Thursday 11th February 2021

I am a weak-willed individual.

After fighting the lure of new technology and tools, I caved in.  I will now plead my case with the court.

I’m not happy with my productivity at the moment.  I don’t believe people are robots or that sustained hyper-productivity is healthy.  But,  I know what I’m capable of.  And now’s a time when I really, really want to be having a burst of productivity.

I AM sorta being productive.  I’ve got a LOT of things done during the pandemic.  But that productivity is sporadic.  I want to be able to plan out my time a little.  I don’t want huge pushes at the start of a project followed by days of slow progress, or crunch times at the end.  I want things to be… smooth.  Slow and steady smooth.  Fast and frantic smooth.  Just… smooth.

I need to change the way I work.  Not only has the pandemic made for different situations, but also change is good to mix things up a little and stop them being stale.

What I want to do is get a lot of the admin out of my day.  I want to carve out time to be creative and not have it that by the time I do X and Y, there’s no time for writing.

I spend most evening’s at my Support Bubble’s.  I think this is healthy, even if sitting on the sofa in front of the TV isn’t.  It forces me out the house.  It allows me to have some social contact.  BUT, there’s a lot of TV I don’t really want to watch.  I could use that time better, dipping in and out of a few non-writing tasks.

I’ve got a few old laptops of various size, and I’ve tried using them on the sofa but they are too cumbersome.  Even the little early micro PC.  However, this has convinced me that there’s some validity in the idea.

What I need is a tablet.  One I can run notion on.  One I can connect my headphones to.  Something I can split screen so I can take notes.

Hence I’ve gone for an iPad air with Apple Pencil.  The idea is that I can possibly also mark up short stories, as well as come up with outlines for articles and videos as well.

I don’t intend to spend all evening working on the tablet but if we have Eastenders on, I might try and clear a couple of small tasks off while it’s on.  I’ll then put it down when it’s time for Curse of Oak Island.  Even if I only get 2 tasks done all week, that’s 2 tasks out of my day.

The important thing for me is that it can have multiple uses.  That way, if it’s just not possible to make a rough outline for an article with distractions around me then it’ll still be useful in other ways.

Above all, it’s a change.  With the pandemic seeming endless, changing things up a bit is healthy.

So we’ll see.  I love tech gadgets, and all too often they turn out to not be the lifesaver I thought they would be when I bought them.  However, as much as I’m not a hardcore Apple fanboy like some of my friends – I still need Desktops and Laptops running Windows – it’s rare that Apple gadgets aren’t things I use daily.

Past Issues:  719718 | 717 | 716 | 715 714 | 713 | 712 | 711 | 710 | 709 | 708 | 707 | 706 | 705 | 704 | 703 | 702 | 701
700 | 699 | 698 | 697 | 696 | 695 | 694 | 693 | 692 | 691 | 690 | 689 | 688 | 687 | 686 | 685 | 684 | 683 | 682 | 681
680 | 679 | 678
Past Years: 2020 – The Year of Being Fearsome | 2019 – The Year of Soldiering Through | 2018 – The Year of Priorities | 2017 – The Year Of The Offensive