Nerds and tinkering go together like pizza and coke. In fact, it's almost as though one cannot exist without the other. In the case of pizza and coke there's no problem, but nerds and tinkering? Hoo boy.

Writings nerds are among the worst when it comes to tinkering. Whether it's a new app to make opening their favorite app a third of a second faster, or a "distraction-free writing environment," there’s always something new and shiny for a writing nerd to play with.

You spend hours, days, weeks trying app after app to find The Perfect Writing App. Finally you stumble across it – and it is beautiful. Black words on a sea of white. Or white words on a sea of black, if that’s more your style.

Only, you notice something strange. There are no words on your screen. Your screen is a sea of nothingness, devoid of any words. You sir, are an idiot staring at a blank screen. Instead of you know, writing, as a writer should do, you've spent your time searching for the ultimate writing tool.

Buying and trying apps can be useful, even fun. But you know what it isn't? It isn't writing. Writing is writing. Sit down at your keyboard, open up whatever writing app you happen to have on your computer, and type. This smart cat once said that words are found in a keyboard, and you just have to bang on it to make the words come out.

I think that is close to the truth, but not quite. The words, you see, are actually in your fingers. Not everyone's fingers have good words in them, and even if your fingers do have good words, they won’t always be good. That's OK, just so long as you start writing. Your fingers have a story to tell. Let them.

You can use any writing app you like, on any device you like.¹ The specifics aren't important. Writing is.

Don't be an idiot staring at a blank screen, even if it's the most beautiful blank screen you can imagine.

I don’t jump on the bandwagon of the latest and greatest text editor. I used Notational Velocity for the longest time, until I finally¹ switched to the excellent nvALT for its Markdown support. Different applications such as iA Writer and Byword have been getting press for years, and I let them pass me by.

My Problem

My problem with writing is that I don’t write enough. I let myself get distracted by all sorts of nonsense. These problems are mine, and they can’t be fixed with a shiny new app, no matter how magical or distraction-free it is.

I’ve written before about my most productive writing setup. It is one where I turn off the Mac, and grab my iPad and bluetooth keyboard. I set it up on a desk with nothing else – no Mac. No iPhone. Just my fingers and the words they make appear on the screen. This hasn’t changed, and I don’t expect it to.

By its very nature, the iPad is designed for writing. You may not think so at first, but you have to get creative. One app at a time² forces you to focus. It forces you to make words appear on the screen. Otherwise you’re just an idiot staring at a blank screen. No one wants to be that guy. I know I don’t.

Sitting on the couch relaxing with my wife recently, I made a comment that I often make: "What I would give for more time..."

Only this time I stopped, realizing the absurdity of what I was saying. Thinking out loud, I took it further.

"That's a stupid thing to say. There's nothing I have to trade that's as valuable as time."

Really, what is there? Even if you could bargain with God for more time, what would you offer? Time is absolutely precious. It's irreplaceable. It has no peer. Time is all that really matters. What are you doing with yours?

As time passes , the more I realize it's all that really matters. All this, just about everything I write here, it's all about time. Time is the one thing we can never get back once it's gone.

Getting rid of your extra stuff... reducing commitments, simplifying your life... these are all just means to an end. The end? Getting more time, of course. The excess in your life sucks up your time, and that time is gone forever.

One of the worst things you can do to me is waste my time.

When you waste my time, you're taking something very important from me. Something that once you've taken it, I can never get it back.

Maybe it's only ten minutes that you wasted. Maybe it seems inconsequential to you. Maybe it is. But what if every person I interact with today wastes ten minutes of my time? Ten minutes times... I don't know... 20 people... that's 200 minutes. Over three hours.

Time matters. Efficiency matters. Being respectful of others' time matters. A lot.

I place an incredibly high value on my time. I value every minute. Whether I choose to do something important, or I choose to sit silently for that minute, so be it. It's my minute to spend as I choose. But don't even think about taking that minute. It's mine.

Giving Cultured Code a hard time is the cool thing to do these days. Folks all over the great series of tubes we call the internet are ragging on CC and their flagship product, Things. Anybody who's everybody is speaking their mind about Things. Most of these folks are converts, or thinking about becoming converts, to Omnifocus.

Two months back, I wrote about my thoughts on the matter. The great Things vs Omnifocus matter. If you haven't read that article yet, you should. It's not very long, as is the case with most things I write. For those of you who prefer pictures, I think this should explain pretty well why I'm not going the Omnifocus route.

