racoma.com.phJ. Angelo Racoma on technology, economics, writing, problogging, and getting things done

If you have a taste for the finer things in life, then you should get yourself a Moleskine notebook. It’s the Macintosh of notebooks. It’s the Rolls Royce of notebooks. It’s not only about the price or the visual appeal. It’s all about the sensual experience that you get from using these beautiful pieces of work. Hey, that’s why I use a Mac for my writing work. And when I’m off the grid, ordinary pen-and-paper just won’t do. My Moleskine notebooks helps me get the most out of my disconnected moment, whenever needed.

Creative types work best with good tools and a conducive environment. So if you’re serious about your art or craft–be it writing, drawing, or maybe even taking notes–do something about it. Make sure you come up with the best output by using the right tools and being at the right state of mind.

Moleskine notebooks were previously unavailable in the Philippines, but now moleskineph.com is distributing locally. They don’t have a brick-and-mortar store, though, so you have to check out their online catalog and order by email. Prices range from PhP 750 to PhP 900 for the small notebooks (sets of three or so) and PhP 1,250 for the big ones. Not bad, since these usually retail in the US for about US$ 15 to US$ 20.

With Christmas nearing, I think a Moleskine would make for an excellent gift for your loved ones–a good alternative if you can’t just afford a MacBook Pro for each of them just yet.

Problogging–and the non-income generating kind of blogging, for that matter–is like writing a book or painting, or sculpting. You need to get yourself in that state where you feel most creative. You need to be in the zone. You need to get into the flow. Get your head in the game.

When I was working at NEDA, I used to drive my pawis steering* Mitsubishi Lancer to work every morning, and then to grad school class in the mid-afternoon, and then back to the office again to wrap up some work before returning home. It was a round-trip, actually since my place was near UP Diliman. When I wasn’t driving, I took the MRT–I walked the half kilometer distance between the Shaw MRT station to our Amber drive office back and forth.

When I moved to dotPH, I walked the half kilometer (or was it) distance between the Ortigas MRT station and Emerald Avenue both ways every day–lugging my eight-pound ThinkPad at that! It was also at dotPH where I learned to drink water instead of juice and coffee, and to eat packed lunch instead of the greasy, fatty fastfood or canteen fare.

When I quit the corporate grind to be a freelancer and a problogger, I usually stayed at home when I didn’t have meetings and events to attend–which are actually quite infrequent and irregular. I found myself going out only once in a while to do my banking transactions–those I couldn’t do online–and to take the wife and kids out during weekends. And then there are the cupboard raids for sugary and salty snacks, and of course the unlimited supply of coffee.

In short, turning problogger has caused me to live a sedentary lifestyle, compared to the relatively mobile and healthy daily routine I had before. I watched my waistline grow a couple of inches from its usual. I also sometimes feel sluggish because my muscles have atrophied from non-use! (Okay, exaggerating here.) The only muscles I get to exercise these days are my typing fingers and my coffee mug-lifting arm.

*Pawis Steering: A play on “power steering,” intended for cars without this feature. Pawis is a Filipino term for sweat, hence the phrase implies that the driver exerts so much effort in steering. Yes, the tropical climate, plus sometimes malfunctioning airconditioning systems and the wide 15-inch wheel rims makes one sweat at times.

Working Out

During our college days, Caren and I used to work out at a small gym near our respective homes. It was great. We felt healthy and happy. We didn’t get to achieve those ancient Greek god physiques, but we were active enough to keep our bodies and minds healhty. And just recently, we did what we’ve been wanting to for a long time now–we signed up for membership at a nearby gym! And we just started working out (again).

It’s a both an achievement and a challenge. I’ve always thought that if I ceased to follow the demands of the bundy clock, I would have more time to attend to life’s niceties. But working independent and having no time to follow might sometimes mean working all the time, actually. And this can sometimes be stifling to one’s creativity (and on one’s personal life), particularly if you set no boundaries between work and personal life.

Activity Begets Creativity

Boy, am I glad we took this first step to doing something out of the ordinary. Perhaps this way I’ll get to boost my creativity and productivity. Pumping healthy blood into my brain would sure help get me those fresh ideas!

I’ve always believed we become more creative the more we get to immerse ourselves in reality. Art imitates life. The more we experience life, the more interesting ideas and perspectives we get out of it, even from the most mundane of things.

So if you’re thinking of going into the problogging business, don’t think you can just sit around all day sifting through your RSS feeds and doing the click-copy-paste routine. Again, go out and live life!

One drawback of being in an occupation that one can undertake from home (such as problogging and all sorts of other e-businesses), or when you’re telecommuting or in a mobile-working arrangement is that there is a tendency for you to do just that–stay at home all day doing your work there. Yes, you may be more productive this way. Yes, you could be getting things done better than had you been working at an office setting. Yes, there are no office politicking, overbearing bosses, chatty colleagues and all that.

But you don’t get to meet any people. You don’t get to go out and see the world-at-large. And this sometimes sucks.

Being an introvert such as myself, this could be even more troublesome, as one would not get to practice interpersonal skills that are equally important in business as a great idea and good execution. Face it–we may be the best damned programmers, the best effing writers, or the coolest web designers this side of the world, but without the ability to communicate with other people effectively, then we’re just running around in circles. We need to be able to reach out to be able to get where we want to go.

The Salesman

In other words, everyone has to be a salesman–and in our case, we have to sell our ideas, our ideals, our passions, so that other people would also share in what we believe in. And hey, we also get to earn this way.

Well, given that most ideas nowadays can be communicated over textual means–over the Web, email or instant messaging–you might think that actually talking to people is passe. Not really. I’m of the opinion that there’s still no substitute for a handshake. There’s no substitute to the sensual aspects of actually meeting a person face-to-face and seeing, hearing, and feeling (sometimes, perhaps, tasting and smelling even) all aspects of communication.

