I’m back after some travel for Thanksgiving, and now wrapping up many things for the year, personal and professional.

I was starting to feel overwhelmed lately, and as that usually does, it paralyzed me a bit. But I’m slowly getting through everything that has piled up over who-knows-how-long, and I’m feeling a little better about it.

On the Write.as front, we have a little early December sale on Write.as Pro and our WriteFreely iOS app that ends in a few hours (tonight at midnight, Eastern Time). There’s still time to grab that, if you want — see our Deals newsletter. Also, a few of us are still hanging out in the Remark.as Café lately. It’s been nice just chatting every once in a while over the course of the day.

Otherwise, I’m looking over all our costs for Write.as, because they’ve slowly grown without me keeping a close eye on it, and it’s getting less sustainable for me. Luckily, there are many places we can easily cut costs, like with old unused services we still host, and by switching to cheaper alternatives for others that have gotten out of hand.

As part of that, we’re going to start limiting the remote content we retain on our 8-year-old Mastodon instance, Writing Exchange, as those hosting costs have gone up about $50 every 2 or 3 months. With all of this work, we should be much leaner going into the new year.

#work

Thoughts? Discuss...

This is a busy week for me, as I try to wrap up a good amount of work before some travel for the holidays. I'll be very close to the computer throughout most of it, so you should see me more active online. As part of that, I'll be hanging out in the Remark.as Café all week long. If you're a Write.as Pro user, come stop by and say hello to everyone!

#work #RemarkAs

Thoughts? Discuss...

The hardest part of nonstop self-directed work is probably the extended periods of feeling like you're not “accomplishing” anything. When you're only doing small but necessary tasks, it's a slog with no conclusion and no end in sight.

I think this is why I sometimes switch to small, fun projects in my free time. When it's small and self-contained, you can “win” easily. And that feeling of accomplishment — any kind of accomplishment — bleeds back into the real work.

I realized this over the weekend, as I took some extended time to play video games. Like with small projects, in games you can first find some struggle, and then finality. Winning or losing is binary; it doesn't drag out for years as you wonder whether something is going to work out or you're doing the right thing with your life (for example).

Programming is the same, I suppose — that tight feedback loop of good or bad as the computer tells you whether you typed the instructions correctly. But once you've mastered programming, you move away from this binary world with satisfying feedback to the nebulous world of Am I building the right thing? or Does this solve a business need — and what is that need, anyway?

Sometimes, an occupation that requires living with endless uncertainty needs a tiny bit of certainty interjected, just to remember what it feels like — as fleeting as it may be.

#work #projects #videoGames #transience

Thoughts? Discuss...