You work for yourself

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You work for yourself You do. I don’t care if you report to a manager and you turn up every day to the Acme factory line, you work for yourself. Act like you do because it will help your productivity – and act like you do work for yourself because you do work for yourself.

The good thing about fulltime employment – I’m guessing here because I’m freelance and haven’t had one fulltime post in 20 years – is that you do get to relax a bit. Don’t. You’re there to work and you are there to learn, to get value out of your company and be of value to it.

Nobody employs you because they’re nice. Hopefully they are but you earned your job there and it is costing them. A rule of thumb is that your salary is about half what it costs a company to employ you. (On top of the money you take home there is that much again the cost of hiring and tax and insurance and health and providing the equipment you need to do your job. The figure falls down the more you get paid but on average, roughly, kinda, that’s the sum we’re talking about.)

If you’ve done enough today to make you a bargain for them, then barring calamitous company misfortunes, your job is safe.

What I’m concerned about is how much you’ve got from the company. Firms don’t owe you anything but your salary and presumably they’re paying you that. But is what you’re doing valuable to you? Are you enjoying it and is it stretching you, growing you? We are not in a world where you can just walk out of a job if it isn’t, but you can look to see if it is and you can change things if it ain’t.

Don’t wait to be told what to do by a manager. Do what you’re there for and what you know how to do, then look for more. They’ll love you for all those words like initiative and discipline but you’ll love it for how it makes your job more interesting.

Plus, taking charge of what you do at your job helps you take charge of your career. And remember, you work for yourself. I’ve mentioned this. You’re just choosing to work with this firm for now. You have to keep earning your place there but the firm needs to keep earning its place having you.

This is all on my mind because I read some article saying that employees today need much more reassurance and appraisals than they did before. It’s on my mind because I had to make a fairly big business purchase decision and I realised that after 20 years I am still looking for permission from someone to do what I need to do.

That’s the curse of being a writer, though: we secretly believe someone is going to come along and stop us.

Weekend read: A Brief History of the Wristwatch

Posted by William Gallagher

On July 9, 1916, The New York Times puzzled over a fashion trend: Europeans were starting to wear bracelets with clocks on them. Time had migrated to the human wrist, and the development required some explaining.

“Until recently,” the paper observed, “the bracelet watch has been looked upon by Americans as more or less of a joke. Vaudeville artists and moving-picture actors have utilized it as a funmaker, as a ‘silly ass’ fad.”

A Brief History of the Wristwatch – Uri Friedman, The Atlantic (27 May 2015)

Read the full piece.

The polarising new MacBook keyboard

Posted by William Gallagher

This is a very specific kind of Blank Screen post: it’s ostensibly about one product that, statistically speaking, you are unlikely to have and, also statistically speaking, you are unlikely to ever get. I’m really selling this to you, aren’t I? Okay, try this: it’s to do with keyboards, which we all spend a lot of time with and which you, admit it, have strong opinions about.

Okay, it’s just me. But I’ve been pulling 16-hour days at the keyboard lately, the feel of these things is hugely important and the potential risk to my wrists is gigantically important to me. Then Apple’s gone and brought out a new keyboard, a new type of keyboard and, seriously, when Apple does something, the rest of the industry mocks it while working furiously to copy it.

(Are you on a notebook computer now? See the way the keyboard is toward the back and you’ve got palmrests at the front around a trackpad? That was Apple’s idea and there is now notebook you can buy that does not do exactly this.)

So a new design of keyboard is likely to appear in other machines, from Apple and others, now that it’s out there. And Apple made such a fuss of it at the launch that I was suspicious: the company doth protest too much and all that. Then people started getting the new MacBook that has this keyboard and they hated it.

Well, some hated, most people thought they would put up with it. The travel is shallow, the distance you have to press the keys before they register is tiny. The keys are also wider but it’s chiefly the travel and how that feels that is making people unhappy.

Except me.

I went in to an Apple Store specifically to try out the keyboard and I actually liked it.

But that was a few minutes. Now here’s a fella who’s spent eight weeks typing on it:

Apple’s new MacBook uses a new keyboard mechanism. The keys are larger and the throw [aka travel] is less, and so when people try it out for just a minute ot two in the Apple store, it may feel strange, different and even undesirable.

