Julie is in the bedroom working on a research paper that will bring her a step closer to her master’s degree* and I’m enjoying some relatively mindless writing in the office. My blog—this blog—has cobwebs in the corners. That may be appropriate for the upcoming halloween season, but I’m not happy with it.
I’ve always said I wanted to be a writer. I got paid to write for years and still do to a great extent, but I don’t feel like a writer at all. Not in my heart. I don’t feel like a writer because I don’t write. I’m (still) working to change that.
Here is a quick bit from one of my favorite writers on the Internet these days, Merlin Mann , from an article about personal productivity published by The Guardian:
“Joining a Facebook group about personal productivity is like buying a chair about jogging,” says Mann, who had a personal epiphany when he realised [sic] that his work had become “less about finishing the tasks that mean a lot to me and more about an almost talmudic debate about how to think about those tasks”. He switched focus to emphasise [sic] the need to “make and do” as well as talk when it comes to productivity, arguing that tools matter but only once you have developed the expertise; before you get the expertise they can be nothing more than a distraction.
As he puts it: “Will an iPhone productivity app make you more productive? It will make you more productive if you’re in a position to become more productive. But better running shoes are not going to make you a faster runner if you’ve never run before – they are just going to make you a fat man with running shoes.”
* – I’m incredibly proud of my wife for her hard work juggling her job, being a great mom, and finishing school.