For the longest time, I thought productivity was something I could conquer. I sure tried to conquer it. I put my head down and ran straight at it full tilt. I repeatedly bashed my skull into it for years. I can look at so much folly in my life arising from this private war with that slippery productivity.
David Sparks nails why I’m done with self-help and productivity porn, at least for the most part. It’s not helping me. The only thing that will help me is to sit down and do the damn work. As long as I do that, ways of doing it better will arise naturally. It’s always great to know I’m not the only one stuck suffering under various delusions when it comes to self-improvement.
When I woke up on New Year’s Day and pulled my iPhone, running Sleep Cycle, out from under the covers, I noticed the crescent moon in my status bar that indicates “Do Not Disturb” mode was still on. This struck me as slightly odd, as it was scheduled to turn off at seven in the morning, a full three and a half hours before I actually woke up. [1] In the time, I missed a bunch of New Years text messages, but no phone calls. Thinking nothing of it, I switched Do Not Disturb back off, got up, and started doing a little relaxed, early morning reading on my iPad.
A few articles in on Flipboard, I noticed the crescent on the iPad’s status bar too. I turned it off, and resumed my reading. Then, I came across an article on the problem. That, I guess, explained that. If it’s a bug, then it’s a damned useful one. Like anyone who had been out ringing in the new year, the last thing I wanted was my phone buzzing for some reason or another and waking me before I was ready. It’s exactly the sort of “I didn’t know I wanted it until I had it” feature that makes Apple products so useful.
That Apple put out a new ad touting the Do Not Disturb feature today makes me believe even more that this was intentional. Though, I could be wrong. Working for a startup company, even in a non-technical role, has taught me a few things about software development—the sort of axiomatic things that you hear but never experience until you’re in that world. I’m talking about stuff like the Ninety-ninety rule. The larger, more complicated, and more interrelated any system is, the more likely a small change in a component part can cause trouble elsewhere, and if that trouble is, itself, small, it can easily escape notice.
You know the show-stopping bugs when they happen. Your screen turns blue or black. A box comes up with an indecipherable error message. All the data in a folder suddenly vanishes without a trace. These are the ones that you drop everything to fix, without even creating an issue in your bug tracker. The little ones… they’re harder to spot. Even a company like Apple can have trouble with those. Whether it was an overlooked bug, or a secret easter egg feature, I certainly didn’t mind not having my sleep interrupted. A new year begins best after a good night’s sleep. And bug-crushing is easier when you’re well rested.
It was a long night. I got in from New Year’s-related reveling and into my bed around 2:30. ↩
The biggest worry I had—and still have—about blogging daily is whether I’ll actually have anything to say each day. It was sometimes a struggle to find something to write about on a weekly basis, after all. For this go around, I’m trying to prime the pump, making sure to read—not skim—good writing on the web. I’m putting my Instapaper, Google Reader, and Flipboard accounts to good use, keeping an eye out for anything that might spark an idea. All the best writers are voracious readers. Reading gives a writer not only ideas, but a voice. We synthesize what we see, hear, and read, combining it into something distinctly our own. A writer who does not read risks stagnation. [1]
I know the day will come, sooner rather than later, that I’ll be sitting here, facing the blank page, and be unable to think of a damn thing to say. When that happens, I’ll try to figure out how to work around it. However, I shouldn’t force it. Iain Broome put it well:
Here’s a rubbish analogy for you. If a plumber cuts his or her hand on a pipe and it’s bleeding all over your nice new carpet, you don’t say ‘Carry on plumbing! Plumb man (or woman). Plumb like you’ve never plumbed before!’
Instead you say, ‘Goodness me, you’ve made a mess of that haven’t you? Here, sit down. Let me make you a cup of tea and get you a biscuit. Perhaps when we’ve got that blood cleaned up and you’ve had a chance to think about what’s happened, you can crack on again. Tell me, do you charge by the hour?’
I’m not afraid of sucking. I’m just afraid of being silent. This brings it around to why I’m even doing this whole blogging daily thing in the first place. Yes, it’s because I want to write more, but also because I want to read more. I want interesting writing, interesting links, interesting commentary, and interesting people providing it. What better place to start getting all of that than on my own blog. Be the change you want to see on the Internet, or something like that. As long as I can keep my pump primed with good things that get me thinking, I’ll never want for something to write about.
Until the day I do.
This will hopefully be later rather than sooner.
When that day comes, I hope any ostensible reader of this site doesn’t notice. Either I’ll manage to find something to write about, or I’ll find a great link deserving of commentary, or I’ll just bang on the keyboard and pray it doesn’t suck. I figure the more I make the clackity noise, the less likely I’ll be unable to find something to say. Once the pump is flowing, the job becomes a lot easier.
By way of example, see the series of posts from when all I was digesting was stuff about doing creative work. ↩
New Years Resolutions are stupid, and almost guaranteed to fail. Yet, here I am on the last day of 2012, making a resolution, and backing it up with a big, public post on the Internet. That resolution is that I will be posting to Sanspoint every day—or at least every weekday.
The urge to go daily came not long after I bemoaned how hard it was to find really good blogs. It was a simple, logical leap: if I can’t find what I want, I’ll create it. I need an excuse, after all. The harder part was determining just what I wanted to write about. This lead to a few nights of determined soul-searching, trying to discover just what I’m actually passionate about enough to write about. The list, as written into Day One, went as follows:
Technology
Music
Literature
“Productivity†(to a point)
Writing
Design
There’s obviously more to me than this, but it’s a start. In a way, what I will post here will relate more with the name. Lacking a specific focus or point, whatever gets stuck in my craw each day, and gets my attention, I’ll share and write about. That’s the important thing. If I can’t settle on one passion, I’ll pick freely from among them. Besides, under the pressure to actually do something daily, I’ll have to find new things to say, and new things to explore. In which case, everybody wins.
