Showing posts with label Cal Newport. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cal Newport. Show all posts
Monday, June 08, 2020
Frederick Turner's "In the Land of the Temple Caves" Recommended, Plus from the Archives: Cal Newport's "Deep Work"; "Study Hacks" Blog; and On Quitting Social Media
>>READ THIS POST ON THE NEW PLATFORM WWW.MADAM-MAYO.COM
Monday, April 08, 2019
This Writer’s Distraction Free Smartphone (DFS): First Quarter Update
By C.M. Mayo www.cmmayo.com
This blog posts on Mondays. As of 2019 the second Monday of the month is devoted to my writing workshop students and anyone else interested in creative writing. (You can find my workshop schedule and many more resources for writers on my workshop page.)
Most people have forfeited more than a generous portion of their attentional focus to their
smartphones– to checking and scrolling through text messages, social
media feeds, games, shopping, news, YouTube videos & etc. Ergo, I would suggest that if you want to get some writing done,
don’t be like most people: consider your smartphone use. Very carefully.
And honestly. Yes, smartphones are gee-whiz useful. But when you
consider how much of your time and attention they can so easily suck up,
day after day after day, you can recognize how exceedingly dangerous
they are to you as a writer.
This blog posts on Mondays. As of 2019 the second Monday of the month is devoted to my writing workshop students and anyone else interested in creative writing. (You can find my workshop schedule and many more resources for writers on my workshop page.)
As a writer your foremost resource is your creativity applied by the sustained power of your attentional focus.
Your foremost writerly resource is your
creativity applied by the sustained power of your attentional focus. The Muse can gift
you with a zillion ideas every minute of the day, but if you cannot
plant yourself in your chair and stay focused on your writing, your book
will ever and always remain an unfulfilled wish, a ghost of your
imagination.
Monday, March 11, 2019
A Slam-dunk (If Counterintuitive) Strategy to Simultaneously Accelerate, Limber Up, and Steady the Writing Process
By C.M. Mayo www.cmmayo.com
[>>CONTINUE READING AT WWW.MADAM-MAYO.COM]
This blog posts on Mondays. As of
2019 the second Monday of the month is devoted to my writing workshop students
and anyone else interested in creative writing. (You can find my workshop
schedule and many more resources for writers on my workshop page.)
Those of you who follow me here know
that I am fascinated by attentional management and the creative process. Of
late I have posted here on my advances in email management;
finding time for
writing (gimungous swaths of it!); and most recently, my
distraction-free smartphone (which post includes an app evaluation
flowchart to tailor-make your own, should you feel so inclined).
That last post about the smartphone appeared on the eve of
the publication of Cal Newport’s Digital
Minimalism. Because I am a fan of Newport’s books, especially Deep Work, which I
recommend as vital reading for writers, of any age and any level of experience,
I expected Digital Minimalism to be good. As I noted in that post, if
nothing else, in broadening our ability to think about the technology we use,
Newport’s term “digital minimalism” is an important contribution in itself.
[>>CONTINUE READING AT WWW.MADAM-MAYO.COM]
Monday, October 15, 2018
More Noodling about Email-- and Dispatch Boxes
By C.M. Mayo www.cmmayo.com
I stand by my 10-point protocol for email, but the past few months, after my mother's passing, have brought a tsunami of correspondence. Much of this, from friends and family, has been very welcome, actually; it's just been challenging to keep up with it and everything else. All of which is to say, if I owe you an email, dear reader, please know that I have not vanished into some befogged plane of hyperspace. I am working on it, and with good cheer!
On the ever-gnarly subject of email management, I note that my favorite guru of Attentional Focus Theory, Cal Newport, has recently posted "The Average User Checks Email 5.6 Hours a Day. This is Not Good." It's a bit thin that gruel; Newport is simply pointing out some recent report that, by Jove, that's the number (and I believe it). I mention it here because I would like to add the thought that, for many professions, the need to manage large volumes of correspondence is nothing new. (Check out the antique dispatch boxes here.) In my case, as a writer, translator, and workshop leader with several books published, and family and friends, it is to be expected-- and this would be true were I somehow to be transported to 1918 or, say, 1818.
You know, I'll bet Jane Austen complained about the hours she spent on her correspondence.
The seachange of course is that our smartphones have brought us all into potentially instant contact. It used to be the case-- I am old enough to remember-- that really good friends and doting relatives might write, oh, say, every few weeks or so. And I have decided, in my case, that's about reasonably right. In other words, I do not use FB or Whatsapp; I use an old-fashioned telephone, send occasional snail mail and, above all, email. This is consternating to some, a shrug of so what to others. When I write an email I write a thoughtful one, and-- further evidence of thoughtfulness-- with proper punctuation. Some people appreciate this. Some don't. And... the world keeps on turning.
Today I received a charming letter from poet Kim Roberts-- a real letter, placed by the postman in the mailbox, which box I opened with a key, and in an envelope I slit open with an letter opener. After I read the letter, I walked my dogs in autumn sunshine. Then I made a batch of split pea soup.
Life on earth.
And now, dogs snoring, having finished this Monday's post, I will work on my correspondence, I mean, email.
I am thinking of my laptop as, among many things, an early 21st century dispatch box. It's kind of magic, how letters just appear inside it. It has the image of a white apple on its lid.
> Your comments are always welcome. Write to me here.
 |
| screenshot of a few antique dispatch boxes for sale |
I stand by my 10-point protocol for email, but the past few months, after my mother's passing, have brought a tsunami of correspondence. Much of this, from friends and family, has been very welcome, actually; it's just been challenging to keep up with it and everything else. All of which is to say, if I owe you an email, dear reader, please know that I have not vanished into some befogged plane of hyperspace. I am working on it, and with good cheer!
