Exploded View 4 — One Person’s Operating System

Part Four in one drawing. Every label points to something you have already met; look closely for the small jokes.

Part Four ended at the smallest scale there is: one person and the layer they build to run their own work.

• At the centre, small and bright, is today’s list — one plain text file, refreshed every evening (Chapter 15).
• The middle ring holds only what has a date, and the inbox: a queue to be emptied, not a list to be lived in.
• The outer ring is the archive. It asks nothing of you, which is exactly why it is safe to keep.
• The assistant does the filing, so that you can keep the thinking (Chapter 10, at home).
• Off to the right is the Sunday machine: the system for maintaining the system, the level from the interlude after Chapter 3 that controls only itself. It has a stop sign. Use it.
• In the corner, a seedling: Gall’s law (Chapter 13). Start with one small thing that works.