Hug Yourself. Hug a Friend. Hug a Shrink. Or work. Work hard. Work will save you. Work is the only thing that will see you through this.
– Sam Baldwin, Sleepless in Seattle
A Blank Canvas
by AndrewMackay
Hug Yourself. Hug a Friend. Hug a Shrink. Or work. Work hard. Work will save you. Work is the only thing that will see you through this.
– Sam Baldwin, Sleepless in Seattle
by AndrewMackay
I watched Paul Miller’s Ted Talk. He’s the tech journalist that took a year off of the internet. I really enjoyed listening to him talk about his experience. I can’t wait to read the book, actually.
I see a lot of my own angst and worry in his journey. I feel his questions about productivity and the internet on a really gut-punch level. I guess I wish I could figure out which question to ask: Is my problem that the internet robs me of productivity or is my problem that I don’t really want to work hard?
I think I like to think it’s the first question. But maybe it’s the second.
by AndrewMackay
Man, if you want to get into reading how-to-get-stuff-done posts on the internet, you’re starting down a path that has no end. I know this because I’ve read more than my fair share of those posts.
And now, for your edification, I’m going to add to the ever-growing pile. Let me say, though, this is a less-prescriptive, more descriptive approach.
Lately, I’ve been trying to focus (for the umpteenth time) on creating more than I consume. Output > input. And here’s what I’ve done:
– I’ve cut out extraneous news sources. I read one website for local news and another for national news. If those two venues don’t cover it, I’ve decided that my world won’t end for not knowing it.
– I’ve cut out the bulk of my reading that was not related to the things I say I care about. I did a mind map of this, actually, in classic “I’m-a-geek-who-gets-things-done” style. I mapped out the things that I care about and then the things that it looks like I care about based on my behaviour. I’m working to eliminate the stuff between.
– Focus on enjoying experiences rather than understanding minutiae behind experiences. I love trivia. I love details. But as a result, I can spend a whole football game reading up on the technology that allows them to show the first-down line. Seriously. I can explain it to you in detail. I know that they moved in the past few years from that process being a two man operation to mostly being a one-man gig. I know the reasons that it’s a combination of art and science.
None of that contributes to my enjoyment of a football game, though. So, I’m trying to appreciate the experience for what it is.
That’s about it, at least lately. These are the things that are working. What’s working for you?
by AndrewMackay
For Christmas I got slip-
pers. They are warm like the fires
of Mount Doom. Awesome.
by AndrewMackay
I’m sure there’s a deep metaphorical lesson in all this, I’m just not sure what it is:
I love my laptop; it was a big compromise when it was purchased. I had spent three years in Macbook Pro bliss. But, going to work for myself meant I needed to compromise. $2400 to replace the work macbookpro wasn’t going to be forthcoming. So, I ended up with a Lenovo laptop that for the last year and a half has been mostly great.
I say mostly great because about 9 months ago, right before the warranty ran out, the speakers started to go fuzzy. Lenovo offered to let me ship it to them so they could take a look. They estimated a four week turn around, and were adamant that if there was any exterior damage (and there is… it survived a pretty decent drop once, with a dinged edge to show for it), they’d only fix it at my cost. I figured, meh… it’s plugged into either my external monitor or earphones most of the time, so I never shipped it.
Which I came to regret four months later, when the fan started to click. At first, I thought it was my hard drive. That was stressful. Clicking hard drive = bad day. But, it was just the fan. It was already not the quietest machine, but a clicking fan was… well, annoying.
I ordered a replacement. I bought the right thermal grease. And then I sat on it, because, frankly, I didn’t want to tackle the enormous task of taking this laptop, which clocks in at .9 inches thick, apart and digging in the guts.
But I did it. I would go through the steps for you, but honestly, here’s what you need to know:
Lots of little screws.
Lots of little cables
I have giant hands
Somehow, I made it all the way through, and when I came out the other side and powered on the computer, everything worked.
Praise God! There was much prayer in the process, and much fretting, but at the end, everything works. And the fan is blissfully quiet. I’m a pretty happy man.
I guess the aesop-ish lesson is, even if you have sausage fingers, you can disconnect miniaturized io cables… if you’re careful.