On the ever-gnarly subject of email management, I note that my favorite guru of Attentional Focus Theory, Cal Newport, has recently posted "The Average User Checks Email 5.6 Hours a Day. This is Not Good." It's a bit thin that gruel; Newport is simply pointing out some recent report that, by Jove, that's the number (and I believe it). I mention it here because I would like to add the thought that, for many professions, the need to manage large volumes of correspondence is nothing new. (Check out the antique dispatch boxes here.) In my case, as a writer, translator, and workshop leader with several books published, and family and friends, it is to be expected-- and this would be true were I somehow to be transported to 1918 or, say, 1818.
You know, I'll bet Jane Austen complained about the hours she spent on her correspondence.
The seachange of course is that our smartphones have brought us all into potentially instant contact. It used to be the case-- I am old enough to remember-- that really good friends and doting relatives might write, oh, say, every few weeks or so. And I have decided, in my case, that's about reasonably right. In other words, I do not use FB or Whatsapp; I use an old-fashioned telephone, send occasional snail mail and, above all, email. This is consternating to some, a shrug of so what to others. When I write an email I write a thoughtful one, and-- further evidence of thoughtfulness-- with proper punctuation. Some people appreciate this. Some don't. And... the world keeps on turning.
Today I received a charming letter from poet Kim Roberts-- a real letter, placed by the postman in the mailbox, which box I opened with a key, and in an envelope I slit open with an letter opener. After I read the letter, I walked my dogs in autumn sunshine. Then I made a batch of split pea soup.
Life on earth.
And now, dogs snoring, having finished this Monday's post, I will work on my correspondence, I mean, email.
I am thinking of my laptop as, among many things, an early 21st century dispatch box. It's kind of magic, how letters just appear inside it. It has the image of a white apple on its lid.
> Your comments are always welcome. Write to me here.
Monday, May 21, 2018
Cyberflanerie: Noteworthy Blogs of Late & More
Holding the Light: Pat Dubrava's luminous essay, Not Even the Trees.
Rose Mary Salum, Mexican poet, novelist, essayist and editor of Literal ponders #MeToo.
Mr. Money Mustache reveals his breakfast, among other things.
Low Tech Magazine: Ditch the Batteries and History and Future of the Compressed Air Economy.
Granola Shotgun on Thousand Oaks. I was struck by the comment by host Johnny (in reply to Here in Van Nuys):
Black Liszt: David Black talks about Innovation Stories in his new book.
Typewriter Revolution: I am honored that Richard Polt dedicates the poem "Vanilla" to Yours Truly. (I am back to typing on a typewriter again, now that I have another Hermes, an Hermes Baby, circa 1960s.) I got the dedication because I supplied the word as a prompt. Funny, I thought of "vanilla" as exotic and spicy-- I forgot, having lived in Mexico so many years, where vanilla is a sharply delicious flavor, and vanilla icecream packs some zing, its connotations of blah north of the border. (P.S. With his typewriter advocacy, Polt, a noted professor of philosophy and expert on Heidegger, is doing something far more interesting than it might appear at first glance.)
Cal Newport shares his morning routine with Business Insider. His blog is here.
The Archdruid has suggested that his readers try a secret experiment.
YEA, VERILY, MOOOOORE!
Podcasts:
David J. Silverman gives an interview to Ben Franklin's World podcast about Thundersticks. This is a brilliant, important book.
Magazines:
A signal of a cultural tide turning: Rebecca Solnit's essay in this month's issue of Harper's, Driven to Distraction.
Fodder for another blog post: I recently took out a batch of print magazine subscriptions, so as to spend less time on the iPad. So far so good-- and if not for my Harper's subscription, I would have missed Solnit's essay. But I treasure the blogosphere. As a writer I love the freedom and speed; as a reader, I relish the adventures with unique, unfiltered voices and their sometimes fabulous, sometimes squirrely, othertimes, whoa, too-way-out-for-prime-time ideas and information.
>>Your comments are always welcome. Write to me here.
Rose Mary Salum, Mexican poet, novelist, essayist and editor of Literal ponders #MeToo.
Mr. Money Mustache reveals his breakfast, among other things.
Low Tech Magazine: Ditch the Batteries and History and Future of the Compressed Air Economy.
Granola Shotgun on Thousand Oaks. I was struck by the comment by host Johnny (in reply to Here in Van Nuys):
"I’ve come to the conclusion that fretting over aesthetics (like the abundant use of synthetic grass lawns and Lee Press-On faux facades) isn’t a productive use of my energies. Neither is kvetching about regulations or other people’s attitudes about… anything. Let it go.
"Focus on the underlying structural dynamics. Some places are well suited to change and will ride out future dynamics better than most. Others are destined to decline rapidly under the best of circumstances. Thousand Oaks will endure for quite some time because the people who live there have political authority and money to buffer themselves fro quite a lot. It’s a good place. It’s just not my place."Here in Van Nuys on The Parking Police. This is a blog I've been following regularly. I am seeing some of these very same issues in northern California, where I have family, and as a novelist-sociologist (all novelists are sociologists) and ex-economist (yes, I used to be an economist) I find them fascinating. It's a grim portrait of place at times. But such is our societal and fiscal trajectory. And I want to get my mind around it.
Black Liszt: David Black talks about Innovation Stories in his new book.
Typewriter Revolution: I am honored that Richard Polt dedicates the poem "Vanilla" to Yours Truly. (I am back to typing on a typewriter again, now that I have another Hermes, an Hermes Baby, circa 1960s.) I got the dedication because I supplied the word as a prompt. Funny, I thought of "vanilla" as exotic and spicy-- I forgot, having lived in Mexico so many years, where vanilla is a sharply delicious flavor, and vanilla icecream packs some zing, its connotations of blah north of the border. (P.S. With his typewriter advocacy, Polt, a noted professor of philosophy and expert on Heidegger, is doing something far more interesting than it might appear at first glance.)
