# Decimal Diary: Not-Kondo and deleting Canva

> Wednesday's blog posts will be guest appearances by Lucy from now. This week she tells us about deleting stuff.

Dear Decimal Diary,

The other day we had breakfast in a cafe with a TV showing an organise-your-house type of program.

This is right up my alley. Ten years ago Johnny gave me a book by a Japanese author called [Goodbye, Things](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30231806-goodbye-things) that had a big impact on both of us. So given that we're in Japan I was excited to see the end of the show.

When the 'experts' were finished the residents pulled lots of zany shocked delighted faces. But I was disappointed. They didn't throw anything out! It was more like a [sliding puzzle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sliding_puzzle) where they just moved stuff around.[^1]

I don't see the point of a re-organisation project if you're also not going to get rid of anything. I'm too addicted to that fresh-start feeling.[^2]

## Canva stress

This was my state of mind as I began a long-avoided [P3 task](/22.00.0034/#p3-should-donice-to-do) labelled 'Decimalise Canva properly'. There was more than 2 years' worth of work-related mess in there. Some files had IDs, most didn't. And the IDs pre-dated the [Small Business System](/sbs/) that we use now.

I really like making things in [Canva](https://www.canva.com). It's easy and fun. But I don't really like _being_ in Canva, all the buttons make me dizzy. So about 10 minutes later I thought "bugger this" and deleted everything in the account.

## Canva calm

All that's in there now is an empty area folder called `50-59 Portfolio of creative outputs`, ala [the creative pattern](/15.02/). Ready and waiting to hold new folders labelled with IDs for future creative jobs.

<JDImage
  folder="blog"
  src="0162A-Canva-1512x945.png"
  alt="A screenshot of Lucy's Canva window. It is, as described above, mostly empty."
  width={1512}
  height={945}
  caption="Figure 22.00.0162A. Canva, Kondo'd."
/>

I _could_ have spent all day re-naming old files and creating links in our current [JDex](/documentation/the-jdex) for them. But I was honest with myself and knew I'd never actually re-use those files again. And so I purged. It felt great.

## Procreate refresh

This inspired me to do some organising and tidying in the [Procreate](https://procreate.com) app on my iPad.

<JDImage
  folder="blog"
  src="0162B-Procreate_before-1180x820.png"
  alt="Lucy's Procreate home screen. Lots of stacks of images."
  width={1180}
  height={820}
  caption="Figure 22.00.0162B. Procreate, neater stacks of similar items."
/>

Again, I deleted a lot of old stuff (freeing up at least 2GB of storage). I grouped existing files into logical 'stacks' of similar work. I made filenames clearer and added IDs where there were none. And I've promised myself that when I start a new creative job in the future, it will be labelled with its ID from `50-59` ([pinky swear](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinky_swear)).

<JDImage
  folder="blog"
  src="0162C-Procreate_after-1180x356.png"
  alt="A screenshot of Lucy's Procreate screen. It shows 4 items, neatly labelled with JD IDs."
  width={1180}
  height={356}
  caption="Figure 22.00.0162C. Procreate, files with IDs."
/>

It's far from perfect, but it's a lot better. I tried to:

- Be realistic and make an improvement in the time I had,
- Get some 'comfortable awareness'[^3] of what's there and could be re-used,
- Give myself a bit of that fresh-start feeling.

I know I can't delete all my old files because that would be madness. But I do think it's good to delete _some_ files on the reg. It feels healthy. And I think that tiny Japanese apartment would have looked way better if they'd had a proper purge. So I'm going to keeping poking around my digital life, neatening and deleting as I go.

## Hot tip: circle masks

I just learned how to do this – if you've ever wanted to crop a regular photo into a fancy circle, you can do this really easily in Canva:[^4]

- Upload your photo in to the 'Uploads' area,
- Open a new blank canvas in the dimensions you want,
- In the 'Elements' tab search for 'Frames',
- Find the circle and drag it on to your canvas,
- Go to your Uploads and drag your photo onto the frame,
- It automatically crops it into a circle,
- Make it the size you want and hit download.

<JDImage
  folder="blog"
  src="0162D-Duck-300x300.png"
  alt="A photo of a duck, in a circle."
  width={300}
  height={300}
  caption="Figure 22.00.0162D. A duck in a circle."
/>

Canva is fuuuun.

From Lucy

[^1]: Which included a ridiculous amount of stuffed animals for an adult couple who live in a tiny apartment.

[^2]: There's even a video dedicated to this [at `43`](/jdu/workshop/40-49/4301-the-process/) in the [Workshop](/jdu/workshop) where Johnny basically says "don't bring a whole lot of old crap into your beautiful new zen house that you've just designed". 😬

[^3]: A concept that's being explored in the new task and project management course we're making for [Johnny.Decimal University](/jdu).

[^4]: An account with basic features like this is free. There are paid tiers if you want more features or storage.