Rewriting Your Home Office
Lately I’ve been reading a lot about new landscapes and how humans adapt to them. This got me thinking about the increasingly common phenomenon of the home office. A recently charted territory in most American homes, every day the boundaries of the home office are getting more difficult to define. Thanks to a variety of digital devices, we are untethered to a traditional desk-and-chair setup; we can do work almost anywhere, at any time.
This should be great news for our productivity… right?
Except for one eensy little time-suck, the one that made all this mobility possible in the first place — the internet.
Every single creative, self-employed worker I know has expressed problems getting work done — “real work”, not communications — when anywhere within range of a WiFi signal. Some have had their spouses change the passwords on their Facebook and Twitter accounts. Others unplug their routers from the wall when it’s time to work. Some are even leaving their computers at home, returning to the single-minded comfort of a pad and paper to get their writing done at the corner coffee shop. (Okay, maybe that’s just me.)
The point is, in this wired world, it’s getting harder not only to define the home office space, but also its purpose. What do we actually do when we sit down to do our work? Are we really working, or are we simply assuming the posture?
NaNoWriMo 2009
Otherwise known as National Novel Writing Month, NaNoWriMo is a nonstop, 30-day writing frenzy — one I’ve decided to join this year, for the first time since 2003. Posting here may remain light as I sort through the process of writing 50,000 words in just under a month.
The experience of NaNoWriMo brings up a few topics for the future, however:
- Dr. Wicked’s Write or Die software just released a desktop version. Now you can run their software separately from your browser — which should be much more stable, and perhaps more importantly, is independent of a WiFi connection. I intend to use this at least once in the next 30 days. It might just be the best $10 a writer could ever spend.
- Writing habits: longhand vs. typing. What works better? And what’s more efficient? (I think it depends on the situation.)
- Pushing past writers block. This is what NaNoWriMo is all about. But if you don’t want to end up with 50,000 words of random, barely connected material, you need something more than a deadline and a daily quota. More on this after I finish the process.
In the meantime, if you’re looking for me, I’ll be writing. A lot.
Happy November!
Useful Writing Tools – 5 Digital Favorites
Choosing digital writing tools can be just as idiosyncratic as selecting a favorite pen or brand of notebook. Keeping that in mind, here are 5 of my favorite tools for productivity and creativity:
1. Write or Die software, by Dr. Wicked’s Writing Lab
The concept is simple. Set a timer and a word count, then enter your text in a box. If you don’t reach your writing quota by deadline, suffer the consequences — a loud, unpleasant alarm prodding at you, or worse — your writing being erased whenever your fingers stop moving. Your choice.
I love the simplicity. Great for when I need a little extra prod or the pressure of a deadline.
The downside: there’s no way to auto-save while you’re writing. There’s always the chance your browser will freeze up or quit while you’re writing. This is less likely if you have a newer computer and a stable browser, and no other windows open at the time.
Writing Problem #1: One Project, One Deadline, Too Many Possible Directions
A friend of mine came to me recently with a challenge. She was asked to write a book proposal based on a brief article she’d written, but she wasn’t sure which way to go with her story. What direction would make the best book? There were so many ways she could go, but she wasn’t sure which concept would be the most compelling.
Here’s what I suggested.
Writing Refresh Exercise #1: Try Everything
