10.11.09
How To Determine Your Writing Style: Imaginative vs. Pragmatic Writers
There are two kinds of writers in the world: Imaginative Writers and Pragmatic Writers. Imaginative Writers are people who dream in fiction. They generally love novels and fantasy. They have a gift for drama.
The second kind of writer is the Pragmatic Writer. The Pragmatic Writer typically reads non-fiction, interviews, and biographies. The Pragmatic Writer likes learning about the real world.
What is Your Writing Style?
The good news is that it’s very simple to find out what kind of writer you are. The bad news is that you don’t get to choose. The way to find out what kind of writer you are is to ask yourself, “What do I like to read?” Or better yet, “What can I not put down?”
Whatever it is that you can’t stop reading — or thinking about — is the thing you will likely be good at writing. Whatever else you try to write will probably be mediocre at best. Who but someone that loved Westerns ever wrote a good Western novel?
I first got paid for writing about 7 years ago. The first thing I got published was a short essay. That little bit of success made me decide to attempt a bigger, more serious project. I never stopped to consider that the thing I had written — effortlessly and with joy — was the type of thing I myself enjoyed reading. So I wasted a few years writing short stories and two novels (now sitting in the bottom of a cardboard box). The process was painful and depressing because I was trying to write the wrong thing for me.
Meanwhile, I kept getting little essays published, as well as short articles on the Web. I didn’t think of this as serious writing, yet I did it effortlessly, enjoyed the work, and received good feedback from others. Luckily, I finally
12.09.08
Better Than A New Year’s Resolution: Zero Basing
I found a cool word in a book I was reading this week: Zero Basing.
The word originally comes from accounting. It seemed to perfectly describe a process I’ve used for years to think about my life — without ever naming it.
The idea is that you start from ZERO and then have to justify everything, rather than starting with assumptions about how your life is or should be.
You start with the minimum you need to survive — food, a roof over your head in a safe part of town — and build it up from there. After these absolute essentials, you must justify every other expense or thing you spend time on — not based on their HISTORY but on their PRESENT VALUE.
It’s saying, “If I could start at zero, with any possibilities available, what would I keep and what would I do differently?”
It’s an interesting thought experiment – especially when life gets complicated – to start at zero and think about what’s really important. “Which things really serve me and make my life better?” “Which are just routines, self-imposed shoulds, or unchallenged assumptions?”
Zero Basing is a tool to override our natural tendency to consider sunk costs when making a decision. Sunk costs are the time and energy we’ve already invested in something — time and money that is now gone forever. In economics theory, a rational actor doesn’t consider sunk costs when making the decision whether an expenditure is worth continuing to spend time, money, and effort on.
Read the rest of this entry »
09.09.08
The 5 Sentence Solution To Email Overload
I discovered a link the other day (on Zen Habits) that changed my life — or at least it cleaned out my inbox.
The idea is to reply to all emails using no more than five sentences.
Mike Davidson wrote a great post, titled “A Low-Fi Solution To Email Overload: Sentenc.es”, where he explains it in detail:
“Every e-mail I send to anyone, regardless of subject or recipient, will be five sentences or less. Like a cinquain. Ideally, it would be a 160 character count like an SMS message, but since that would require an actual e-mail plug-in (viz. “work”), we’ll go with the much-easier-to-count concept of sentences instead.”
08.24.08
Archive, Don’t File
I liked this recent post on Zen Habits (“12 New Working Rules You Should Embrace Today”)…
One of the items on the list coincided nicely with the (too) recent realization I’ve had that filing is dead, it’s all about archiving now:
“5. Archive, don’t file. Traditionally, people filed paper documents in folders, labeled the folders, and organized them in cabinets. With more and more documents being stored in computers, this way of organizing carried over to the computer desktop, with folders and files all being organized (or disorganized, if you aren’t careful). This meant that either you spent a lot of time filing and organizing, or you lost things.
Today, many people still work that way, even if it doesn’t make the most sense. What makes more sense, with the power of computers and speed of today’s apps, is the method popularized by Gmail: archive and search. Instead of creating folders for everything, and then diligently filing, you could now just hit “archive” and then use Gmail’s very fast search engine to find what you need. Of course, you could still “tag” things which is almost like folders but more versatile, but even that is optional.”
I remember when I first switched from Hotmail to Gmail. In Hotmail, I had created a folder of old emails that I never wanted to throw away. So I was VERY scared to “lose” them in Gmail’s archive feature.
Soon I realized that they were easier to find that before… rather than sort through ALL of them, I could just use a keyword to find the one I wanted.
And — like junk around the house that should probably be thrown out rather than stored — I ultimately never looked at most of those emails again. But knowing that I could pull them up at any time gave me peace of mind.
