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The Power of Pause

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Life can become overwhelmingly busy. We can feel like there just isn’t enough time in the day to get everything done. People now talk about being time poor. Part of this is because we have bought into the idea that the “busier” we are, the better, more successful we are.

Drake Baer addresses this in his blog, When did busy become cool [1]. He says that today, being constantly busy is the aspirational ideal. However, this was not always the case.

For a large part of human history, those at the top of society took pride in just how little work they had to do. Constant toil was the lot of the bottom of society. In fact, taking pleasure in their labor was all that they had. Now, it seems that the higher you go in society, the busier you become.

An article in the Guardian says that where once the flex of the rich and powerful was how much luxury and leisure time you could afford. Today, it is all about how hard you are working [2].

So why did this change?

Nothing New Under the Sun

The idea of business being a virtue is not a new concept. There have always been those who believed that hard work was the best rout. That living a life of ease and leisure was to walk the road to damnation. On the other hand, hard work was the path to righteousness.

I am sure that most of you are familiar with the saying: “ideal hands are the devils tools.” Most scholars believe that this saying is rooted in Proverbs 16:27 [3]. The wording is different, however. The verse basically means that wicked people look for ways to be wicked. How this relates to the saying is the idea that if you have time on your hands, you could find ways to do bad things. Implied is the idea that if you are always working, you won’t have time to get into trouble.

Grammar-Monster.com points to the works of 4th century monk St. Jerome as the possible creator of the phrase as we know it today [4]. He wrote, “Engage in some occupation, so that the devil may always find you busy.”

In short, this idea of the virtue of hard work comes out of religious teachings. Basically, working hard is the key to living a righteous life. Temptation is always waiting to spring on us and drag us down. If we are always busy, we won’t have time to fall for it. If you are always busy, you can’t get into trouble. (You could write books on the social reasons for these kinds of teachings, but I am not going to go there now.)

Now, there is nothing wrong with hard work. It is good to use your time and effort in productive endeavors. But, this doesn’t mean that you should spend all your time working and doing nothing else. We do need breaks from time to time.

Running all the Time Just Makes You Tired

Working hard is a good thing. I would never condone just setting back and letting the world provide for you while you give nothing back. But, too much of a good thing is bad, and this is true of hard work. Honestly however, there is no virtue in being busy for the sake of being busy.

One of the promises of the industrial revolution was that as automation got better, people in general would have to work less. And though it was very slow, it did seem that this was coming to pass. Over time the number of hours the average person worked was dropping. By the early part of the 20th century, it looked like we were on track to a very short work week. But the Great Depression and some cultural changes set everything back. It seems like that dream is long gone.

Burn out is a very really thing. Constantly working and living by the hustle mentality will lead to it faster than anything else. You will reach a point when you mind and body just give out. If you are lucky, this just means that you are forced to take a rest. If you’re not, you could die.

Back when I worked hanging sheetrock, I worked with an older man who had been doing this his whole adult life. He was an expert at the job and was really fast.

One thing that you need to understand, in the profession of hanging sheetrock, you are paid by the foot. It is a production, not hours worked pay scale. This means that the faster you can hang the rock, the more money you could get paid. 

One day on the site, my coworker and I were talking. He was telling me about how years before he worked with his brother. They worked really well together and could knock out a house in just a couple of days. They would regularly work sun up to sun down 6 to 7 days a week. Because of this, they were making really good money. He had a  nice big house, a brand new truck, jet skies, a boat and camper. All the toys and things that money could buy. He thought he was living the high life. That was until he realized he couldn’t remember the last time he got to use any of these toys. All he did was work. He had all this money and stuff thanks to all the work he was doing, but he never got to enjoy it. He learned the hard way that you have to work breaks and vacations into your life.

Again, there are many good reasons to work hard. But, if all you do is work, you are not really living. In then end, you are just making yourself tired. While hard work is good, there is also a place for breaks.

The Pre-Surgical Pause

Several years ago, a new practice was implemented to reduce accidents during surgery. The idea was, once the patient and surgical team were all present in the OR, they would take a step back and go over the details of the surgery. They made sure that they had the right patient, had the correct area that they were going to work marked and that they had every thing they needed. The whole process can takes only a minute or two, but this time out does greatly reduce the number of accidents and improves patient survival and recovery rates [5]. 

By taking this short pause before starting, everyone could be sure that the following procedure would go off without any issues. They were all able to take a breath and re-center.

Slowing down helps to center our lives

When we are in the middle of the hustle, it is easy to lose sight of anything but the next task.  We end up just putting on foot in front of the other. We can even lose sight of why we are doing all the work in the first place. In this mind set, burn out is a certainty.

It is at times like this that stopping long enough to take a few deep breaths can give you space in you day to center and remind yourself of what is really important. You can even reevaluate your tasks and make sure that you are using your time wisely. You can bring a small place of peace in the midst of all the chaos.

There are times when we really have a lot to do. Sometimes we have no choice but to rush and hustle through all our waking hours. But these times need to be balanced with longer periods of down time. It is all about the balance.