One thing I won’t be doing is talking up more nebulous stuff about “work,” and “creativity,” and things like that. It’s played out. Talking about doing the work and doing the work are different things, and I’m tired of being all talk. That’s the other side of why I’m going daily—to put my money where my mouth is. Thankfully, I’m not doing it alone. Andrew Marvin of Quarter-Life Enlightenment is picking up his blog again. He’s an amazing writer, a brilliant mind, and one-third of Crush On Radio. Patrick Rhone also went daily, and he didn’t wait to start. A support structure always helps when attempting any life change—and writing every day is a big one.
Also, with the new focus on daily updates, there’s a new look for Sanspoint. If you’re viewing this in a browser, as this is published, what you see is (hopefully) temporary. The previous design of the site was suited towards the longer form articles I wrote. As I go daily, those will only be a part of a bigger range of things, and the design must reflect that. I plan to improve on it over time, iterating and improving as I go. The site itself will evolve as my writing evolves. It will be a journey, and as excited as I am to take the first step, the second one is even more important.
Thanks in part to Crush On Radio, 2012 was probably the first year I tried to keep up with what was happening in the music world. I listened to over forty albums and EPs that came out this year, and have settled upon these top ten albums (and one EP that deserves mention) as the best of what 2012 has to offer. Naturally, they skew towards my own idiosyncratic taste in music. However, I stepped out of my comfort zone on a few of these picks, a testament to the power of a good record to challenge expectations.
Honorable Mention – Dum Dum Girls – End of Daze
If this were a full-length album, I’d have this in the top ten, but at five tracks, it has to be its own thing. Dum Dum Girls combine girl group pop and Ramones style punk with enough melancholy to add gravitas. The music on this disc is earnest and serious—and from my understanding, the melancholy is well earned. A must hear.
You probably don’t own an album that sounds anything like this. A sparse, but lush portal into a stranger’s mind and life. Eskimeaux know how to use studio effects to drive home a lyric, and it’s done well all over the record. To say more, I’d end up repeating my review of the record for Kittysneezes.
I’m only just starting to develop the vocabulary to appreciate Rap. Therefore, I approached this album with trepidation only to be won over by a stunning production and brilliant concept—a story of redemption from violence into the arms of something larger and better. The lyrics and their delivery are amazing too, as they must to make it a compelling listen. Even if you’re not a fan of Rap, this album is worth your time.
For their sophomore effort, Japandroids strip down the conventions of classic rock to fit their minimalist aesthetic of guitar and drum kit. They fill their songs with heavy power chords, pounding beats, and lyrics about drinking, smoking, and fucking. Somehow, Japandroids make adolescent angst and disaffection cool again, while being aware of the futility and transience of those adolescent things. In the meantime, “we yell like hell to the heavens.”
Occupying a nebulous space somewhere between house music and ambient, this album secured a spot in my top ten before I even finished listening to it. It clicked once I realized that the stop/start transitions between tracks were intentional, that each cut was as it was meant to be, alone, disconnected, its own little electronic world to fall into. I need more albums like that.
Kevin Parker sounds a hell of a lot like John Lennon. This is a neat trick, considering he’s Australian and not Liverpudlian. Lonerism sounds a lot like the psychedelic bits of Sgt. Pepper and Revolver, redone with modern technology. It’s an album that, with a pair of headphones, lets you sink in and feel at home. And, let’s be fair, if you don’t like Sgt. Pepper or Revolver, there’s something wrong with you. Beatle-based pop never died.
Deconstructed country music for the 21st Century. Daughn’s deep bass croon sounds like a man who’s seen enough heartbreak and horror that nothing else could faze him, but still has trouble sleeping at night, and he’s not afraid to tell you what he’s seen. And he does it over music made of samples of country music, modified to crank up the inherent darkness. Turn the lights down, pour some whiskey and listen. Fire optional.
This is the most consistent and listenable release by Crystal Castles. Previous albums have had high notes, among tracks of difficult noise. Here, the off-putting veneer is pulled back, and the noise turned to punctuation around soulful songs of cold electronics and cold vocals. Even “Sad Eyes,” the closest Crystal Castles come to pop music on an album, is stark and cold. Yet I’ve warmed up to their odd blend of synthesized harshness.
At this point in his career, it may be that David Byrne can do no wrong. Certainly, teaming up with St. Vincent, who is the only contemporary musician matching Byrne’s brilliance, was a smart idea. Together they created an album of surprising pop brilliance. The decision to base the songs around an eight piece brass band is simply icing on the cake. Some reviews put Love This Giant down because it was exactly as they expected from its parts. And that is a bad thing why?
“Oblivion” is my favorite song of the year, without any doubt. It’s a sublime nugget of avant-pop. Its odd, throbbing baseline and helium vocals that will be on repeat in the little jukebox inside your head. The rest of the record doesn’t quite reach the heights of “Oblivion”—“Genesis” comes closest—it’s still a wild, textured ride showcasing the range of what electronic pop can be and become. It will stick with you. I can’t wait to see what else Grimes comes up with in the future.
The first album I listened to by Hot Chip, 2010’s One Life Stand, showed a lot of promise, but failed to capitalize. Its followup, however, fulfills that promise and goes above and beyond. Hot Chip managed to make an album that, in the span of just under an hour, can have the listener undergo a transformative, almost spiritual experience and shake their booty. There’s not a bad cut on this disc, not a note or a lyric that could be deemed unessential, even on the longest tracks. Easily one of my favorite albums, not of the year, but of all time.