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Let's clear this shit up.
Let’s be honest: you have 4,000 screenshots on your phone you will never look at again. You have a "Downloads" folder that looks like a crime scene. You have fifteen tabs open right now, and you’re only actually reading this one.
And to be really honest, I don't mean "you", I mean "me", and the number of open tabs I have regularly provokes winces at work.
We aren't "drowning in noise." We are just burying ourselves in crap we don't need, and then wondering why we feel heavy.
Who am I?
I write under the name Silver Lining.
Fifteen years ago, in the chaotic "Ye Olde" days of Twitter, when it was still a public square and reliably provided updates about protests, world events and general nonsense, I was known as Silver Fountain Pen. Back then, we roamed the internet just to learn, and that pen was my most important tool. It still is.
But I’ve realised that even the best pen is useless if you don't have a blank page to write on, or a clear mental desk to get your thoughts together.
I’m not a productivity guru. I don’t wake up at 4:00 AM to take ice baths (though if I'm feeling really brave, I might do a cold blast in the shower). I am just someone who realised that you can't build a cloud castle and a calm digital life if the foundation is full of junk files from 2015.
What is Sparkling Cloud?
This site is a digital decluttering log. It is not about reaching "Zero Inbox" for the sake of spiritual enlightenment - good for those folks, not knocking it, but it's not me. This is about deleting the shit that bogs you down so you can actually get on with your life.
Here, I write about:
- The Clearance: Taking the time (and finding the nerve) to delete the shit that’s wearing you down, and avoiding it in the first place.
- The Toolkit: Rigid filing systems are boring, and somewhat hard to maintain when colliding with reality. I share code, shortcuts, and messy hacks to keep things functional without the headache. It's about finding something that works for you, not perfection. If you want to keep things, you'll want to find them too.
- The Space: clearing the noise so we can get back to roaming. Your technology should be a tool for exploring and creating, not a storage unit for old PDFs and photos of your gas meter.
If you want to make your digital life lighter, and significantly less annoying, you’re in the right place.
Sounds like a bit of you?
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