Nature moves through seasons. There are periods of work and periods of rest. It is these rhythms that help life thrive. We should learn from nature. The important thing to remember is that we need to have the same kind of rhythm. We need times of work and times of rest. If we want balance in our lives, then we need to seek out the proper rhythm for ourselves.

Your life will be much better when you learn to live by a more natural rhythm. Doing this will help you live a life of true peace and joy. You will be able to handle the chaotic times because you will know that a time of rest and peace is just around the corner. You don’t have to live a life of constant struggle and hustle. You can learn to live a life of balance and peace.

Thank you once again for taking the time to read this. As always, Namaste.

Footnotes:

1. https://medium.com/thrive-global/when-did-busy-become-cool-8ca13f5f54f9

2. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/apr/24/new-status-symbol-hard-work-spending-ceos

3. https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Prov%2016%3A27&version=KJV

4. https://www.grammar-monster.com/sayings_proverbs/idle_hands_are_the_devils_tools.html

5. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8518691/

My Experiment Take 2

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I have decided to revisit a personal experiment that I did a few years back. The purpose of it was to see if I could get by with just using my phone. It would server as all my phone things, but also my ereader, media device and even my computer. In other words, it would be my ODTRTA, or One Device to Rule Them All.

The reason for this was I felt like I had too much stuff. I have a laptop computer, a Samsung tablet, a Kindle, my SuperNote, my Neo2 and my phone. You could say that I am a bit of a tech hoarder. And, there was a lot of redundancy. I wanted to declutter and simplify my life.

Also, there is the fact that I work in IT so I spend most of my days setting in front of a computer. That means, I often don’t want to use a computer for my personal stuff. But I like to write.

The goal of this is to find a way to do as much as I can with the least amount of stuff. Also this will make my work set up much more portable. If I want to go to a coffee shot to write, I don’t have to lug my laptop with me. I just have to take much smaller things. So here I am.

The First Time

When I did my first attempt at this, I was using a LG phone with a dual screen case. I was doing a lot of bible studies at the time, so having two screens really helped. Once the research was over, I would do my draft on my Neo2 and then transfer it back over to the phone for editing and cleaning up. For the first part, the research, it worked great. I have an input app called Graffiti Pro, which gives you a gesture input field like the old Palm Pilots. (I still use and love this app.) The second half, editing and clean-up, things started to fall apart.

A phone screen is just too small for good word processing. After a short period of time, I decided that my phone was just a little too limited so I went back to my normal system. I wouldn’t say that the experiment was a failure, I just learned that it was not the best option. I could make it work, but there were better tools out there.

So why am I trying this again?

It all comes down to the fact that I got a new phone; a Samsung S24 Ultra. That, and an article that I read made me think it was time to try this again.

The article was by a tech blogger who said that he tried just using his phone as his computer for a short time. He did this because there is an app that some Samsung devices have called Dex. Basically, with Dex, you can connect your phone to an external monitor, and with Dex you get a desktop set up.  It is kind of like a cross between the Android OS and Chrome OS.

With Dex, you get a taskbar and windows. You can even have up to 5 apps running at the same time. (You can have more than 5 open at any time, but only 5 can be active. Any more will be minimized down to the task bar.) So, now I can use my phone like a computer. This makes it far more capable than my old LG.

On top of this, most modern flagship phones, like the S24 Ultra, have more horsepower than many cheap laptops and Chromebooks. It really is a powerful tool that just fits in your pocket.

The article showed me what my phone is capable of and inspired me to give this whole concept of being computerless another go. So, that is what I am going to do.

My Loadout

I should start by saying that I am not going to use my phone all by itself. I am going to pair it with some other devices, but the phone will be the center of it all. So, what else am I going to use?

Besides my phone, I am going to use my SuperNote. This is an e ink tablet that works as a digital notebook. I got this device back when I was in college for taking notes during class. It works really well and I love it. I have always loved writing in notebooks and have often carried one around with me. I have shelves full of ones that I have filled up. But I want to be kinder to the environment. So a digital notebook is the way to go.

Next is my phone, which I have already mentioned so there is not much more to say about it.

Finally, there is my Neo2. This is basically a digital typewriter. It is a keyboard with a built-in dot matrix screen. It runs off of AA batteries and lasts for a very long time. As a digital device it can do things like creating a document and spell checking. There is no formatting options and the dictionary for spell check is fairly basic, but at the end of the day, it is a good tool for the first draft. One final note, these devices are no longer being made, so you can only find them second hand. That being said, you can usually get on in really good condition for around $60.

How I will put all this together

So what does it look like to put this system together? When it comes to writing, I almost always start with an outline. I find having a well organized path for my writing is a really good idea. Normally, I like to use a note taking app to make my outline. Right now I am using Obsidian. This is done on my phone.

Once I have an outline, I will go to my SuperNote and handwrite a pre-draft. All that I am doing is just getting my ideas down. It really is a one shot kind of thing. I don’t care how good it is, or how much of it will end up in the final product. I am just laying down my ideas. Like the Neo2, there are no distractions on my SuperNote. Even though it is a digital device, at the end of the day, it’s just a notebook.

