for every meal. Uplifting? More like mind-numbing.
I spent a good week trying to stick to these Simic principles. My desk was supposedly clearer, my digital files slightly more organized (I think?), but I felt more stressed. I was constantly worried I was ‘doing it wrong’ or missing something important because I wasn’t glued to my inbox like a normal person in my line of work.
The Big Realization, Or Whatever
It all came to a head when I missed a critical update on a shared document. Why? Because I was being ‘mindful’ and not checking notifications. That’s when I thought, this is nuts. This whole Sarah Simic thing, it’s probably great if you’re, I don’t know, a hermit living on a mountaintop with a great Wi-Fi connection but no actual deadlines.
It reminded me of this one time, years ago, when I tried that ‘polyphasic sleep’ thing. You know, sleeping for 20 minutes every four hours? Yeah, lasted about two days before I nearly fell asleep standing up in a meeting. Some things just sound good in theory, or work for a very specific type of person, but for the rest of us mortals? Not so much.
So, I quietly abandoned the Sarah Simic experiment. My inbox is back to its usual beautiful chaos, my newsfeed is a mix of actual news and cat videos, and you know what? I’m getting things done. Maybe ‘effortless organization’ is just another one of those internet myths. Or maybe Sarah Simic just has way fewer emails than I do. Good for her, I guess. As for me, I’ll stick to my own messy, but functional, system. It hasn’t failed me yet. Well, mostly.