Cal Newport shares his morning routine with Business Insider. His blog is here.
The Archdruid has suggested that his readers try a secret experiment.
YEA, VERILY, MOOOOORE!
Podcasts:
David J. Silverman gives an interview to Ben Franklin's World podcast about Thundersticks. This is a brilliant, important book.
Magazines:
A signal of a cultural tide turning: Rebecca Solnit's essay in this month's issue of Harper's, Driven to Distraction.
Fodder for another blog post: I recently took out a batch of print magazine subscriptions, so as to spend less time on the iPad. So far so good-- and if not for my Harper's subscription, I would have missed Solnit's essay. But I treasure the blogosphere. As a writer I love the freedom and speed; as a reader, I relish the adventures with unique, unfiltered voices and their sometimes fabulous, sometimes squirrely, othertimes, whoa, too-way-out-for-prime-time ideas and information.
>>Your comments are always welcome. Write to me here.
Monday, November 27, 2017
Further Noodling About Email
Cal Newport, one of my favorite productivity gurus, recently posted a note on his blog about master woodworker Christopher Schwarz entitled, "The Woodworker Who Quit Email"-- which I daresay would have been more accurately entitled, "The Woodworker Who Quit Making Himself Available to the Public via Email." On his website, Christopher Schwarz explains that for 17 years he "answered every damn question sent to me... it was all too much."
Well! Because email sits in the middle of my writerly day like some weirdly charming and farting hippopotamus-- despite my advances in coping with the beast-- Cal's post got my noodle noodling. I typed up a longish comment which, alas, seems to been swallowed up by some cyberspacian anaconda so, herewith, my best effort to replicate it:
# # # # # # # #
AND A FURTHER REFLECTION
For the past decade I've seen the generational divide, young people avidly embracing new technology from email to Instagram to whatever, while oldsters, mumble-joking about needing tech help from their grandkids, tend to resist. Certainly that has been the case in the literary world. If I had a dime for every writer over the age of 50 who could have been raking in the royalties on their rights-reverted backlist but instead dismissed the Kindle with "I prefer a real book!" why, I could buy a raccoon coat off eBay, which, actually, I have a notion to do. (Sigh... channeling Edward Gorey...)
Back at the dawn of this Digital Age, when I was in early middle-age, I embraced email, I relished managing my own websites, blogging, podcasting, reading and publishing Kindles, and whirling around this newfangled circus we now call "social media"-- plus, I also learned how to make videos and GIFs. In short, I never hesitated to explore and adopt new technologies that might serve me as a writer. Now however, it seems to me that the digital divide has evolved into something different. Now I and many others of all ages, based not on prejudice but on experience, more clearly perceive the dangers in these little screens, above all, their time-eating, and attention-grabbing-and-fracturing voraciousness that has turned so many people-- including many who are well into their 60s-- into smombies. These days, rejecting selected digital technologies is not so much about being old-fashioned as it may, on many an occasion, be solid, self-protective common sense-- as Christopher Schwarz's decision to remove his email address from his webpage seems to be for him.
All that said, literate people have always had to deal with correspondence, some more than others, and we writers more than most. And for me, as a mode of correspondence, email still, on an overwhelming number of daily occasions, beats the alternatives. (Although I am ever charmed to send and receive postcards by ye snail mail.)
P.S. In my world, everyone is civilized (else they are not in it). Therefore I can sincerely say that I warmly welcome hearing from readers, friends, family, colleagues, and... roulement de tambour...
... anyone, and especially anyone in Texas, who wants to invite me to participate in a poetry reading series or other such event in late 2018 or 2019. My collection, Meteor, will be out from Gival Press in the fall.
P.P.S. Previous noodling about email:
Email Ninjerie in the Theater of Space-Time or, This Writer's 10 Point Protocol for Inbox 10 (ish)
Willard Spiegelman's "Senior Moments," Guilt Management, an the Magic Wand of an Email
Email Ninjerie Update: Old-School Tool to Break the Ludic Loop
> Your comments are always welcome. Write to me here.
Well! Because email sits in the middle of my writerly day like some weirdly charming and farting hippopotamus-- despite my advances in coping with the beast-- Cal's post got my noodle noodling. I typed up a longish comment which, alas, seems to been swallowed up by some cyberspacian anaconda so, herewith, my best effort to replicate it:
1. But where are his filters? It seems to me that it would be a simple fix to slap up answers to FAQs on the contact page, and, by way of helpful links, send advice-seekers and any other non-revenue-yielding correspondents surfing away into yonder cyberspace.* As for the emails I occasionally receive from persons unknown to me that strike me as off-kilter, rude, and/or overly presumptuous, I simply-- this is not rocket science!-- ignore them. (If I owe you an email, gentle reader, more likely I will answer soon and with sincere apologies for any delay.)
2. On the other hand, if emails from the public to said master woodworker do not bring him business he wants-- and moreover, given that, as he says, he has no interest in teaching or speaking gigs-- then it makes perfect sense for him to shut down that portal. Although I myself have no plans to move away from email, I can relate: I deactivated my FB and refuse to use Whatsapp; neither do I watch TV or Netflix, much to the wonder, consternation, and/or annoyance of some people. Oh well!
3. One major advantage to communicating by email, which I had not thought about recently, is that my telephone is no longer constantly ringing. Back in the 90s when I had two books out, it seemed to ring all day, and it drove me bananarrrramawama. Now I so rarely use a telephone that I do not include it on my business card. Unlike the telephone, email lets me sort through and answer messages briefly or at length as necessary; directly; and at my convenience. Hence, given my personal and professional obligations and priorities-- which may of course be different for other people-- I have found it most efficient to funnel as much communication as possible into email.
