“They want me to know how to 10 key.”
At one point in my career I worked for a restaurant that wanted the hostesses to cash out all the receipts at the end of the night. There are many things I remember about that job; the waitress who hated me because I flirted with her boyfriend, the waiter who hated me because I shocked that his coffee mug had alcohol, the manager who groped me (along with all the other hostesses). But of all the nightmares in the job, the thing I hated the most was learning how to use that damn receipt calculator. Every job has technical tools it relies on to be more effective. Architects have drafting tools, athletes have helmets…. But what about writers? What helps us with our job? It turns out… a lot! We live in an age where there are more apps and tools for writers than ever before; and I’m not talking about just the thesaurus app in Word (though this is one of my favorite tools). The switch from pen and paper to typewriter was life-changing, I am sure. So magnify that by the laptop and all of the software programs on it and you have a writing revolution. Here are a only a few of the tools writers now have available: Scrivener – Handles work as a total project including everything you need from idea to research to writing to editing. Simplenote – makes writing on your phone actually possible. Evernote – Holds onto (in the cloud) all of the material, including pdfs, mediafiles, links, a writer finds while researching and makes it accessible later from anywhere. Dropbox – whatever you do, back-up your stuff…. This has been a mantra since writing moved to the computer. Dropbox allows you to do this quickly and easily. Ommwriter – Creates a creative environment clean of distractions so you can actually get writing done. Looking for details on these and more…. Author Edward Humes has pulled togethwer a great list of tools for wriers: http://www.edwardhumes.com/2011/02/12-essential-apps-tech-tools-for.html And, my favorite blogger, Kristen Lamb is constantly coming up with helpful writing and social media tools to keep us working: http://warriorwriters.wordpress.com/2012/09/12/mythbusting-three-lies-that-could-sabotage-your-writing-success/ Now… I guess we have no excuses and need to get to work. Thankfully this is all more appealing than learning to 10 key or putting up with a lascivious manager.
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“I’ve been organizing things but now no one can find what they need.”
Everyone right now seems to be cleaning house. I know they say it happens in the Spring, but I actually think that with the start of school parents everywhere have set a new goal to become better organized. And, apparently this isn’t limited to only parents; the above overhear was from the new manager at my local Starbucks who has her own plans for improving efficiency. Unfortunately it isn’t always easy to create intuitive new spots for things… and even more difficult to get our brain to conform to new habits. I have recently run into this as I have tried to re-organize my blog archive. Those fun little tags I have been using willy-nilly are now out to get me. Why, for example, do I find my blog post about the word ‘funnest’ under the tag Apple? (turns out it references the company, not the fruit; click here to read it). It is a lot of work to go back and re-sort all of my posts into correct buckets. And… even when/if I do, I have a feeling I am still going to get it wrong. There is a reason information design is a science. In fact I’m positive I have written a post all about this before but I can’t seem to locate it in my messed up archives. So, if you happen to come across it under any of my tags, like say, friendship, please let me know. I have a feeling I could use some organizing help. Oh…. And for future reference, this post will be tagged withAll just to be on the safe side. |
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June 2020
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