So, this name, Geoff Macdonald, yeah? I kept hearing it bandied about. People in forums, some random blog comments, you know how it is. “Oh, you gotta look into Geoff Macdonald, he’s the man for figuring out X,” or “Geoff Macdonald’s methods for Y really changed my game.” Sounded like one of those figures everyone’s supposed to know if you’re trying to, I don’t know, get your life together or something.
Naturally, I got curious. Thought, okay, let’s see what this Geoff Macdonald is all about. Maybe there’s some secret sauce I’m missing out on. So, I did the usual. Fired up the search engine, typed in “Geoff Macdonald,” and braced myself for wisdom. What I got was… well, a bit of a muddle, to be honest.
First off, there wasn’t just one Geoff Macdonald, it seemed. There was a Geoff Macdonald who was apparently a tennis coach. Another one seemed to be involved in some kind of academic research, papers and all. Then some scattered mentions that were so vague, it could’ve been anyone. I spent a good afternoon just trying to figure out which Geoff Macdonald was the one people were vaguely hyping up for whatever vague reason they were hyping him.
I did find some articles, some advice attributed here and there that might have been the “right” Geoff Macdonald. Stuff like “be consistent” or “define your goals.” You know, the kind of advice that’s not wrong, but it’s like telling someone to “breathe to stay alive.” Not exactly groundbreaking, was it? I was expecting some kind of revelation, and instead, I felt like I was just reading fortune cookie messages. Maybe the real gold was hidden behind a paywall, or in some exclusive club, who knows? All I know is, I came away more confused than enlightened. Felt like a waste of perfectly good procrastination time.
It really got me thinking, though. This whole thing reminded me of a wild goose chase I went on a few years back. This wasn’t about Geoff Macdonald, but some other “productivity guru” who was all the rage back then. It’s why I’m so skeptical now.
Okay, so picture this: it was around 2018, I think. I was feeling swamped, like my digital life was a complete garbage fire. Emails piling up, files scattered everywhere, the usual chaos. Then I stumbled upon this online personality, let’s call him Mr. Zen, who promised a ‘revolutionary system’ to organize everything. He had this super slick website, testimonials, the whole nine yards. And I, like a fool, bought into it. Signed up for his expensive online course.
The first module? Drastic measures. He was all about, “You gotta delete ALL your social media for 60 days!” and “Archive your entire inbox without looking at it!” Brave new world, right? So I did it. Well, I tried. Deleting social media meant I missed my cousin’s baby shower invite, which was exclusively on a Facebook event. Nice. Archiving my entire inbox? Yeah, that meant I also archived three urgent client emails that I then missed the deadlines for. Super productive.
Then came the file organization part. His system involved this incredibly complex, nested folder structure with color codes and specific naming conventions. It took me an entire weekend, no joke, just to rename and move my existing files. My desktop looked clean, sure. But could I find anything? Nope. It was like I’d hidden my own stuff from myself. I’d be searching for a document I knew I had, and it would be buried five folders deep under some bizarre new name I was supposed to remember.
The whole thing was a disaster. I spent more time trying to maintain this ‘perfect system’ than actually doing any work. After about a month of pure frustration, I just gave up. Went back to my old, slightly messy, but ultimately functional way of doing things. It took another weekend just to undo the damage and try to retrieve what I could. What a colossal waste of time and money. That Mr. Zen guy probably had a whole team managing his pristine digital life while preaching digital asceticism to the rest of us chumps.
So, when this Geoff Macdonald thing came up, and it felt similarly vague and hard to pin down, I just got that same old feeling. Maybe there’s a brilliant Geoff Macdonald out there with life-changing advice. Or maybe it’s just another name people throw around. These days, I’m a lot more cautious. I’ll stick to what works for me, even if it’s not guru-approved. At least I know where my keys are, metaphorically speaking. Most of the time, anyway.