After all, communication is about 80% body language, 15% execution or tone, and 5% talk. Or something to that effect (I forgot the actual proportions but it’s the same banana).

You can’t transmit body language over the ‘Net. You can try, with webcams, VoIP and all, but this wouldn’t be half as exciting as seeing someone face-to-face.

A Matter of Choice

What’s great with not having to work in a regular workplace environment is you don’t have to deal with people. It’s certainly more comfortable when the pressure to fit in is no longer there. This way, if you get to reach out to people, it’s because you want to, and that you choose to. It’s a matter of personal choice.

In a regular workplace setting, you’d have to deal with bitchy cube-mates, rumour-monger next-door neighbors (if you’re fortunate enough to get an office with actual doors, walls and windows), drive-by-management-freak bosses, airheads of all sorts, and all that. You have no choice. It’s either you live with it or be labelled the outcast.

What’s great with not being tethered to a desk or not being bound time-and-space by your job is that you won’t have to deal with Ms. Biatch, Mr. Airhead, nor the boss from hell. You can get to deal with such people, though, if you so choose. But hey, wouldn’t you rather hook up with the cute girl over at the next table at Starbucks (and more especially, her sexy black MacBook)?

Live Life

So don’t just sit there working all day with that smug grin on your face, thinking it’s great being able to avoid people all day.

My advice to you: unmount your donkey, leave your abode and have meaningful intercourse with a fellow human (translation: get off your ass, go out and talk to someone). Or at least go somewhere and get to immerse yourself in the goings-on of real people. Eat out. Take a stroll at the mall, park, or anywhere interesting. Go somewhere and watch people live their lives (Go ogle for all I care)!

This is why I go out and work at WiFi-enabled cafes (everyday while waiting for Pia’s preschool class to finish).

There comes a time in your life as a blogger when you can’t write s#!t. You want to be productive. You want to have some interesting output, whether on your personal blogs or other blogs (if you blog for network or team blogs). But you’ve squeezed out every ounce of creativity into your last masterpiece. You’ve tried and tried to outdo yourself this time, but to no avail.

Well, yes, there is always the temptation to just put up one-liners with links and blockquotes like those “hey, this is cool, check this out,” posts. Lately, though, I’ve been avoiding doing this, or else I would probably just be echoing everyone else on the blogosphere without adding value to the conversation (i.e., at least my unequivocal, principled personal opinion on something). You can do the citations from other sources, too, with some added commentary, but hey, isn’t something substantial and original better (at least in terms of the style and point of view, but maybe not always the content)? Don’t we aim to be different from the rest?

Stop and smell the flowers

In our desire to be more productive, we end up over-exerting ourselves.

This is probably the anathema of creativity. Forcing yourself to be creative would only push you to come up with crap and then you’d feel bad about it later on. Yes, pressure is good at times. But when your motivation for doing something is because you have to do it, rather than want to, it would sure be less fun. And that takes the kick out of doing anything, doesn’t it? And it’s one way to ensure that whatever you come up with would be far from the beautiful oeuvre you would’ve been able to create had you been the inspired, passionate little fellow.

You get things done, but do you get them done right?

Sometimes you have to pause awhile and experience life to recharge.

Go read a book. Go watch a movie. Go visit an art gallery. Go out and play with your kids, date your wife, walk your dog, chat with your cute next-door-neighbor, execute that excellent practical joke you’ve been dying to try on your gullible sister.

Go and do anything worthwhile. Let life happen. Live life.

This is when your next big idea will likely pop up in your mind. Don’t forget to write it down. Better yet, start conceptualizing, start working on it as soon as you can (not in the middle of that date, mind you). Life’s made up of many small interesting streams of thought, and only a few big ideas worth losing sleep on. Capitalize on that big idea. Work on that idea. Be passionate about that big idea.

The small ideas–your everyday stuff–are okay, but it’s the great, big ideas that change the world.

Hey, Archimedes was taking a bath when he had that Eureka! moment (or so legend says).

Read, read, read

Fellow blogger Clair reads and reads.

Writing for a living has trained me to write anything – no matter what. But of course. it is tougher. Writing three blog entries a day and editing other people’s entries (grammar, etc) could be quite painful too.
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I read and talk about things that got me interested. If not about the article itself but maybe the circumstances around it, the person who wrote it, how I could relate, etc.

I try to read a lot, too, and I try my best to learn from what I read. My readings don’t necessarily have to be about the topics that I write about (mostly tech). In fact, I prefer reading literary pieces because this is where I learn about style, usage, context, and exposition. Most of the time, the way I write is influenced by what I’m currently reading at a given time.

I read juvenile books (e.g., Lois Lowry), light American classics (e.g., Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn series), heavy novels with morality issues (e.g., Alexandre Dumas’ The Count of Monte Cristo), and even Dan Brown stuff (not much for good narrative and exposition, but storylines are more or less OK). Oh yes, I’ve been fond of reading up on my newest favorite writer of late (though I’m in want of more, more, more!).

My mood and style of writing are usually influenced by what I’m into at any given time. For instance, I’m now midway into Monte Cristo, and you may be sensing dark undertones in my postings. Or perhaps it’s because I’m currently feeling low and moody, anyway. Or maybe I’m feeling low because of the book in the first place.

At any rate, reading is good. It expands your vocabulary. It takes up your horizon to new heights. It brings you closer to worlds (and words) previously-unknown. You’re likely to also get into the groove of writing, and even get that big idea you’ve been wanting to come up with to have for the longest time.

Live life. Read up.

So here’s to that Eureka! moment!