As a side note, if what I am working on requires some research, I will use the SuperNote for that and then send the document to my phone so that I can use it as a reference while I am writing.

Once I have the pre-draft done, I will type out the actual document on the Neo2. This is effectively my first draft, however, I will continue to edit the same document so I really draft and then edit.

Once the draft is complete, I will do a quick spell check on the Neo2. I’m a horrible speller, so doing more than one spell check is a must for me. Since the dictionary on the device is very basic and there is no grammar checking, this ends up being a very general pass. Google Doc (my word processor of choice) does the real heavy lifting. After this, it is time to put the document on my phone.

The Neo2 is not a connected device. However, There is an interesting thing that it can do. Using a printer cable, I can connect the Neo2 to my phone, a computer or even my SuperNote. Those devices see the Neo2 as a keyboard. There is a send button. When you press it, the Neo2 will “type” the document onto whatever it is hooked up to. This is a very fast and smooth process. It is not 100% perfect, and I do have to clean up the document, but that is part of the process.

Once I have the document cleaned up to the point that I am ready to post it, I simply use the WordPress app to upload it to my site. From the app, I can also add any artwork.

This is all a work in process and this post is the first that I have done using this method. I will post an update after I have had a chance to use this a while and let everyone know how it is going. I am hopeful that it will work much better. Dex is going to be a major advantage I think. For now, thanks for reading. 

Namaste.

Something New

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I am trying something new, at least to me. 

I read recently that Neil Gaimen does his first drafts by hand. He said that when he is starting a new book, he buys a new notebook to draft in. He stated that doing it this way helps him to focus. Drafting on a computer has too many distractions.

This idea really intrigued me. So, for this post, I am starting out by hand writing it.

Now, I am doing some things differently. For one thing, I am writing this in my SuperNote. Second, I am going to do my second draft on my Neo2. Finally I will do the clean-up and post on my tablet. Also, this is a short blog post, not a book.

I will say that, so far, this seems to have a good flow. I have always liked writing by hand and I seem more focused right now. This might just work well.

I am going to wrap this part of the blog up now. I will add a note in the end once I have a good idea about how the whole process works.

Final note:

I like this process. It seemed that getting my ideas down was quick and flowed really well. Typing the second draft let me make some obvious changes that I might have missed if I was just editing the draft like I have done before. For the time being, I am going to continue to do things this way.

A NANOWRIMO Up Date

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A NANOWRIMO Up Date

 

So, it is not December and I felt that I should give an update on my NANOWRIMO attempt. The short version is I did not win. I really only got 2 days of writing done. Let me elaborate.

 

At the time I started this, I was down both of my computers. My Chromebook and my laptop running Linux both quit. They were dead. But I was going to push on. I was going to write on my Samsung tablet. But, that was not the best option. There were also some other things going on in my life and I just had trouble actually writing. In the end, I just didn’t really do much at all.

 

Now, what am I going to do moving forward? I am still going to work on the book. In fact, I have knocked out about 11000 words so far. I like this story and I want to finish it, it will just be later than I had hoped.

 

I know that the goal of NANOWRIMO has always been to motivate people to write. It is the nudge that is often needed to get people to start writing. And it did that for me. So, in that regard, I would say that I succeeded. I just didn’t make the 30 day goal.

 

This is my take away and my encouragement is this: don’t give up. While I know that it is great if you can “win” the event, like I said, the goal is just to get you to write. So, just write. And, if you still want to do 50000 in 30 days, do it. It doesn’t have to be in November. You can do it at any time. Just write.

 

Well, I just wanted to give a small update so here it is. Have a great one everybody!

 

 

It’s NANOWRIMO Time!

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It is that time again. I have decided to participate this time. I have tried this a couple of times before, but didn’t do all that well. So, I am going to try again.

For those of you that don’t know, NANOWRIMO is short for National Novel Writing Month. It is an annual event in which participants try to draft a full novel over the month of November. In the context of this it is a minimum of 50,000 words. This translates to about 1,670 words a day. You “win” by making your word count.

I have been setting on a story idea for some time and I figured this was the best way to complete a draft. I have also decided that I am going to do a writing blog during this process. I don’t know if I am going to write every day, but I will try to update every week. Since this has just started, and I finished writing for the day, I felt it was also a good time to start the blog. So here I am.

One of the keys to a successful NANOWRIMO is to prepare ahead of time. As I said, I have been setting on this idea for a while, so I already had most of the characters thought up and the basic outline written down. I got everything in place so that I could hit the ground running. As such I am in a pretty good place. First day of writing is done and I am at almost 2,000 words. I feel like it is a really good start.

Since I have the whole story outlined, I might jump around. In the past I have written chronologically, meaning I wrote chapter by chapter in order. I will probably do that again just because it is what I know, but if the mood hits me I might jump around. The important thing is I don’t want to lose too much steam. 

I am early in the writing process, day 1 to be precise. I know the excitement will be strong for the next few days, even this first week. But I will come to a point when I might have to force myself to write. If that happens, then I am going to need a way to keep focused. If that means skipping to an exciting part of the book, then I will. I want to finish this year, no matter what.

So, this is the first post of this series. Wish me luck!