Month: February 2013

If you go to an office, most likely you have a bag that it is with you constantly. Your daily bag. Your computer, papers, and more are contain in there. You carry that with you, constantly. Well it is time to purge it. (and you better do it constantly)
You will find useless stuff, outdated stuff, stuff you should leave at home or at the office (like the extra charger or the external mouse) and stuff that never make it to work or to home. Purge the bag!
Most people just use the bag, carry the bag, use the bag. Add stuff that become obsolete but never leave the bag. Complaint about how heavy it is and think, someday, I should or I would, but that day never happen.
Try once a week to purge the bag. Sunday, before the week begins. Empty the bag. Think for a moment before bring anything back to the bag. If there is doubt when you grab something, the answer is NO.

I know many perfectionists. They are really nice people. They are a pain to work with, but they are nice people in general. The problem, they have a really hard time, nothing ever is perfect, therefore, rarely they are happy with the imperfections around them.
There is always something else to improve, something else to do, something else that can be done to make that thing. Even with all those, will never be perfect.
Since nothing can be perfect, and you can’t be perfect, stop trying. Instead go and do, produce, or as Seth Godin said Ship.
When in doubt, let it go. If you hold something until is perfect, it will never be out of your hands, and that will be a shame.

I am so bad at this. I should be much better. I know it is important. I know how important it is. Regardless, I am really bad at it. More times that I am going to admit I simply collapse; exhausted.
You may be asking, why if I am telling you that I manage this so poorly, and I am giving you the advise. Because even that I am bad managing my own, I know how important is.
You should work into not depleting your energy levels, it is much more easier to recover from a mid energy level than from a low energy level; and even that we all know that we slow down when the levels are really low, we all do it.
My best days, are those in which I slow down, recharge, and then speed up. Some people said you should recharge every forty five minutes.
I am currently working with an app on the iPhone called MotionX, that alert me if I am not move in sixty minutes. My goal when I get the alarm is at least, drink a glass of water and refill it. Not much, but it’s an improvement.

This week on the #ProdChat (Wednesday 8:00 P.M. EST) we discussed about the good and bad of email. At certain point someone mention that the problem was that the temptation to open the email is huge and once this happened, many hours are wasted and there was many times no chance to return to the original task.
I mentioned then that on those days that it is hard to focus, I simply unplug the internet cable, turn off the modem and I leave myself totally solitude.
This force me to focus or see a blank browser page. Many times this is enough to help me (and motivate me) to begin the task, at least to work on the why my attention is on a different place than where I need it. Once certain amount of time pass I simply plug it again.
This time in which it isn’t possible to be online, it is always fantastic, specially because even when I get distracted, I have no place to go, other than the blank browser page.
Have you ever try unplug your internet cable to work? Why not?

I have a list of restaurants that we love. I even have one for places we go often. We live in Fort Wayne, Indiana. I have a list of restaurants to try (and that we had and love) in Indianapolis and Chicago. Why? Nothing worse than think where to go. A lot of times people tell you that you should try this or that, but if you don’t collected you will forget, and will never go. A miss opportunity.
How many times you had been on a Saturday, looking for a place to eat around your house? I pull the list, go over it, and move on.
I even leave the bad ones (with a note, so we don’t go again).

We get grumpy and moody in many cases because we take our life way to seriously. Most things will not matter in five to ten years, but because things didn’t happen in the way we plan, we are convinced that it’s over.
I am all for goals, I am all for making things happen, but we need to understand that things happen, things get delayed even with our best intentions. Life is about the journey, if you are not enjoy in the journey, life it’s worthless.
Learn to take your life less seriously. Laugh at yourself. Relax. Smile. Be nice. There is only one journey, and it is your job to make it memorable and fun.