4. And before the telephone, there were "visiting days," ye gods, when people would come in and sit on your sofa.**
(People! Such a joy, such a headache, and by Jove, there are more of them every year!)
5. And even before the telegraph, some people had secretaries. Some people still do, so I hear.
# # # # # # # #
* Here's my FAQ page, plus resources for writers page. Also, my contact page amounts to a long list of filters.
**The other day I was reading about a society matron of late 19th century New York City who enticed her visitors, and the unpleasant ones in particular, to keep their visits short by passing them "an angel babe" to hold, presumably one that needed its diaper changed.
AND A FURTHER REFLECTION
 |
| Archive.org This is a person who undoubtedly had to deal with an unholy amount of correspondence. Just sayin'. |
Back at the dawn of this Digital Age, when I was in early middle-age, I embraced email, I relished managing my own websites, blogging, podcasting, reading and publishing Kindles, and whirling around this newfangled circus we now call "social media"-- plus, I also learned how to make videos and GIFs. In short, I never hesitated to explore and adopt new technologies that might serve me as a writer. Now however, it seems to me that the digital divide has evolved into something different. Now I and many others of all ages, based not on prejudice but on experience, more clearly perceive the dangers in these little screens, above all, their time-eating, and attention-grabbing-and-fracturing voraciousness that has turned so many people-- including many who are well into their 60s-- into smombies. These days, rejecting selected digital technologies is not so much about being old-fashioned as it may, on many an occasion, be solid, self-protective common sense-- as Christopher Schwarz's decision to remove his email address from his webpage seems to be for him.
All that said, literate people have always had to deal with correspondence, some more than others, and we writers more than most. And for me, as a mode of correspondence, email still, on an overwhelming number of daily occasions, beats the alternatives. (Although I am ever charmed to send and receive postcards by ye snail mail.)
P.S. In my world, everyone is civilized (else they are not in it). Therefore I can sincerely say that I warmly welcome hearing from readers, friends, family, colleagues, and... roulement de tambour...
... anyone, and especially anyone in Texas, who wants to invite me to participate in a poetry reading series or other such event in late 2018 or 2019. My collection, Meteor, will be out from Gival Press in the fall.
P.P.S. Previous noodling about email:
Email Ninjerie in the Theater of Space-Time or, This Writer's 10 Point Protocol for Inbox 10 (ish)
Willard Spiegelman's "Senior Moments," Guilt Management, an the Magic Wand of an Email
Email Ninjerie Update: Old-School Tool to Break the Ludic Loop
> Your comments are always welcome. Write to me here.
Monday, September 04, 2017
What is "Writing" (Really?) / And a New Video with Yours Truly Talking About Four Exceedingly Rare Books
On his always thought-provoking blog, the author of Deep Work, Cal Newport, recently posted "Toward a Deeper Vocabulary" on how we need more words for "writing." As a productivity expert (among other things) Newport has often been invited to "dissertation boot camps." He writes:
I agree. In writing all of my books it has been my consistent experience that "writing" is not a linear process akin to clocking in, and, say, ironing shirts. It's a complex, zizaggily circular-ish process-- to quote Newport, "involving different cognitive efforts"-- that oftentimes doesn't look like "writing."
(That said, sometimes-- sometimes-- you've just gotta velcro your posterior to the chair and bang the words into the Word doc.)
As those of you who have been following my blog have heard ad infinitum, I am at work on a book about Far West Texas. Um, that means I need to write it. But there are other tasks directly relevant to ending up with a published book, for example, reading about Far West Texas, traveling in and observing Far West Texas, taking notes, transcribing notes as dictation, reviewing photographs and videos, interviewing people, transcribing those interviews, and so on and so forth.
Right now, for example, I am finishing Andrew Torget's excellent Seeds of Empire: Cotton, Slavery, and the Transformation of the Texas Borderlands and last week, I plowed through Andrés Reséndez's also superb The Other Slavery: The Uncovered Story of Indian Enslavement in America. Pending writing for me is an essay / podcast (to be edited and incorporated into my book in-progress) about the Seminole Scouts (many of them ex-slaves) in the Indian Wars...
If I were to simply sit down and commence typing, it would be akin to trying to cook without having assembled the proper equipment and ingredients. In other words, I need to have read Torget and Reséndiz (among many other works), to have transcribed my notes, and so on and so forth.
Not that I have not done quite a bit of the writing already, I mean, there are words on paper, there are bits and pieces, an introduction, some sections... Like I said, the process is zigzaggily circular.
I oftentimes compare "writing," in its broadest mushiest sense, to cooking. And chefs will understand me when I say, you have got to master mis-en-place.
YE OLDE "MIS"
What is mis-en-place? In plain English, you don't want to start the whipped cream for what might be a chocolate cake when your countertops, stovetop, and sink are cluttered with pots and spoons and dishes and splotches from the mushroom croquettes. Or whatever it is you were making. You need to start clean; then assemble your utensils and equipment; then assemble your ingredients; then wash, cut, chop; then cook.
So to follow the analogy of writing as cooking: reading and researching could be compared to assembling utensils and equipment; taking notes, transcribing, and filing could be compared to washing, cutting and chopping... and typing, say, to putting the skillet onto the burner... that is to say, actually, finally, cooking.
Back to starting clean. In 2014 I published Metaphysical Odyssey into the Mexican Revolution: Francisco I. Madero and His Secret Book, Spiritist Manual (a book that was, in a way, a digression, however, the Mexican Revolution will appear in Far West Texas book, as you might guess, if you've ever seen a map of the Texas-Mexico border). This week, I wanted to be working on the Far West Texas book, but two long-pending tasks for that Mexican Revolution book were nagging at me. These were to
So that is what I did the past few days--I read Torget, I finished editing the transcript of my talk and posted the PDF (which you are welcome to download here), and, whew, I just uploaded that video I have been meaning to make since 2014(!)