Things works as advertised

When I bought Things, the only sync option was for WiFi sync. It's an imperfect solution, to be sure. However, it works exactly as promised. Cultured Code has been working on an Over the Air sync solution for a long time now... probably too long. However it's a future feature, and should not be considered for a purchase today.

Omnifocus gives me seizures

Sure, it has OTA sync. No matter where you add / complete / edit tasks, you always have the most recent version. The sync works across multiple Macs, iPhone, and iPad. That's a serious advantage, to be sure. However, the user interface gives me seizures. I literally have no idea what to do when I open OF.

Projects, Contexts, Due, Flagged, Grouping, Filters, Sorting, Status, Library, etc etc. I'm a smart guy but that makes my head absolutely pound. Folks have told me to give it a change. They've told me to try training videos.

Training videos. For a task manager.

Sure, if I invest hours into training... hours into learning how to maximize my use of Omnifocus, I don't doubt that it could be a great system. But this doesn't seem very, well, simple to me. Task managers are supposed to help you get things done. They are supposed to be simple to use, and get out of the way. I feel like I need a task manager full of projects and tasks just to help me learn how to use Omnifocus.

I'll pass on the bandwagon

Even though it's the cool thing to do these days, I won't be bashing Cultured Code or Things. Things isn't perfect by any means, but it's a great piece of software that does what I need. It gets out of my way and lets me get work done. Using Things is simple and intuitive. Isn't that exactly how it's supposed to be?

There's really only one way to get any meaningful work done. That way is to isolate yourself from the world as completely as possible.

Other humans may inspire you at times. You may get ideas from the thing you see and hear. But inevitably, distraction will prevent any real work from being done.

Try writing anything worth reading when the people around you interrupt every eleven seconds. No really, try it. If you make it through more than a couple paragraphs then perhaps you should apply for sainthood. Mere mortals will get frustrated.

Time, of course, isn't the issue. Constant distraction by the people around you is the problem. This is as true for work as it is for education. Those study partners who you think are helping you learn? They're making your homework take twice as long.

Find yourself a nice quiet place and lock yourself in. If you must work in the outside world, toss on some earphones and put on some calming music. No Metallica. Just something to drown out the noise, and keep those distractions at bay.

The result of this isolation? Pure bliss. The ability to get more done in less time. Better work. More free time.

In the next room sits a 24", dual core, 4GB of RAM iMac. Two years ago it was a powerhouse, and it's still pretty great today, all things considered. Yet I write this from my bedroom, on an iPad hooked up wirelessly to a bluetooth keyboard.

A huge hunk of powerful glass and metal sit, unused. Today, right now, for this task, it's not the best tool. The distractions it offer are too many. Sure, it's great for many, many things. For designing and coding websites, it is certainly the best tool. But for writing? Perhaps not.

The iPad can multitask these days, of course... but not in the same manner as a desktop computer. I can only see the app I'm working on at the moment, and nothing else. Since I'm using Simplenote in full screen mode... all I can see is the text that I'm writing.

No dock. No Safari. No Twitter. No Google Plus. No multitouch trackpad to make flicking through apps a breeze. Nothing. Just words on a screen.

Sometimes, that's exactly what you need. This isn't meant to be profound... but if I didn't step away from the desktop, these words wouldn't exist at all. That's enough reason for me to step away once in awhile.

About two months back, I asked Twitter for input regarding a to-do system. At the time I was using Google Tasks, and it really wasn't up to the task. (Yes, I know that was lame.)

These were my requirements:

• Mac application
• iPhone app
• General awesomeness

These were my wants:

• Cloud syncing
• An app that would actually do the work for me

Needless to say, I struck out on the last item. Today's crop of to-do apps just aren't able to handle that. Maybe in a few years, once the machines have taken over.

Anyway, responses came back for two separate suites of apps: Things and OmniFocus. The general idea was that Things was simple, beautiful, yet powerful, while OmniFocus was an absolute powerhouse.

After a bit of debate, , and a 14 day trial, I spent my $60, and chose Things - purchasing both the Mac app and iPhone app. Since then, Cultured Code has pushed out one major Things iPhone update. They added support for retina display (yay), multitasking (yay), and local notifications (almost).

