lb_lee | Thanks, Past. You're Welcome, Future.

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Mori: we have many text files on our hard drive titled "How To (insert thing here)", which contain all the annoying things we need to remember, but not so often that they're easy to recall. (You know, how to reinstall custom dictionaries in LibreOffice, how to fix when our tablet's pressure sensitivity fails, how to turn whites transparent in GIMP...) Somewhere along the way, we developed the habit of ending these helpful tips with something along the lines of, "you're welcome, future self."

It works. Every time I don't have to Google how to convert straight quotes to curly, I feel gratitude to my helpful, thoughtful past self looking out for me. What a great guy! And whenever I make a new document explaining how to fix that stupid thing (like when I had to do a step-by-step How To Do All Your Taxes.txt) I'm able to weather the frustration by knowing how much trouble it will spare my future self.

Thank you, past self! You're welcome, future self.

Current Mood: silly

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

sorcyress

I did this while doing my taxes this year, and I am _very much_ looking forward to being able to use it in the future. I like including the notes specifically --that seems like a wonderful way to do it!

~Sor

From:

lb_lee

Mori: there are many things I'm shit at, but by god I can do my taxes by hand without an accountant or those thugs at TurboTax, and I am proud of that!

Especially since the same stuff every year makes me go, "wait, does that apply to me?" and the howto.txt can be like, "no, future self, we have tried and it never works."

From:

talewisefellowship

[John]

Sounds like I should do this. There are so many things I have done more than once but forget how to do by the time I have to do them

From:

lb_lee

Mori: it's suuuuper useful, especially for things that are clunkily designed. We started doing them after one too many "UGH I HAVE DONE THIS A MILLION TIMES AND KEEP FORGETTING" and it's been a boon.

That and keeping .txts of all the nicest things people have ever said about our work.

From:

talewisefellowship

[John]

Yeah the online class picker for my university is one of those clunkily designed things so I have forgotten how to use it several times. drives me nuts

From:

lb_lee

Mac: college sites are the woooorst. That and medical.

From:

storyheight

i am embarrassed to admit that I had to do it for "water-to-food ratios", once I moved on from just making rice, to making Oatmeal AND sometimes making LENTILS...

(even worse, I believe they're all basically 2x1, except maybe oatmeal... but it is that kind of uncertainty which means i need a piece of paper magnetted to the fridge :P )
-kc

From:

the_broken_tower

Stars, I feel that.

Now we just go with the finger measurement method with the rice cooker and add a little extra water if mixing in lentils. But as soon as someone has to deal with a new kind of rice or a different cooker they don't know what to do.

- Emrys (they/them)

From:

the_broken_tower

It's a good practice to have. :)

People used to do this for work and such back in the late 2010s. Not sure why they stopped doing it, since it did help and they liked doing it. Now a bunch of people are going to have to re-learn that kind of organization for RSO work.

- Emrys (they/them)

From:

itsamellama

I've been doing it a lot too, but in my notes app! As soon as I run into /any/ problem be it just once, esp. if I had to Google the solution, I plop in the problem + answers into a note, and include the source (just in case), and it has saved my butt so. many. times.

From how much water to use to boil macaroni to 'how the eff do I make exported pngs in Affinity transparent!?' to 'oh thank GOD i took a photo of the instruction booklet before i tossed it out' when i had to figure out how to pair our bluetooth controller to the pc again...