productivity

If You Want To Keep Your New Year’s Resolutions Start Them Now.

/ Joshua S. MacDougall / Leave a comment

People don’t like seeing Christmas decorations when Halloween hasn’t arrived. We all hate hearing about Black Friday before Thanksgiving has even arrived especially when stores try to convince us to shop the night of Thanksgiving. Christmas ends and suddenly we’re thinking about our New Year’s Eve plans and how we can make it less disappointing than the year before. It’ll always be disappointing because it’ll never be as magical as it is in your brain.

Everyone makes New Year’s resolutions, including the people who say there New Year’s resolution is to not have one. The problem is the majority of us don’t keep them. For most of us, January is cold, we’re still broke from Christmas, and goddammit, every treadmill at the gym is taken up again. We decided on that one special night when we countdown to the new year that the next will be different but different can be difficult.

So instead, let’s just start our New Year’s resolution now that way when January 1st hit we’ll already be on track during the regular days of our lives instead of making promises we can’t keep on the tail end of the Holiday season. Here are some of mine.

But wait, I’m not going to do this alone. So for all of mine I’m going to make some suggestions of resolutions some people who I’ve encountered should make for themselves.

We did it you and me liquor

  • I’ll either figure out how to “fake it until I make it” or just give up on faking it entirely and dedicate endless amounts of time researching on how just to make it.
  • Drivers, when making a turn, you will go completely in your lane rather than staying halfway in mine blocking me from going forward.
  • I’ll keep the words in mind “You can only control yourself” whenever my life feels out of control.
  • When you see someone reading a book you won’t ask them “What are you reading?” or strike up a conversation especially if you don’t know them. If you’ve read the book, you’re permitted to say “great book,” and continue walking when they don’t engage.

YesAndNo

  • I’ll completely shut off once a week. Desktop, laptop, tablet, television, and smart phone completely turned off. I’ll write in notebooks and read on the floor if I have to keep my devices out of view.
  • You will stop playing videos and music out loud in public places with no regard for the people around you.
  • I’ll take a walk once a week and not to work out or lose weight but just to be outside.
  • Fall and Spring in New York, you will have those moderate temperatures you’re known for instead of flip flopping between being too hot or too cold all the time.
  • I’ll say yes just as often as I say no and vice versa.
  • You will take no for an answer.
  • I will go to BookCon, NY Special Edition, New York Tolkien Conference, and New York Comic Con.
  • Con-goers, you will shower, wash, and put on deodorant before a convention. It’s already hot enough.

Sogood

  • I will find, pitch, attempt, or whatever I have to do to find some freelance writing work. It’s something I have to try to do.
  • You will stop asking English Majors “But what are you going to do with that?”
  • I will go to Madison Square Garden. I will go to a stand-up comedy show. Not just some random night at Carolines but for a comedian who is touring that I love.
  • Stand-up comedians living on West Coast, you will come to New York.
  • When I go to BookCon, NY Special Edition, New York Tolkien Conference, and New York Comic Con I will say hello and talk to new people.
  • New York Comic Con, you will have more authors coming to your con.

theandys

  • I will think better of myself.
  • You will also think better of yourself.
  • I will only buy one book after I’ve read three I’ve never previously read.
  • Favorite authors, you will release the next books in your series in 2016.
  • I will write every day. Five of those days will be for four hours each day.
  • Everything else, you will stop distracting me from writing.
  • I’ll give up coffee for one month, maybe two, and deal with the caffeine headache.
  • Coffee mugs, you will stop tempting me with your bad puns and pop culture references.
  • I will write and submit a short story, even though I hate short stories.
  • Words, you will stop before my short story turns into another novel.
  • I will follow and comment on someone’s WordPress blog including someone who follows this one.
  • Pizza, you will stay exactly as you are. Maybe be fewer calories.
  • I will fill at least four notebooks front to back.
  • Pens, you will stop running out of ink just as writing is going so well.
  • I will allow only ten minutes to take it personally when friends and family criticize my book or just plain don’t like it.
  • Game of Thrones season six, you will be better than season five.
  • I will talk less about writing than actually writing because “talking about the thing isn’t the thing. The doing of the thing is the thing.”
  • Time, you will stop passing by so quickly.
  • I will break out of more comfort zones.
  • Comic book readers, you will stop being so afraid of change.
  • I will spend less money on things and spend more on experiences.
  • Experiences, you will stop being so expensive.
  • I will draw a map of the world from my book whether I can do it well or not.
  • Knicks, you will at least have a 27 win record this season.
  • I will communicate better with friends and family.
  • You will keep asking me when my book is going to be finished, it reminds that I need to get my ass in gear.
  • I will start my second book.
  • New Year’s Resolutions, you will stop making people feel guilty when you become unrealistic goals that no one can keep. Instead, you will become goals that people work towards all year to better ourselves.

snoopdoggheadshake

I Just Want To Keep Typing with My Mechanical Keyboard.

/ Joshua S. MacDougall / Leave a comment

Thanks to the encouragement from a programer/writer friend I bought a mechanical keyboard. Specifically a Das Keyboard Model S Professional Click Pressure Point Mechanical Keyboard which I would recommend to anyone. It’s expensive, and you might be thinking that a keyboard isn’t worth that much. I thought the same thing, it is an extravagant purchase but one I didn’t buy lightly.

Most of the time I write on my laptop, that’s the productivity machine while my desktop, which I’m writing this blogpost on I call my distraction machine. It has all my Steam games, my images, my photos, my music, my videos, and everything that isn’t writing. With my laptop I don’t have anything but writing and maybe some wallpaper on it. The only other files on it are for research for my writing, Nothing to distract me.

This keyboard though, it makes me want to write more on my desktop. I mean, it makes sense. A full keyboard, a large monitor, it seems like it would be perfect for writing. So I figured I would try to write on here and learn to ignore the distractions. I may not always be able to keep it separate so I might as well train myself to not be distracted.

It has proven difficult thanks to the Summer Steam Sale that happened about two weeks ago. I bought Borderlands 2 which I avoided buying on Xbox 360 thanks to both Skyrim occupying my attention for three years and reapplying for college around the time that it came out.

So what is a mechanical keyboard? Well, I don’t know about everyone else who reads this or how new the modern non-mechanical keyboards are but most of them don’t have that clickity clack noise you get from old keyboards during the 1980s and 1990s. From what I gathered, in the 90s keyboard manufacturers started using rubber dome switches. That is what connect the key you press to the circuitry that produces the letter you are pressing. This was cheaper than mechanical keys due to easier production. Cheaper products mean more sales and more profit.

Oh man though, it just does not feel the same. Instead that rubber membrane to connect the key to the circuitry that sends what you’ve pressed to your computer mechanical keyboards use physical switches. in order to produce the key you want you have to fully press the key. This leads to that audible sound you remember from old movies or from when you were younger depending on your age. I’ve read that it also makes your typing more accurate but I am not sure about that yet. It’s only been about a week.

I will say I can type much faster with this. I don’t know if it’s just because I like the feel of a mechanical keyboard, a memory sense from the computers I had when I was younger or if it’s just something that comes along with using a mechanical keyboard.

All I know is that typing on it is much more satisfying than any other keyboard I’ve used or the one on my laptop. I actively want to write more because of this keyboard. Hell, I only wrote this blog post so I could use the keyboard more. I fully support your decision to treat yourself to a mechanical keyboard, though I am not responsible for your financial mismanagement.