Inspiration is fleeting. For days on end, I will be inspired to create things. Website designs, new ways to make websites do what I want them to do, words on a screen. Inspiration is a wonderful thing when you have it, because great pieces of work flow from your fingers with ease.

Sometimes, though. Sometimes, inspiration is a real bitch. She's hiding from you, and you just can't find her. You look in your text editor, but she isn't there. You check on the Internet, but she's not there. Twitter? Nope, she's not there either. Coda? Nah, she's not there, though you can hear her laughing in the distance.

Lately, inspiration has been that way to me. I can't find her. I sit down to write, but my fingers have nothing to say. I start to dream up a new design, but it's all foggy. I try to tweak some code to make it do something neat, but my fingers don't know what to do.

Without inspiration, your fingers are just appendages. Sure, they're still good for basic tasks. But they will not create things on their own. For that, they need inspiration, wherever she may be.

I think the tie means, “I will be so subservient as an employee that I will do even totally senseless things just because you tell me to.” Another reason to avoid wearing a tie for a job interview is to show you’re not interested in employers that want such subservience.

Well, yea. This. Mr. Stallman has an interesting outlook on life. You may not agree with it all¹. This is perhaps the best writing I’ve ever read about ties. Ties are the most evil thing man has ever devised. Ladies, you just wouldn’t understand.

A man is only as good as his word. I have lived by these words my whole life, and I intend to continue doing so until my time on this earth passes. When a man gives his word, he must keep it at all costs. This is not negotiable.

How, then, does one reconcile ruthlessly meeting the obligations of his word with living as simple a life as possible? Easy. Do not make promises lightly. Think long and hard before agreeing to do something. Once you've given your word, it's your obligation to follow through. Choose wisely.

A look into the tools I use for writing, reading, and reference.

Writing:

I write on three different devices – my iMac, my iPhone 4, and my iPad 2. One of my core needs is that anything I write must be instantly accessible and editable on any of these three devices. This is non-negotiable. It’s the biggest reason I nearly never write with paper and pen.

iMac writing tools

nvALT gets the nod here. Not only is it simple and easy to use, it’s ridiculously powerful. Every single one of my notes and articles is visible, editable, and most importantly, searchable. I simply type in the search box and the results are instantly pared down until I find what I’m looking for. Even better, nvALT has Markdown support built in. Simply hit CMD+CTRL+P to view or hide a Markdown instant preview. Neato.

I have nvALT set to sync with Simplenote and Dropbox, in the form of plain text files. This is for both convenience and security. The more places my data lives, the less likely it will disappear into the night. I am paranoid of losing data, and go to fairly obsessive means to prevent data loss. That’s a topic for another day, though.

iPhone writing tools

Contrary to my single-app preference on OS X, I spend time in two writing apps on the iPhone. First, and most used, is Simplenote. I love Simplenote for its simplicity. There aren’t pages of preferences to fiddle with. There are just your notes, synced effortlessly with nvALT.

App number two is Nebulous Notes. This is an unpolished app, at least compared with Simplenote. However, it has the wonderful ability to create macros, which I wrote about in my review. When I’m writing any significant amount of Markdown, Nebulous Notes is where I spend my time.

iPad writing tools

If you guessed that they were the same as my iPhone apps, you would be right. Even though it keeps my Twitter buddy knowsbestt up at night, I haven’t used iA Writer. One day I’ll rectify this, just so he will talk to me again.

Other iOS Notes

Occasionally, I’ll hop into Elements instead of Simplenote or Nebulous Notes. I have no good reason for this, other than it’s pretty. Well that, and it has a Markdown preview button right there on the screen. I don’t like to venture into Elements often, because I’ll catch myself coming down with the Idiot Staring at a Blank Screen Syndrome.

This is a visualization of my how my writing is synced. As you can probably tell, there is one flaw in the system. If I edit an app using Nebulous Notes or Elements, the note is synced immediately to Dropbox. However, it is not synced to Simplenote. This is a problem if I’d like to edit that note in Simplenote later.

The common ground is nvALT. The only solution here is to leave my Mac running with nvALT open. That way any changes made to one of the Dropbox files are reflected in Simplenote, and vice versa.

Textexpander

Does Textexpander deserve its own header? Unquestionably. I have many dozens of snippets in Textexpander that save me so much typing it’s ridiculous. If I type a particular phrase / line of code / whatever more than twice, I make a new snippet. These snippets sync across my iOS devices, so I never have to worry about maintaining separate snippet databases. I don’t care if you have any of the apps listed here except for this one. Get Textexpander. Go ahead and get it now; I’ll wait.

Reading

I use two apps to read, and both are indispensable.

