krisguy's blog

Time for me to shine.

People don't realize how difficult and how hard it is to say that. Every person I have ever read about, met, watched, listened to, talked with, lusted after, well... hopefully you get the point, will confirm that every person every day confronts this issue. It just may not go by that name.

I'm sitting in a Barnes and Noble Café, and this lady in a tracksuit asked to plug in her laptop in the outlet next to me, just to get her work done. She put it to me like this: "I'll never get my work done at home."

I understand roadblocks to creativity and production enough to understand what she meant as she said it. Focus and familiar don't go together. I know every time I get to sit in front of my desk at home, I don't get to do a thing because of family obligations (like dinner, jeez, you think I need food every day?), my own ego/lack of, and my own procrastination, due to the comfort of my home.

I figure the best way to beat my procrastination is by concentration, but how is the best environment for me to beat this? It's a mix of space, tools, and integration.

I'm starting in a space by working in a typical café environment. I can hear trendy music, my neighbors verbally replying to their e-mail, and kids ordering a cookie. However, this kind of environment lends itself to decent productivity for me due to the fact if my mind drifts, I have something to catch it, either by a beverage, or the background music, but the tables force me not to converse with the other patrons.

I can rotate this out to a bench outside, park, picnic, arcade, as my cabin fever waxes. My living room will work after my kids go to bed. The key is to make sure that there is only 2-3 other stimuli (of your choice) in the area to make sure the mind doesn't stop working if it loses focus.

I don't carry a laptop. I don't even OWN a laptop. I hear the torches being lit and pitchforks being sharpened as I say that, but I don't care. I can type just as fast on a QWERTY keyboard on a mobile phone as I can on a QWERTY board on a beige box, mobile phones let you do one task at a time well, and with my preference for Palm and now Windows phones (screw you Ballmer, they are always going to be WinMo in my mind), full word processing and spreadsheets at hand. For me, PCs in general mean that too much can go on at the same time (twitter, e-mail, surfing, Netflix instant streaming, fill in this blank:______), especially now since I have discovered the joy of dual monitors. I'll leave that for downtime, but if I have to work, I go to my phone first, PC only if my phone can't do the job well.

I use the tools that work best to do the job for me: my Samsung Epix (your phone may vary), a beverage of some sort, my diabetes bag (with all my meds, testing stuff, etc. - More on that later), usually a book/mag of some sort, and the easiest to use device ever: pen and paper.

You just did a double take. Yes, that actually happened. He said PEN AND PAPER!

I don't care who you are, but constricting yourself to one tool without having pen and paper is crippling yourself in every possible way. Pen and paper is still the first creative tool everyone learns on, the most flexible with least effort, and cheap. On the same page, I can have text, calculations, drawings, charts, graphs, illustrations, music, and even motion pictures (by way of storyboards and flipbooks). Name one piece of software that can do all that in the same area without having to open other helper apps.

Now that I've gone on about how I simplify my tools, I'll bring them together and show you my integration.

I usually keep a spiral lined notebook (OCD won't let me own unlined paper) and a pen or two with me, and I start by dropping ideas on paper, however the mood takes me. Could be a list, chart, mindmap, or image, whatever feels right at the moment.

The next thing I do is archive each page using my phone and Evernote (http://www.evernote.com). The Windows Mobile client is awesome, even including a virtual blank sheet of paper to "write" on, it's just too small on a 320x320 screen. The Evernote WinMo client (and the iPhone client too) can take pictures and upload them, and their tech can even make text in pics searchable! Great for an idea you don't have juice for today, but another day.

Side note: make it a habit to check your stash of ideas at least every 2 days.

Then the blogging starts with the best tool for the job. Mine are Word Mobile and e-mail to Blogger for text, flickr.com for pics, Qik.com for video, and I'm trying to figure a good solution for audio uploads.

The stimuli are multiplying like rabbits here, so I'm off for now.