by MP MacDougall | Lifestyle Design, Productivity
Yesterday, an old friend lost his life.
And though I hadn’t seen or spoken to him in more than 17 years, the news today still hit me like a kick in the gut.
We weren’t close friends.
But we were brothers in arms – stationed together in the military, we shared a common experience and a lot of good times. We shared good friends, people who knew each of us better than we knew each other, and that seemingly thin bond made us a permanent part of each other’s life story.
We shared beers, barbecue and very similar work experiences – and when it came time for me to leave the Air Force for civilian life, we went our separate ways. (more…)
by MP MacDougall | Productivity
I mentioned in an earlier post how writing every day for this site had unexpected side benefits.
I had been using Klok to track my time working on editing projects, and found it to be very helpful. After I started the writing challenge, it occurred to me that tracking my time on other projects just made sense – so I started tracking them with Klok, too.
That was February 22nd.
Before then, I had absolutely no idea how much time I was spending on (more…)
by MP MacDougall | Lifestyle Design, Productivity, Writing
How do you know when a habit becomes an addiction?
It’s when the cessation of that habit causes discomfort, pain or irritation – real or otherwise.
For example, I am hopelessly addicted to coffee – which I lovingly refer to as the elixir of life. If I attempt to abandon coffee for even a short period of time, say two hours after I wake up in the morning – I‘ll suffer crushing headaches and a general feeling of anxiety. Give me my coffee, though, and my head stops hurting, the clouds part, and the world looks like a much better place.
I know I’m addicted to the stuff, and I know addiction is generally a bad state of being, but quitting coffee (at least right now) is pretty low on my list of self-improvement needs.
I have thought about it, though. (more…)
by MP MacDougall | Lifestyle Design
William Kamkwamba could have surrendered.
He could have listened to the people around him who said it couldn’t be done.
He didn’t.
William lived in abject poverty in Malawi during one of the worst famines in that country’s history. They had so little food, at one point they were forced to eat the corn husks they collected from the parched fields near their home. His family couldn’t afford the $80 tuition needed to keep him in school, so he had to quit.
He had almost no education, no money and no way out. (more…)
by MP MacDougall | Lifestyle Design, Writing
Our clothes dryer started making funny noises the other day.
Not just strange noises – alarming noises; like the sound a battleship might make sliding out of a dry dock on its first launch.
I was less than thrilled with this development, since we just replaced our defunct dishwasher a couple of weeks ago. I was not in the mood to replace another appliance. (more…)
by MP MacDougall | Lifestyle Design
Early last December, my wife was running errands with our little girl. She had just parked in front of a strip mall to drop off my dry cleaning, when she glanced in her rear-view mirror and saw an out of control Jeep launching over a curb, headed right for her.
The Jeep plowed into the back of our car, driving it up onto a high curb and into a large stone planter. The driver was suffering from a seizure, and had lost control of his vehicle.
He didn’t even realize what he’d done.
He had come within a few seconds of killing half of my family, and he had no idea. (more…)
by MP MacDougall | Lifestyle Design, Productivity, Writing
Thirty days.
Thirty days of writing and posting something daily.
Thirty days – without a break – of forcing myself to do what I love.
It seems silly that I would have to force myself to write, when writing is what I’d like to do for a career, but it’s true.
Writing requires effort, and effort requires discipline. Thirty days ago, I was a little lean on the discipline, and as a result I wasn’t making much effort.
Then I started the Write Every Day challenge, and I learned some pretty cool concepts along the way.
I learned that when you practice something long enough, it becomes a habit – it gets ingrained into your daily routine to the point that if you stop doing it, something feels wrong. (more…)
by MP MacDougall | Productivity, Writing
I was on a roll this morning.
I had worked diligently on my novel, and was kicking around ideas for a post to the site, but I had to take a break, for, umm… er…
OK, OK, I had to use the bathroom.
Yup, being an author is pretty glamorous.
Anyway, I closed my laptop and went off to take care of the necessities, if not the niceties, of daily life. I planned to come back and work on a blog post, then do some bits of site management.
In other words, I was being productive, and feeling pretty good about it. One little bathroom break wasn’t going to break my stride. (more…)
by MP MacDougall | Lifestyle Design, Writing
A lot can happen in ten years.
When we moved into our house nine years ago, the kid next door was a shy little six-year old. Today I glanced out the front window and saw him pass our house – driving his dad’s pickup.
My niece still enters my memory as what she was ten years ago when we left our hometown to move here – a tiny little girl with a mischievous grin. She’s now almost six feet tall, looks like a model, and is engaged to be married.
Wait, wait… slow down, it’s going too fast… (more…)
by MP MacDougall | Editing, Productivity, Writing
Yesterday I discussed time management, and how it can be useful for more than just keeping track of hourly earnings.
If you use time management software to track your productivity, you probably already know its value – but if you’re new to the topic, which program do you choose?
To be perfectly honest, I can’t really help you choose between two or more programs, because when I went looking for time management software to track my editing projects, I used the first one I tried – and never looked any further.
I’ve been using the free version of (more…)
by MP MacDougall | Editing, Productivity, Writing
I need more time.
Writing takes time.
Editing takes time.
Posting to this site takes time.
The day job takes a lot of time.
The question is, where can I steal more time for what I really want to get done? (more…)
by MP MacDougall | Productivity, Writing
Yesterday’s post was a breakthrough of sorts.
It helped me to realize that my writing challenge can (and should) be accomplished with more than just blog posts. This site exists to give me a platform for my fiction writing, but if writing content for the site keeps me from writing fiction – it sort of defeats the purpose. I have to find a happy medium between writing usable and/or entertaining content and writing fiction for eventual publication. (more…)