One of the reasons I love working on the iPad is the ability that had to kept me focused on the task on hand instead of the 1000 other things that use to happen while working on the MacBook before. There is no secret that I do around 90% of my work on the iPad for there is that other 10%.
Let’s clarify that I think with enough time and a lot of effort I can do most likely everything on that 10% on the iPad, the problem is the MacBook, is much more efficient doing those, so there is no sense spending the time and effort.
Since I use the MacBook so little I decided to delete all, and start from scratch. Basically only install software on a if-needed basis. One of those applications that made the cut is Scrivener. I write on plain text, on the iPad, but after the text always goes to Scrivener before goes to the editor and after it come back for final preparation so I can release the files to the world. I have a new book coming in two weeks (as on February 28) and another one that it’s getting shipped to the editor as I write this text. Both process happen in there. That means I have been working on the Mac the last couple of days.
The interesting thing was, that because it doesn’t have many things installed, I was able to work and focus much more than what I remembered was possible while I worked on that machine. I move to the iPad only, because I constantly struggle for focus and concentration, I get distracted so easy. I had acquire too many bad habits that I used on that MacBook that didn’t allow me to be productive. It was interesting how much more productive I was able to be now that it isn’t my main machine.
Does that mean I am planning to get back to the MacBook? No.
Does that mean I am getting rid of my iPad? No.
As I continue struggling with focus and concentration, it means is that I may need to revisit how the iPad works. What I do on the iPad. Understand what made my relationship with working on the MacBook end badly and how I can prevent that to happen on the iPad.
I spend hours in front of the iPad, writing, reading, thinking and more. I need to understand what help me to maintain the focus and what take it away. Protect those that help me maintain the focus and remove the others to another device, or another page or something. I have not yet figure it out, but I will for sure share the journey here.

We all have a dream home. Some even live in their dream home. How they created and identified that was their dream home? Simple, they begin a list, and spend years cultivating the list.
We had over the years written down some of the things that we like our dream house to have. We are not there yet, but we will know when we found it (or build it).
Create a list, so you don’t forget that fireplace in the master bedroom, or that door to the backyard on the home office. We believe that we will remember, the reality is we will forget. It is that list what will help you to keep it alive and to remember all those neat and cool ideas.
i.e. Our list had stuff like a pool with a grill that can sit people comfortably around, area for the kids to play, separate bathrooms on the master suite, guest bedroom with a bath, a really massive kitchen. We even have details on how and what we want to feel on those spaces when we get them.

As a writer sometimes you just look at the white page trying to breathe, trying to relax, trying to make the words flow.
Being a writer it is one of those interesting things, it seems so easy, it seems so simple… Sadly at least for this writer it is not.

“A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.”
Thomas Mann

That sound more like me, and it is on those moments that I know that I am doing what I should be doing. It is not that it’s easy, it is that I will not do anything else.
Writing is hard because in many lines you need to deal with something inside of you that no one see, most of the time you have no clue where that blank page will take you (or not), it is an exploration as E.L. Doctorow said.

“Writing is an exploration. You start from nothing and learn as you go”
E. L. Doctorow

Finally, we all face that white page, there is no difference between the amateur and the professional writer. Both deal with the fear of the blank page, of the emptiness, the fear of what you may or may not discover, which demon you will find, what ugly and obscure thing it is inside your soul. We all look at the blank page and go crazy, there is only one difference between the amateur and the professional one… The later didn’t abandon that page until wasn’t blank anymore.

“A professional writer is an amateur who didn’t quit.”
Richard Bach

 

If your password is Love123, please stop reading this and change it. I am serious. (if it is 1234567890123, you must know that that password and no password is the same, even no password may be safer)
Most of our life is online. Identity theft is a scary reality. We can access bank, retirement, and so much information online, that it is scary that people use those poor passwords.
There are many applications like 1Password, I use to have SplashData for years before I move to 1Password. Doesn’t matter which one you use, the important is that you use complex and long passwords that can help to kept you protected.
I use 1Password and even create them for me, store them, and allow me to access from anywhere. Not only that, if you try to break in, after X attempts the file on that device is deleted. Something that I am glad it does.
If you go online, you should:
1.- Have real passwords.
2.- Store them on an application like 1Password.
3.- Change them at least twice a year (I like to do it during Daylight Saving time)
It’s important to have real and secure passwords. It’s important to have them in a secure location. It’s important that you don’t use the same password everywhere.