Was this procrastination? No, gentle reader, it was good old fashioned mis-en-place. Stay tuned for the podcast on the Seminole Scouts in Far West Texas. (Listen in anytime to the other 20 podcasts posted to date here.)
Back to the question of the writing process. How do you know when what you're doing is a legitimate task towards finishing a book (or thesis or story or essay), and when it's procrastination? To my writing workshop students, I say, you need to decide that for yourself. As for me, I rely on intuition and common sense (which sometimes contradict each other), and then, no drama, I just decide. Yes, once in a while (usually when I did not heed my intuition), I look back and think, hmm, maybe thus-and-such could be done differently next time. And whatever, it's fine. I don't ruminate about woulda coulda shoudas (that would be procrastination!), I just get to the day's work, as best as I can.
> For more about the writing (and publishing) process, check out my talk of yore for the Writer's Center, "The Arc of Writerly Action."
> See also "Thirty Deadly Effective Ways to Free Up Bits, Drips & Gimungously Vast Swaths of Time for Writing."
> Your comments are always welcome. Write to me here.
"Something that strikes me about these events is the extensive use of the term 'writing' to capture the variety of different mental efforts that go into producing a doctoral dissertation; e.g., 'make sure you write every day' or 'don’t get too distracted from your writing by other obligations.' The actual act of writing words on paper, of course, is necessary to finish a thesis, but it’s far from the only part of this process. The term 'writing,' in this context, is being used as a stand in for the many different cognitive efforts required to create something worthy of inclusion in the intellectual firmament of your discipline."
I agree. In writing all of my books it has been my consistent experience that "writing" is not a linear process akin to clocking in, and, say, ironing shirts. It's a complex, zizaggily circular-ish process-- to quote Newport, "involving different cognitive efforts"-- that oftentimes doesn't look like "writing."
(That said, sometimes-- sometimes-- you've just gotta velcro your posterior to the chair and bang the words into the Word doc.)
As those of you who have been following my blog have heard ad infinitum, I am at work on a book about Far West Texas. Um, that means I need to write it. But there are other tasks directly relevant to ending up with a published book, for example, reading about Far West Texas, traveling in and observing Far West Texas, taking notes, transcribing notes as dictation, reviewing photographs and videos, interviewing people, transcribing those interviews, and so on and so forth.
If I were to simply sit down and commence typing, it would be akin to trying to cook without having assembled the proper equipment and ingredients. In other words, I need to have read Torget and Reséndiz (among many other works), to have transcribed my notes, and so on and so forth.
Not that I have not done quite a bit of the writing already, I mean, there are words on paper, there are bits and pieces, an introduction, some sections... Like I said, the process is zigzaggily circular.
I oftentimes compare "writing," in its broadest mushiest sense, to cooking. And chefs will understand me when I say, you have got to master mis-en-place.
YE OLDE "MIS"
What is mis-en-place? In plain English, you don't want to start the whipped cream for what might be a chocolate cake when your countertops, stovetop, and sink are cluttered with pots and spoons and dishes and splotches from the mushroom croquettes. Or whatever it is you were making. You need to start clean; then assemble your utensils and equipment; then assemble your ingredients; then wash, cut, chop; then cook.
So to follow the analogy of writing as cooking: reading and researching could be compared to assembling utensils and equipment; taking notes, transcribing, and filing could be compared to washing, cutting and chopping... and typing, say, to putting the skillet onto the burner... that is to say, actually, finally, cooking.
Back to starting clean. In 2014 I published Metaphysical Odyssey into the Mexican Revolution: Francisco I. Madero and His Secret Book, Spiritist Manual (a book that was, in a way, a digression, however, the Mexican Revolution will appear in Far West Texas book, as you might guess, if you've ever seen a map of the Texas-Mexico border). This week, I wanted to be working on the Far West Texas book, but two long-pending tasks for that Mexican Revolution book were nagging at me. These were to
(1) Finish the editing on the transcript of my 2016 talk at the Center for Big Bend Studies Conference about the book (this is for an academic readership, extensively footnoted, and includes new material about another edition of Madero's book)
(2) Finish a short video to share some images and information about four exceedingly rare books in my personal library, which for scholars of the Mexican Revolution, and especially anyone studying Francisco I. Madero, would be vital to see.
So that is what I did the past few days--I read Torget, I finished editing the transcript of my talk and posted the PDF (which you are welcome to download here), and, whew, I just uploaded that video I have been meaning to make since 2014(!)
C.M. MAYO TALKS ABOUT HER BOOK AND
FOUR EXCEEDINGLY RARE BOOKS
Was this procrastination? No, gentle reader, it was good old fashioned mis-en-place. Stay tuned for the podcast on the Seminole Scouts in Far West Texas. (Listen in anytime to the other 20 podcasts posted to date here.)
Back to the question of the writing process. How do you know when what you're doing is a legitimate task towards finishing a book (or thesis or story or essay), and when it's procrastination? To my writing workshop students, I say, you need to decide that for yourself. As for me, I rely on intuition and common sense (which sometimes contradict each other), and then, no drama, I just decide. Yes, once in a while (usually when I did not heed my intuition), I look back and think, hmm, maybe thus-and-such could be done differently next time. And whatever, it's fine. I don't ruminate about woulda coulda shoudas (that would be procrastination!), I just get to the day's work, as best as I can.
> For more about the writing (and publishing) process, check out my talk of yore for the Writer's Center, "The Arc of Writerly Action."
> See also "Thirty Deadly Effective Ways to Free Up Bits, Drips & Gimungously Vast Swaths of Time for Writing."
> Your comments are always welcome. Write to me here.
