The first real step I've taken in my year of reinvention is to try to figure out how to dress less like a lazy geek and/or slob. Since I'm a geek and know nothing about fashion besides that I like tshirts, I started like I normally do with new projects and researched the topic like crazy. I spent way too much time reading various websites on men's fashion to see what the basics were and what I liked out of that stuff. I finally read a book I bought awhile back as well.

For my web research, I used my favorite new tool, Evernote, to keep track of what I found. Evernote’s Firefox add-on lets you clip parts out of websites and store them in a special notebook in Evernote. Then when I went to Old Navy (the first place I could think of that might have the clothes I was looking for despite never having had shopped there before, surely a triumph of advertising) and pulled up the notes in Evernote on my iphone. Yes, I’m a geek. They were having a good sale so I was able to go out on a limb and get a number of things I wouldn’t have otherwise bought for not too much money.

I’m still trying to get used to wearing long sleeves instead of my t-shirts and polos. But overall I’ve been happy with my choices. So far I think I look a little more polished without sacrificing my personal style and I’m fairly comfortable. I credit a pragmatic attitude and baby steps with this. If I had tried to jump whole-hog into everything I saw in my research, I wouldn’t have been as happy. So far so good.