I’ve spent eight weeks with my new MacBook now, and one of things I like about it the most is the keyboard. Just like the single USB-C port, past experience doesn’t prepare or guide one for using this keyboard because it’s so different from what Apple has delivered in the past.

Eight Weeks With the MacBook Keyboard: Total Love – The Mac Observer

Read the full piece for a more informed view than I can give you. But then take away that if this keyboard does come to all computers, it’s fine.

(Lots of) Music to Write By

Posted by William Gallagher

I do use music while I’m writing. If I’m doing something that needs pace and energy, I’ll play something loud and strong. If I just need to cut out the rest of the world, I used to often tell iTunes to give me an hour’s music and I’d just write until it stopped.

Not true.

I used to intend to do that but when the music would stop I regularly carried on because I didn’t notice.

One or twice I’ve sat with headphones on and nothing playing, again occasionally because I’ve forgot but sometimes to just cut out some sound, cut out some people.

Now I’ve got a newfound addiction to Apple Music and its 30 million tracks – just a moment ago, I called out to my iphone “Hey, Siri, play Eighties pop music” and that’s exactly what it’s doing.

What I have never done and can’t imagine ever doing is compiling a list of music to suit certain writing moods. But this is the age of the internet, if it can be imagined, it’s been imagined and it’s right here:

Within that little writerly brain of yours in incredible potential. So many ideas, so many intricate plots and mind-boggling character arcs. You’re amazing, really. Oh, consider the possibilities if you had the proper music selection to listen to for each and every scene?

Welcome to SoundFuel, the only writing music directory you’ll ever need!

Music is like a drug – a very powerful one. It stimulates our brains, pricks at our hearts and ignites in us a soaring range of emotions. Music is the fuel that every wordsmith needs to craft excellent works of literature. Whatever the mood, genre or theme you may be looking for, you’ll find scores of epic soundtracks to fuel your creativity and enhance your writing experience!

SoundFuel – Music You Can’t Write Without : The Directory

They’re right that this is a directory rather than a list: my calling it a list is like taking the old Yellow Pages phone books and calling them a leaflet. There is a lot of music here. A lot. In the time it will take you to just read the directory you could’ve actually written something.

But who wants to do that?

Read the full piece. And thanks to Alex Townley who found and shared with the same combination of who-would-do-this and secretly oooh-might-be-handy attitude that I’ve now got.

Just shut up and get on with it

Posted by William Gallagher

If you did it now, it would be done. And if you did it now, you can bet your life it wouldn’t take very long. But instead we put things off and we worry about them and we spend eleventh-billion hours thinking about something that would take us ten minutes to do.

I’d say more but haven’t I just said it and haven’t you just nodded at me? I’m going to shut up and get on with some stuff. Join me. I’ll put the kettle on – no, no, I won’t, I’ll do this first, then I’ll put the kettle on.

Not too hot, not too loud

Posted by William Gallagher

I may be addicted to Apple Music but there’s an argument that I should turn it down a bit. Also, in a week when it’s been bleedin’ hot, there’s a more obvious argument that cooler equals better.

This is an interesting piece about our whole working environment, from noise to temperature and how it affects our creativity. Here’s a bit about music:

Far from blasting music through out headphones, it turns out that a moderate noise level is the sweet spot for creativity. Ambient noise gets our creative juices flowing unlike silence, and doesn’t put us off the way high levels of noise do.

Here’s how it works: moderate noise levels increase processing difficulty which promotes abstract processing, leading to higher creativity. Or, in other words, when we struggle just enough to process things as we normally would, we resort to more creative approaches.

In high noise levels, our creative thinking is impaired because we’re overwhelmed and struggle to process information efficiently. I know I’ve felt this when it’s lunchtime in my co-working space, or my neighbors are renovating their apartment while I’m trying to work.

How to Optimize Your Environment for Creativity with The Perfect Temperature, Lighting and Noise Levels – Belle Beth Cooper, Bufferapp Blog (12 February 2014)

Read the full piece.

Via Lifehacker.