Monday, December 12, 2016
Email Ninjerie in the Theater of Space-Time, or This Writer's 10 Point Protocol for Inbox 10 (ish)
>> READ THIS POST AT WWW.MADAM-MAYO.COM
Please note that as of January 2019 "Madam Mayo" blog is in-process of moving to self-hosted Wordpress at www.madam-mayo.com. You can also read this post in its entirety on the workshop page at www.cmmayo.com
BIG FAT CAVEAT: If you have a job and/or family situation that oblige you to use your smartphone like a bodily appendage, dear reader, a shower of metaphorical lotus petals upon you, but this post is not for you. Perhaps you might enjoy reading this post from 2012 instead. See you next Monday.
The challenge in a pistachio shell: How to maximize the quality of one's email, both incoming and outgoing, while minimizing the time and effort required to dispatch it— all the while maintaining the blocks of uninterrupted time necessary for one's own writing?
What works for me may not work for you, dear reader, but I know that many of you are also writers, and a few of you are artists and/or scholars, so perhaps—and here's hoping— my time-tested 10 point protocol for dealing with email will be of as much help to you as it has been to me.
A PRELIMINARY NOTE ON CONTEXT:
EMAIL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!RRRRRRR
How is a writer to cope with this snake-headed conundrum-o-rama that just about everyone everywhere has been wrestling with since it first emerged out of the DARPA-depths of this rapacious fabulosity we call the Internet?
I've been slogging it out with email for more years than I care to count. It was sometime in the mid-1990s when I logged on to my first account; I but fuzzily recall the roboty-dialup-and-connection sounds and an inky screen with neon-green text. A few years after that, I was using this cutting-edge thing called an AOL account. (Whew, AOL, Paleolithic!) Now I use a nearly-as-ancient yahoo account plus a pair of gmail accounts all funneled into ye olde Outlook Express inbox, into which pour... pick your metaphor...
As anyone who remembers the late 1990s will attest, it seemed that overnight email blossomed into a hot-house monster—or, I should say, a Macy's Parade of monsters— and for me, by 2009-2010, when I was on tour for my novel, The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire at the same time that my father was in his last days, trying to cope with email, both professional and personal, had become a nightmare.
In 2011-2012 I was tempted to follow the example of "Swiss Miss" blogger Tina Roth Eisenberg after her three months of maternity leave: Declare email bankruptcy. Many a time I was also tempted to remove my email address from my website. Neither of those strategies appealed to me, however; I appreciated so many of those messages, and I also appreciated that, apart from spam and the occasional bit of nonsense, behind those messages were relationships that I sincerely valued, even cherished.
I also realized—and this is something I am writing about in my book Far West Texas— that hyper-connectivity along with endless carousels of hyper-palatable distractions are now woven into the very fabric of modern life. As long as the electric grid continues functioning, I doubt these forces impinging on one's experience of work, family, social life, politics, and travel, will diminish; on the contrary.
Over the past several years, chip by chip, I managed to whittle down that ghastly backlog (not to zero, but on some days it gets razor-close). More importantly, by trial, error, research, and mental muscle, I formulated a more workable strategy for dispatching the ongoing flow.
YEAH, PUT SOME MUSTARD ON IT.
Now I can sincerely say that I welcome my correspondence (ahem, email). I love to hear from friends (lunch, yeah!), family (weddings, yay!), colleagues (congrats on your new book, lotus petals upon you!), and from readers, known to me or not, I always appreciate a kind and/or thoughtful word about my books / some subject of interest / relevant to my work. I even appreciate cat videos! (Just kidding about the cat videos. But cousin A., I don't mind if you send me a cat video.)
Please note that as of January 2019 "Madam Mayo" blog is in-process of moving to self-hosted Wordpress at www.madam-mayo.com. You can also read this post in its entirety on the workshop page at www.cmmayo.com
BIG FAT CAVEAT: If you have a job and/or family situation that oblige you to use your smartphone like a bodily appendage, dear reader, a shower of metaphorical lotus petals upon you, but this post is not for you. Perhaps you might enjoy reading this post from 2012 instead. See you next Monday.
The challenge in a pistachio shell: How to maximize the quality of one's email, both incoming and outgoing, while minimizing the time and effort required to dispatch it— all the while maintaining the blocks of uninterrupted time necessary for one's own writing?
What works for me may not work for you, dear reader, but I know that many of you are also writers, and a few of you are artists and/or scholars, so perhaps—and here's hoping— my time-tested 10 point protocol for dealing with email will be of as much help to you as it has been to me.
A PRELIMINARY NOTE ON CONTEXT:
EMAIL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!RRRRRRR
How is a writer to cope with this snake-headed conundrum-o-rama that just about everyone everywhere has been wrestling with since it first emerged out of the DARPA-depths of this rapacious fabulosity we call the Internet?I've been slogging it out with email for more years than I care to count. It was sometime in the mid-1990s when I logged on to my first account; I but fuzzily recall the roboty-dialup-and-connection sounds and an inky screen with neon-green text. A few years after that, I was using this cutting-edge thing called an AOL account. (Whew, AOL, Paleolithic!) Now I use a nearly-as-ancient yahoo account plus a pair of gmail accounts all funneled into ye olde Outlook Express inbox, into which pour... pick your metaphor...
(a) Rains!
(b) Niagaras!
(c) Avalanches!
(d) Gigazoodles of emails!
As anyone who remembers the late 1990s will attest, it seemed that overnight email blossomed into a hot-house monster—or, I should say, a Macy's Parade of monsters— and for me, by 2009-2010, when I was on tour for my novel, The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire at the same time that my father was in his last days, trying to cope with email, both professional and personal, had become a nightmare.
In 2011-2012 I was tempted to follow the example of "Swiss Miss" blogger Tina Roth Eisenberg after her three months of maternity leave: Declare email bankruptcy. Many a time I was also tempted to remove my email address from my website. Neither of those strategies appealed to me, however; I appreciated so many of those messages, and I also appreciated that, apart from spam and the occasional bit of nonsense, behind those messages were relationships that I sincerely valued, even cherished.
