First, sorry I haven’t been as active here as usual over the last week or so. As you might have guessed, things have been busy. But even for me, they have been unusually busy. Two big projects at the day job reached simultaneous critical milestones last week, and that took up a lot of my time. I’ve also been busy writing articles, and working on stories. And on top of that, I’ve been writing a bunch of code. Here is what RescueTime had to say about my productivity last week:
Keep in mind that my productivity pulse is typically in the 65-75 range. When it is in that range, I feel comfortable, and not overwhelmed. Below 65 and I start to feel a little lazy. Above 75 and things start to get a little intense. My average for the entire week was 78. There were days when I was close to 90.
In any case, here are a few updates of possible interest to folks:
1. R.I.P. Maggie: On Friday, we said goodbye to one of our two cats, Maggie. Maggie was nearly 18 years old, and had been healthy her entire life, except for the last few weeks. She had a tumor combined with some other infections. We thought that with some medication she might rebound, but it wasn’t to be. She was a sweet cat, and will be missed by all of us.
2. Part 2 of my Going Paperless series on how I’ve simplified my Evernote organization will appear on Tuesday. Part 1 covered how I’ve simplified my notebook organization in Evernote. Part 2 will cover how I’ve simplified my tag organization. I had to delay it last week because–well, see the chart above. But it will be out on Tuesday.
3. My latest column for the Daily Beast went live on Thursday. The third piece in my column on quantified self for The Daily Beast went live on Thursday. This piece, titled, “Self-Tracking for N00Bz“1 provides a simple 3-part framework to consider for folks who want to investigate self-tracking.
4. I’ve added some features to my Google Writing Tracker. I posted about it on Friday. I’m in the process of doing some major refactoring, and I’m alpha-testing some new functionality that breaks my writing down into fiction and nonfiction. (Hint: so far, so good.) In the meantime, I’ve made my Daily Almanac script–which works with the writing tracker to produce a daily summary email–available to anyone who wants to use it. I updated the project on GitHub for anyone interested.
5. For the first time in nearly a year, I’ve done no reading for 2 consecutive days. That’s how busy I’ve been. Seriously, it has been intense.
6. Some changes to the blog are coming. Nothing too dramatic, but I am testing out some new styles. For the most part these will be subtle changes that should improve the look of the site, and take advantage of improvements to CSS and browser capabilities. The biggest change will be to my How I Became a Professional Science Fiction Writer page. That should be pretty cool, so stay-tuned for that.
7. I started watching Star Wars: The Clone Wars cartoon series. Since I’ve stated here often enough that I’ve pretty much given up television, it is only fair when I admit to slipping. The Little Man had been watching episodes, and occasionally, I’d hear one in the background while writing or doing some other activity. What struck me first was how much better they were than the last 3 movies. The writing is pretty darn good. So are the story arcs. The Little Man has just finished the first season, and I’m only on episode 6 or 7, but I am enjoying it. Usually, I’ve been watching an episode or two just before bed. On some nights, I’ve tried for more, but I’ve just been too tired lately.
I think that’s about it. Once again, sorry for not being as active here as usual. Hopefully things will return to normal soon.
- As with a lot writing for news and magazine outlets, I write the article, but the editor typically comes up with the title. I mention this only because Kelly said that “N00Bz” didn’t sound like a word I’d use. ↩
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Productivity pulse is so impressive.