Reeder

Reeder handles all my RSS feeds. I have Reeder for OS X, iPad, and iPhone. The iPhone app sees the most use by far, because I have it with me all the time. When I find something interesting that I don’t have time to read right away, I send the article to Instapaper. Quick, easy, and ready for me when I actually have time.

Instapaper

Oh, Instapaper. I send articles to Instapaper from Reeder, Twitter, and random browsing. Occasionally I clear my queue, but not very often. Instapaper won’t pester you with red badges, though. It doesn’t care if you have three articles to read or three hundred. It will keep your articles safe until you have time to get to them, whenever that may be.

I spend more time in Instapaper on my iPhone, though it’s certainly far more enjoyable on my iPad. The bigger screen makes it an absolute joy.

Reference

For long-term reference I use two systems. All text-based reference material lives in my Simplenote / Dropbox text system. Anything non-text based (mainly PDF) lives in Evernote. I have tried Yojimbo, since it has so many fans, and I just don’t get the attraction. It’s a perfectly nice app, to be sure… but having access to my reference database from any computer, including my iOS devices, makes Evernote the clear choice for me.

That about covers it. I don’t like to use tons of apps that overlap in functionality. My setup is a bit more complicated than I’d really like, but it works well for me now.

Vacation is probably the greatest thing that man has ever invented. I just got back from an absolutely amazing vacation. My family and I visited Miramar Beach, Florida. Miramar Beach is about 20 minutes from Destin, which you may have actually heard of.

Driven straight, it’s about 13 hours from our home in San Antonio to our destination. With stops, it turned out to be right about 16 hours each way. Let’s just say, that’s a lot of time to spend in a Mini Cooper. With three other people and enough luggage for a week.

Packing light

With the aforementioned four people in a tiny car, packing light isn’t just a nice thing to do, it’s absolutely necessity. Somehow we managed to fit everything we needed into a suitcase that just barely fit in the boot¹, with a few extra things behind the front seats. If you’re a serial over-packer, one long trip in a Mini will fix that in a hurry.

Gadgets on the trip

I no longer have a notebook computer, having dropped it in favor of an iPad 2. My plan for this trip was to bring my iPad to handle any work that just couldn’t wait until after my vacation. At the very last minute, I opted to ditch the iPad too. That’s right, I went on a seven day trip with an iPhone as my only computer.

And I survived.

Indeed, I often left the iPhone in the hotel room when we went out. It served as a camera more than any other function, but my wife’s DSLR was doing the heavy lifting in that department anyway. Fortunately none of my websites exploded on my trip, or patching things up may have been touchy. The lack of reasonable WiFi would have further complicated things².

A week without gadgets was… nice

One week without the distraction of shiny gadgets was pretty great. I was able to enjoy the company of my family without distractions constantly pulling me in different directions. The lack of having to work was the biggest relief, of course. If I didn’t have to work for a living, I could see myself having more gadget-free time. The gadgets do help with work, though.

Beautiful

Again and again, I caught myself thinking how beautiful Miramar Beach is. Pure white sand, crystal-clear water, fish swimming by as you’re playing in the ocean. When viewed from afar, the water is a gorgeous green color… that’s why they call it the Emerald Coast.

Did you really think I wasn’t going to include at least one picture?

This is the view at sunset from our balcony. This shot was one of the few taken with my iPhone. Stunning, isn’t it?

Consumer. What a useless fucking word.

Companies call you a consumer. Your own president calls you a consumer. To these people, you are a destroyer. You consume things. That is your entire purpose.

Fuck that.

If a company insists on calling you, its customer, a consumer – fuck it. If a government official insists on calling you, the person who elected him¹, a consumer – fuck him.

What is a consumer?

When I hear the word consumer, a very distinct picture forms in my head. Specifically, I picture a 400 pound man in his underwear, sitting on the couch. One hand is stuffing Doritos into his mouth by the fistful, and the other is reaching deep into a greasy bucket of fried chicken. This is a consumer. I am not this. Therefore, I am not a consumer.

What is consumption?

For their there to be consumption something must be consumed. In other words, something that existed before the consumption must no longer exist after the consumption. You can consume a slice of pizza. You cannot, however, consume a book.² You also cannot consume a movie. Or an article on a website. Do you see the difference?

This isn't rocket science, folks. Large companies and the government insult you, and they insult your intelligent when they label you as a consumer. Once upon a time, companies referred to us as customers. Once upon a time, our government referred to us as citizens. Perhaps it's time we grow a pair and demand those times back.

The written word is my preferred method of gathering information. I can read at my own pace, as fast or as slow as I want. If I'm interrupted, it's easy to pick up where I left off without missing a beat. Perhaps most important of all, I can skim. Not everything written is worth reading in detail, even if you closely monitor the sources you read from. Skimming lets me choose what gets my attention.