I also realized—and this is something I am writing about in my book Far West Texas— that hyper-connectivity along with endless carousels of hyper-palatable distractions are now woven into the very fabric of modern life. As long as the electric grid continues functioning, I doubt these forces impinging on one's experience of work, family, social life, politics, and travel, will diminish; on the contrary.
Over the past several years, chip by chip, I managed to whittle down that ghastly backlog (not to zero, but on some days it gets razor-close). More importantly, by trial, error, research, and mental muscle, I formulated a more workable strategy for dispatching the ongoing flow.
Again, that caveat: this post is not for those who need to be continually available to a boss, colleagues, clients, friends, or family.
IT STARTED WITH SOME ILLUMINATING READING...
THEN THE FLOODLIGHTS SWITCHED ON WITH "THE MACHINE STOPS"
I gleaned many an insight and tip for managing email from:
+ David Allen's Getting Things Done;
+ Naomi Baron's Always On (a linguist's perspective on the current madness);
+ Matthew Crawford's The World Beyond Your Head;
+ Neil Fiore's The Now Habit;
+ Julie Morgenstern's Never Check Email in the Morning (also love her organizing books); and
+ Cal Newport's Deep Work (common sense on a silver platter).
All highly recommended.
For me the most enlightening reading of all, however, and strange to say, was a work of fiction from 1909: E.M. Forster's "The Machine Stops." Astonishingly, that short story written more than a century ago by an Edwardian Englishman best known for his novel A Passage to India, envisions email, texting, Facetime, and the like. It also seems Forster anticipated the American diet built around corn-syrup heavy fast food. The main character, cocooned in technology, has turned into a heartless, incurious, yet hyper-connected blob.
On reading this sci-fi horror, I realized that one needs to evaluate a technology not by its gee-whiz-what-would-Steve-Jobs-say factor, but by how it affects the body. I mean, by how it affects one's human body, brains to toenails, now, here, on Planet Earth.
THE BODY AND TECHNOLOGY IN THE THEATER OF SPACE-TIME
(1) Assuming one can afford it, does a given technology help one realize one's conscious intentions born of free will?
(2) Does using said technology cause one to serve or to neglect the body?
(3) Is there a better available alternative?
These are the key questions to answer for a sense of the true and full (both monetary and nonmonetary) net cost / benefit of utilizing a given technology because if your body, which by the way, includes the brain, ends up not working the way it was meant to, well, in terms of going anywhere or doing anything or interacting with other people, that more than kind of sucks.
Some metaphysicians argue that we are not our bodies, but in essence, immortal pinpoints of consciousness. It seems to me that if they're right, after we finish up here on Planet Earth, we have forever and eternity to do what immortal pinpoints of consciousness do; and if those metaphysicians are wrong, well, then they're wrong, and we won't be here anymore to argue with them about it anyway.
Either way, as I write this and you read this, we are conscious, each in our place in the Theater of Space-Time. We did not arrive here encased in technology, but in our human bodies, with all their pain and joy and bones and squishiness and awkwardness and grace. Why then would we want machines to do everything and our breathing for us— unless, of course one has the crap-awful luck to require an iron lung?
I want to utilize technology not to supplant but to enhance living this life— this human life on Planet Earth. Or, to use my new favorite metaphor, to enhance my experience of being here now in the Theater of Space-Time.
Technology is not bad per se, of course; it can help us survive and even thrive. But last I checked, a quality human life requires being able to breathe, walk, see, hear, exercise, sleep, eat nutritious food and drink adequate clean water, soak up some beauty, and interact in multitudinous ways with other people. What good is a technology that turns us into blobs staring at and fiddling with screens all day, even as we neglect our relationships? (Or walk into oncoming traffic?)
On the other hand, email, like pen-and-paper-correspondence of old, is one technology, a powerful one, that when properly employed can help us work with / get along with other people. And like pen-and-paper-correspondence of old, for a writer email can be a joy.
Dead-simple observations, I'll grant you, gentle reader.
Another dead-simple observation: Email is like any other tool in that it can be used to good or bad purpose. For example, you could use a hammer to pound down a nail that might otherwise snag your sweater, or, say, pulp your neighbor's pet goldfish (not recommended).
And on the scale of expertise, one can use email poorly, or with world-class finesse. Let's say, my very Aristotelian aim has been to employ email reasonably well so that it may prove useful— and without the mental drag of noodathipious flooflemoofle!
DOWN WITH NOODATHIPIOUS FLOOFLEMOOFLE!
Finally, after years of frustration and experimentation... drum roll.... I am no longer overwhelmed by email. I have not arrived at "inbox zero" because.... drum roll... I am not dead!
And knowing that I am not dead, other human beings in the Theater of Space-Time continually send me emails, and I, in turn, write them back. Ping, pong. And that Medusa's hair of a conundrum-o-rama about pinging the pongs and pongings the pings, and which pings to pong, etc., is now wrestled down, at least in my own mind, to a pretty little pretzel.
IT STARTED WITH SOME ILLUMINATING READING...
THEN THE FLOODLIGHTS SWITCHED ON WITH "THE MACHINE STOPS"
I gleaned many an insight and tip for managing email from:
+ David Allen's Getting Things Done;
+ Naomi Baron's Always On (a linguist's perspective on the current madness);
+ Matthew Crawford's The World Beyond Your Head;
+ Neil Fiore's The Now Habit;
+ Julie Morgenstern's Never Check Email in the Morning (also love her organizing books); and
+ Cal Newport's Deep Work (common sense on a silver platter).
All highly recommended.
