«I look at a hundred deals a day. I pick one.»
Gordon Gekko in «Wallstreet»
Sometimes it’s difficult to write postings. You recommend something that really looks good. And it does, for the first couple of hours, days or weeks. But then it turns out to be … not so good in the long term.
And yeah, I did eat my words a few times (e.g., here), but — and this is important — while most of the things I write about turn out rather well, there are also some things I can really recommend after … well, long years of experience. They are in a different class. Currently those are, among others (lots of other things, I can only write about so much, and your patience is similarly limited):
- A gaming mouse: Seriously one of the best investments I ever did. I cannot imagine the suck of working with a mouse with only three buttons and a wheel. Being able to double click with a thumb button, or switch the virtual screens up/down via dedicated buttons — priceless. (I’d say you never know how thankful your hand can be if you remove the suck — here of interacting with a PC/Mac interface — but I guess you already got that covered.) Posting here and here.
- A standing desk. Prostates are a thing, and sitting all the time is a really bad idea. So a standing desk is a great way to work. Build my own one here and here, or a mod here, but today, there are cheap versions available. Even those you can turn into a “normal” desk, and let’s be honest, there are times when you need to sit down. The only thing I would not recommend standing desks for is gaming. If you get lost in a game, you might realize after a while (around 24+ hours) that your ankles get swollen. And let’s just agree that dying — even when immersed in an insanely great world — is a bad thing.
- Content Outlines: If there is one thing I took from my diploma thesis and dissertation, it’s the use of content outlines (see, e.g., here and here). They are really, really helpful. So yeah. Highly recommended.
- Scrivener: Yeah, I think it can be improved, especially regarding its Typewriter mode. Look, Keith, I told you so. Just fix the damn thing. But seriously, Scrivener is still the best tool for writers, at least, when it comes to writing. I would like to have an outliner in the “Notes” section, but still, impressively done. I can only state it this way, I (try to) provide advice, he provides solutions, and does so damn well. Kudos.
- Organizing Creativity: Yeah, I’m going to recommend my own work. Suck it up, I am feeling worse than you doing it. But I still think — organization and creativity are both needed to create something new and useful, and the book I wrote (well, the second edition) provides some help to do so.
That’s it for now. I’m going to update that list, as I just wrote it down “in the spur of the moment”. If you have ideas of what is really helpful in the long term, drop me a line.