On Podcasts

While on Twitter today, Dave Caolo mentioned how backlogged he was with his podcast subscriptions. The screenshot showed a total of 425 unheard episodes – with who knows how many more lurking below. Even if each episode is very short, at an average of 10 minutes... that's over 70 hours of podcasts to listen to. That's nearly two weeks of full-time work.

Wow.

The real problem here is the inability to skim. A backlog of podcasts gives you just two choices – spend two full work weeks doing nothing but listening to podcasts, or choose what to read without really knowing what you're choosing. You can't skim through the podcast to see if it's worth your time. You are either in or out, based solely on the title.

Use the Subscribe button carefully

So there's a shiny new podcast out – great. Think for a moment before hitting subscribe. Are you sure you want to invest the time? You can't make a 10, 20, or 30 minute podcast speed up. You can't listen faster. It takes as long as it takes, and that's the way it is. It's a fairly inflexible demand on your time. You should take that seriously.

It's been 30 days since I began my stress-free experiment. Well, drastically-reduced-stress experiment. See, that doesn't really have the same ring to it though. I'm going to stick with stress-free.

Semantics aside, thirty days ago, I committed to drastically cutting stress for the upcoming month. Not under actual doctor's orders, since I despise actually going to the doctor... but rather self-imposed doctor's orders.

Whenever I would start to feel stress about anything – work, side projects, life in general... I would simply take a moment to breathe and relax. Worrying has never been the answer in the past, and it wouldn't be the answer this time. So, how did my little experiment go?

It worked brilliantly.

My Things Today list disappeared faster than ever day after day. Tasks were getting completed, for once, faster than I could add new ones. I was getting things done better than ever, but without the stress usually associated with work.

Don't get me wrong – I haven't been some sort of model of Zen behavior. I slipped up from time to time, and fell off the wagon. But I was committed and got back on, and found a better way to work. A better way to live.

For the average person, easily 75% of the stress you deal with on a daily basis is useless. Absolutely useless. Worse than that, it's self-inflicted. You are the one worrying. You are the one putting pressure on yourself. You.

Stop it.

Relax, get some work done, and don't worry about it. You'll be surprised how much you get done.

Imagine you're at the doctor's office, and he tells you that your blood pressure is out of control. He can prescribe some medicine, but making changes to your daily life is really the only way to get it back in line.

Specifically, you'll need to reduce your stress level drastically or die.

With this sort of ultimatum — reduce your stress or die — it's a pretty easy choice. No one want to go before his time, so you'll find a way to cut out stress.

Everyone should know this next bit already, though most of us act as though we don't. Even if your doctor hasn't told you, excessive stress is harming you. I say excessive because some stress is necessary, even good. Without any stress, you aren't likely to be bothered with going to work, or paying your bills.

Excessive stress, on the other hand, tires you out and drives your blood pressure through the roof. Since high blood pressure runs in my family, I need to be careful not to make it worse.

Starting this past Tuesday, February 8th, I've made a conscious goal to reduce stress. I'm going to give it a full 30 days, and see how things have changed. My goal will be to cut out all non-essential stress in my daily life.

My work will see the biggest change. I won't worry about pending deadlines. I won't worry that Project X is due Friday and needs a ton of work. I won't worry about stuff that doesn't matter.

I'm just going to work.

Project X will get done. Why? Because instead of worrying about it, I'll be busy working on it. The deadlines will be kept, because I'm working instead of freaking out. No problem has ever been solved by stressing about it. No situation has ever improved because someone stressed over it.

The only way to solve a problem is to solve it. The only way to ship Project X is to finish it. No amount of worrying and stressing is going to get it done any faster. So why, then, do we worry so?

Cut the stress. Stop worrying about what isn't yet done. Get to work instead.

As one of my favorite singers once said in a great song:

I don't wanna change the world; I don't want the world to change me.

— Ozzy Osbourne

I have no interest in changing the world. It would probably be a futile effort, in any case.

The things I write here are not for everyone. These words are for those few people thinking about changing... thinking about living a simpler life. Hopefully I can help point these folks in the right direction.

I don't expect mass movements based on anything I say, do, or write. America at large won't stop her gluttonous ways because I wish it... It just won't happen.

I'm okay with that. See, I don't want to change the world.

More importantly, I don't want the world to change me.

Sure, I don't fit in with the majority. I don't spend to excess. I don't have 3.2 SUV's, 11 kids, and a boat. I don't want any of that. Instead, I'm content to live my life the way I want. Not with too much, because it's the norm. Nor with too little, because it's trendy. I'll stick with just right.