Talk about missing the mark... Local notifications in this case means one single notification for all your to-do's at a single time during the day. You get to pick the time though. Oh, that's not how it's supposed to work? Anyway...

Besides this glaring omissions, and the whole cloud sync thing, Things works very well for me.

All the cool kids have moved on

These days though, anybody who's anybody has moved on from Things. That's right, all the cool kids are using Omnifocus these days.

I'm perfectly OK with that.

Several very smart people who's opinions I value have switched to and love using Omnifocus. I have no doubt it's feature-packed and fantastic. Here's the thing, though:

Things does what I need it to, pretty darn well.

A few small points aside, Things is perfect. It's powerful while remaining simple. The interface on both OS X and iOS is beautiful. Everything is where you would expect it to be, and you never have to ask "how do I..."

Things lets you get stuff done without having a degree in advanced calculus or biometrics.

If Cultured Code ever gets around to adding cloud sync, and fixes the silly iPhone local notifications, Things will be just about perfect.

The point of all this is simple: if the tool you are currently using works well for you, consider yourself all set. Shiny new tools will always come along with new features. You can go learn new tools, or keep using your tried and true tools that have never let you down. In other words - do you want to learn a new system, or simply get your work done?

Constantly looking for better ways to do things, and better ways to be organized has another name - procrastination. In other words, its not work. You're not actually doing anything. Stop procrastination; start doing.

Way back on July 26th of this year, the bulb on my 65" Toshiba HDTV displayed it's last picture. Today marks the third week that I've been without my previously beloved, massive television. And you know what? I don't miss it.

Sure, there are rare times when we're downstairs and wish, for a moment, that the TV worked. But that moment quickly passes, and my wife and I spend the time talking instead. Sometimes we even straighten up the kitchen while we talk – something that sadly gets neglected too often.

Since our big TV died, our television time has dipped dramatically. Sure, there are other TV's in the house, but none are as compelling as that massive screen in the living room was. Instead of staring at the giant glowing box, we're finding other ways to pass the time.

• Talking.
• Getting rid of junk.
• Getting on each other's nerves on purpose¹.
• The point is, we lost something that used to take up a lot of our time. Instead of complaining about it, we're embracing it. I'm no longer worried about spending the $250 or so to get a new bulb. It'll happen when it happens, and I'm in no rush.

The telephone was an aberation in human development. It was a 70 year or so period where for some reason humans decided it was socially acceptable to ring a loud bell in someone else’s life and they were expected to come running, like dogs. This was the equivalent of thinking it was okay to walk into someone’s living room and start shouting. it was never okay. It’s less okay now.

-Rick Webb

This sums up my thoughts on the telephone in a more eloquent way than I ever could. The only person I actually enjoy speaking to on the phone is my wife. That's really a testament to how much I love my wife, when you consider how much I truly despise the telephone.

In nearly all instances, phone conversations can be handled more efficiently and less intrusively by another means of communication. Email, text messaging, and Twitter come to mind.

Let me give you an example. Let's say a friend of mine is working on a project, and needs to borrow my hammer. A phone conversation might go something like this:

RING RING

Me: Hello?

Friend: Hi Rob.

Me: Who's this?

Friend: It's Toby, silly.

Me: Oh, hi Toby.

Friend: So how are the wife and kid?

Me: Oh they're great. How about yours?

Friend: My wife is great, but the little ones are really a handful. They keep poking each other in the eyes, over and over again. I'm really afraid they might do some real damage.

Me: .......

Friend: But enough about me, what's up with you?

Me: Not much, just enjoying life.

Friend: Haha I wish I was. I work so much these days. Last week I must have put in 90 hours. Have you ever worked in a light bulb factory for 90 hours? Let me tell you, it's not as much fun as it sounds. You can only check so many light bulbs before you start going insane.

Me: ...crickets...

Friend: Listen so anyway, I'm working on this project. I'm building a new doghouse for my son. Since he won't stop poking his sister in the eyes I figure what better solution than making him live in a doghouse? I was wondering if I could ask you a favor.

Me: Uh, sure what's up?

Friend: Do you have a hammer I can borrow?

The trivialities are outrageous.

Now let's see that same conversation in text message form.

Friend text to me: Hey Rob, can I borrow a hammer?

Me: Sure.

Quick, simple, to the point. No loud ringing in my home, no interruption, no excessive BS before getting to the point. Just the way it should be.