I’m always interested in ways of working smarter and over the past year I’ve been trying out a number of the productivity tips espoused by the LifeHacker and 43Folders websites. Many of their suggestions are designed to declutter your working life and reduce information overload, allowing you to focus more completely on the task in hand and get it done more effectively.
The most ambitious of these suggestions grew out of observations by Danny O’Brien about the work habits of technologists – he noticed that many of them worked from one single large text file. Everything they did (and wrote) was put in there.

I wasn’t sure about this one as it seemed ridiculous and highly constraining but decided to give it a go anyway. One year on, I now have to admit that it’s really grown on me as a way of working.