You might expect this to be a story about a big overhaul. A new routine. A new system. Some dramatic shift that changed my entire life. It’s not. The tweaks that helped me this year were small, almost forgettable on paper, but they changed the way I work in a real way.
1. Cleaning Up My Desktop and Using Mac Spaces
My desktop used to be chaos. Files stacked everywhere, tabs screaming for attention, screenshots from months ago sitting in the corner like clutter I refused to face. Cleaning it up and setting up different Mac Spaces gave me instant mental relief. Editing on one screen, admin on another, writing somewhere else. Flipping through them feels like entering different rooms instead of drowning in one messy one. It sounds small, but it changed how quickly I could focus.
2. Putting My Assistant’s Tasks Into ClickUp
I stopped trying to remember everything. I stopped micromanaging in my head. Moving my assistant’s responsibilities into ClickUp gave me back hours of mental space. No more repeating myself. No more trying to keep track of tiny details that were not meant to live in my memory long term. The system did the holding so I didn’t have to.
3. Making Everything Easy to Find
I finally organized my digital world in a realistic way. Client folders, export folders, contracts, brand materials, all sit in the same place every time. I am not spending ten minutes searching for something that should take ten seconds. That alone lowered my daily frustration more than any fancy productivity hack ever could.
4. Protecting My Energy So My Workflow Could Breathe
This one wasn’t technical. It was personal. I stopped responding instantly. I stopped letting people treat my home like a drop in space. I stopped explaining myself in long messages when I was tired. When I protected my attention, I protected my ability to work. A quiet mind made everything else flow better.
Nothing about this is glamorous, but these tiny adjustments made my days smoother and my work easier to manage. Sometimes the shift you need isn’t a reinvention. It’s a small tweak that makes room for you to breathe again.