Link (via Zen Habits)
08.02.08
How To Cool Down This Summer
The hottest days of summer are here. So I thought I’d share my favorite old Southern folk remedy for keeping cool when it’s HOT outside.
This was first mentioned on Spiddlement last September and a lot of people really seemed to like it.
I have no proof that it works. You’ll just have to try it yourself and see if you notice a difference.
What I’m about to share has always made me feel refreshed in the summer.
Here it is …
Are you ready? 
To keep cool in the summer, run some cold water over your wrists. This will make your whole body feel cooler.
I have been using this for years, and it always seems to work. Maybe it is just more fun than being hopelessly hot.
I combine this with washing my hands in the summer, allowing an extra few seconds of cool, cool water to run over my wrists.
If you feel bad about wasting the water, you can always reuse it to water your plants.
Please leave a comment if you try it, and let me know what you think!
06.05.08
Before You Send That Next Email…
Seth Godin has posted an excellent “Email Checklist” on his blog that has some great guidelines for anybody sending personal or business email.
Go read it.
Here are two of our favorites on the list:
“5. So that means that if I didn’t send it to them, they’d complain about not getting it?
13. Am I forwarding someone else’s mail? (If so, will they be happy when they find out?)”
Actually, Seth’s blog is so consistently awesome and insightful that we at Spiddlement think you’d have to be CRAZY not to read it EVERY SINGLE DAY.
05.20.08
How To Actually Win A Fistfight
This great article about how to win a fist fight was floating around the net this past January. I sent it to a few friends but never posted it, because I didn’t want to encourage violence of any sort. Spiddlement is all about peace and love.
Fastfoward to last Saturday night, when a drunk guy at a bar attempted to start a fight with me. The place was crowded and I was working my way to the restroom. He interpreted that as “pushing”. Luckily, I was able to deflect the situation, but I was amazed at how calm I was. And the only reason I can think of for that calmness was that I had read this great article and knew EXACTLY what I would do if punches started flying.
And that’s why I think this is worth posting. It gives you a gameplan for self-defense. That’s not to say you will always win, but I think it would GREATLY improve your chances. A lot of it is understanding physics and mental preparation. But please don’t ever start a fight just for fun… I would be really ashamed if anyone who reads this blog did that.
“It’s common sense – avoid fighting if at all possible. No one likes to get hit (and if you do, there’s no need to go crawling pubs to find it. There’s any number of clubs filled with rubber-suited men and women who will give you a safety word and a few bruises for the right price…). But sometimes, diplomacy erodes to a good old fashioned bust-up, or worse, your opponent is just a big bully who’s looking to drive a knuckle into your nose. In either case, you are – at some point in your life – going to be called upon to defend yourself.”
Link (to “How To Actually Win A Fist Fight” via The Journal of Joe The Peacock)
03.29.08
World’s Simplest Weight Loss Advice
I really liked this recent weight loss column by Debbie Rocker on Yahoo Health.
Some might think her advice is too simplistic, but, as someone who has gained and lost weight at various times in his life, I think it’s right on the money.
“But I do realize one thing: Whether you are agonizing over losing 2 lbs or 200 lbs, looking at weight loss as a formula can provide you with some simple, practical, and effective steps that can be taken. And just knowing that this formula is fact, and works, just looking at the black and white of it and seeing that there are absolute and realistic steps that will lead to weight loss, may help someone, maybe you, who is struggling with body issues and weight loss.”
The most shocking thing about her advice is how straightforward it is. No magic secrets revealed, no overnight miracles promised, no 300 page book to buy. Weight management, sadly, is not much of a mysterious subject at all.
Link (to “Keep It Simple, Keep It Off” on Yahoo Health)
Keeping Travel As Simple As Possible
Here’s a great post on the Zen Habits blog titled “36 Great Tips for Keeping Travel as Simple As Possible”.
“Many of us have had the nightmare experience of lugging around too much luggage, waiting in the baggage claims area, trying to cram too many activities into each day, and generally being so stressed that we need a vacation when we get home.
Instead, simplify your travel.”
This reminds me a lot of our previous post on “Traveling With One Bag” (a post that seemed to be rather popular).
Link (to “36 Great Tips for Keeping Travel as Simple as Possible” on Zen Habits)
03.08.08
The Best Time Management Tip
I’m not a big fan of self help advice, but I recently discovered this little “time management quadrant” (on a blog post) that I’ve found to be an incredibly useful heuristic when trying to prioritize items on my “to do” list.
The idea apparently came from the book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.
If you’re the kind of person who lives by “to do” lists — I always keep mine in my coat pocket — I think this chart is useful.
Link (to “The Best Time Management Tip For Writers & Others” on Time To Write Blog)