The Onion: Study: Majority Of Time Machine Owners Use Device Primarily To Get Couple More Hours Of Sleep

Posted by William Gallagher

EVANSTON, IL—In a study published Thursday that looked into the most prevalent uses of the groundbreaking technology, researchers from Northwestern University confirmed that the majority of time machine owners are primarily using their devices in order to get a couple more hours of sleep. “Among those individuals who have designed and assembled a fully operational machine that is capable of transporting them through the fabric of space and time, we found that most did so as a means of catching up on sleep,” lead researcher Jessica Farber told reporters, who noted that time travelers regularly forgo the exploration of historically significant or pivotal time periods in favor of conveying themselves back a few hours from the present so that they can curl up in their bed or futon and enjoy a little extra rest.

Study: Majority Of Time Machine Owners Use Device Primarily To Get Couple More Hours Of Sleep – News In Brief, The Onion (26 June 2015)

Read the full piece.

The unexpected benefit of Evernote.com

Posted by William Gallagher

That’s unexpected as in who ever goes to Evernote.com? Evernote is a service and a whole series of applications so no matter what your device, you can have an Evernote app on it. Write a note on your iPhone and it’s there on your Mac or on that PC in the library you’re passing, if you want it to be.

It used to feel as if the company did all these apps and somehow still expected that people would use its website first. They may have had a point all along. Local apps are handier because they’re quicker, in theory: you have all the Evernote gubbins with you so the only thing you’re downloading is your own note data. And often you have that note data right there on the device.

Yet I’ve been forced to use Evernote.com for the last few days while my iMac has been off being looked at and seen to. (Apple did a recall on certain models because of some hard drive problem. Mine qualified, I’ve let them take it away and tend to it.) I’ve been working on an old MacBook Pro and while for the most part it’s been fine, one area it’s fallen down on is Evernote.

I’m not sure why but I have the latest version of Evernote for Mac and it won’t load on this MacBook. Something somewhere is too old or too new, I don’t know which and I’ve not poked about under the hood. I needed a particular note and I needed it right then so when the Evernote app crashed, I just went to Evernote.com and got it from there.

I also got the hassle of having to log in to the site: not only do you need to log in – for which I use 1Password so that’s quite a simple and quick job that doesn’t involve me having to remember the actual password – but you also have to wait. Evernote texts you a six-digit number and if you don’t enter that correctly, something blows up somewhere.

It’s a good and secure feature, it’s a reason why you can read your Evernote notes on that passing library PC without being worried anyone else can. It’s also just a chore when you have to do it several times a day.

But I did it several times a day because I ended up staying in Evernote.com. And I stayed in it because it’s rather gorgeous. Here’s what it looks like on Evernote.com when you start to write a new note.

I used it out of necessity and yet now I just like using it.

Top 10 Productivity Killers

Posted by William Gallagher

Fast Company has run the results of something or other that got them a top ten list of the things that get in your way at work, as chosen by annoyed people at work. None of the ten are going to startle you but as you recognise many of them, see what you think of the suggested solutions.

Here’s one of the ten:

PROBLEM: COWORKERS DRAINING YOUR ENERGY
Cure: Surround yourself with productive people

Much like laughter, productivity can be infectious, says [Rosemary] Haefner [chief human resources officer for CareerBuilder]. Stay away from people who like to waste time; they will drain your energy. Instead, align yourself with the company go-getters.

“Watching how others make themselves productive can inspire us to act similarly,” she writes.

Your Top 10 Productivity Killers and How to Fix Them – Stephanie Vozza, Fast Company (30 June 2015)

Read the full piece.

Friday read: Wimbledon’s other servers

Posted by William Gallagher

LONDON—Outside, it’s about 35 degrees Celsius (95F) and close to 100 percent humidity. Hat-wearing tennis lovers fan themselves with genteelly flailing limbs, or whatever else they have to hand, while they sip on a cup of Pimm’s. Down here, though, away from the punishing sun and thronging crowds, I’m bathed in the soothing susurration of servers (of the computer variety), and—more importantly—some really powerful air conditioning.

At the heart of Wimbledon lies the IBM bunker – Sebastian Anthony, Ars Technica (2 July 2015)

Read the full piece.