For me the most enlightening reading of all, however, and strange to say, was a work of fiction from 1909: E.M. Forster's "The Machine Stops." Astonishingly, that short story written more than a century ago by an Edwardian Englishman best known for his novel A Passage to India, envisions email, texting, Facetime, and the like. It also seems Forster anticipated the American diet built around corn-syrup heavy fast food. The main character, cocooned in technology, has turned into a heartless, incurious, yet hyper-connected blob.
 |
| [[ Alas, it seems this was not Forster's own charming creature, but Lady Ottoline Morrell's pug, Soie. Check out Moffat's fascinating biography. ]] |
On reading this sci-fi horror, I realized that one needs to evaluate a technology not by its gee-whiz-what-would-Steve-Jobs-say factor, but by how it affects the body. I mean, by how it affects one's human body, brains to toenails, now, here, on Planet Earth.
THE BODY AND TECHNOLOGY IN THE THEATER OF SPACE-TIME
(1) Assuming one can afford it, does a given technology help one realize one's conscious intentions born of free will?
(2) Does using said technology cause one to serve or to neglect the body?
(3) Is there a better available alternative?
These are the key questions to answer for a sense of the true and full (both monetary and nonmonetary) net cost / benefit of utilizing a given technology because if your body, which by the way, includes the brain, ends up not working the way it was meant to, well, in terms of going anywhere or doing anything or interacting with other people, that more than kind of sucks.
Some metaphysicians argue that we are not our bodies, but in essence, immortal pinpoints of consciousness. It seems to me that if they're right, after we finish up here on Planet Earth, we have forever and eternity to do what immortal pinpoints of consciousness do; and if those metaphysicians are wrong, well, then they're wrong, and we won't be here anymore to argue with them about it anyway.
Either way, as I write this and you read this, we are conscious, each in our place in the Theater of Space-Time. We did not arrive here encased in technology, but in our human bodies, with all their pain and joy and bones and squishiness and awkwardness and grace. Why then would we want machines to do everything and our breathing for us— unless, of course one has the crap-awful luck to require an iron lung?
I want to utilize technology not to supplant but to enhance living this life— this human life on Planet Earth. Or, to use my new favorite metaphor, to enhance my experience of being here now in the Theater of Space-Time.
Technology is not bad per se, of course; it can help us survive and even thrive. But last I checked, a quality human life requires being able to breathe, walk, see, hear, exercise, sleep, eat nutritious food and drink adequate clean water, soak up some beauty, and interact in multitudinous ways with other people. What good is a technology that turns us into blobs staring at and fiddling with screens all day, even as we neglect our relationships? (Or walk into oncoming traffic?)
On the other hand, email, like pen-and-paper-correspondence of old, is one technology, a powerful one, that when properly employed can help us work with / get along with other people. And like pen-and-paper-correspondence of old, for a writer email can be a joy.
Dead-simple observations, I'll grant you, gentle reader.
Another dead-simple observation: Email is like any other tool in that it can be used to good or bad purpose. For example, you could use a hammer to pound down a nail that might otherwise snag your sweater, or, say, pulp your neighbor's pet goldfish (not recommended).
And on the scale of expertise, one can use email poorly, or with world-class finesse. Let's say, my very Aristotelian aim has been to employ email reasonably well so that it may prove useful— and without the mental drag of noodathipious flooflemoofle!
DOWN WITH NOODATHIPIOUS FLOOFLEMOOFLE!
Finally, after years of frustration and experimentation... drum roll.... I am no longer overwhelmed by email. I have not arrived at "inbox zero" because.... drum roll... I am not dead!
And knowing that I am not dead, other human beings in the Theater of Space-Time continually send me emails, and I, in turn, write them back. Ping, pong. And that Medusa's hair of a conundrum-o-rama about pinging the pongs and pongings the pings, and which pings to pong, etc., is now wrestled down, at least in my own mind, to a pretty little pretzel.
YEAH, PUT SOME MUSTARD ON IT.
Now I can sincerely say that I welcome my correspondence (ahem, email). I love to hear from friends (lunch, yeah!), family (weddings, yay!), colleagues (congrats on your new book, lotus petals upon you!), and from readers, known to me or not, I always appreciate a kind and/or thoughtful word about my books / some subject of interest / relevant to my work. I even appreciate cat videos! (Just kidding about the cat videos. But cousin A., I don't mind if you send me a cat video.)
Herewith:
1. SCHEDULED BATCHING
For me, of all the 10 points in my method, processing emails not one or two or three at a whim, but in scheduled batches was the game-changer.
I usually do 20 minutes of email processing with a stopwatch. It's not that I am trying to hurry through my email, but rather, I am respecting the limits of my brain's ability to effectively focus on it. I'm a speed-reader and I can type faster than lickety-split, but on most days I can deal with email for only about 20 minutes before my brain cells run low on glucose and I end up scrolling up and down the screen, dithering, feeling scattered— in short, procrastinating. (You might be able to do 10 minutes, or, say, an hour in one go— of course, not everyone's energy to focus on their email is the same, or the same every day and in every circumstance. One can always set the stopwatch for a different amount of time.)
Don't believe me about batching? Check out the extra-crunchy research at MIT (PDF).
By processing email in 20 minute batches, when the sessions all add up over the arc of the day, I find that I accomplish more in, say, one hour of three separate 20 minute sessions than I would have had I plowed on for an hour straight.
When the stopwatch dings, I do not expect to have finished— "inbox zero" is a fata morgana! And that's OK, because I have another email batch session already scheduled (a few hours later, or five minutes later. It's important to take a break, at the very least stand up and stretch.)
Above all, because I am focussing on email at my convenience, on my schedule, my attention is no longer so fractured. I need not attempt to wrestle with each and every email as it comes in; and of course, some emails cannot or should not be answered immediately. I aim to dispatch the average daily inflow. In other words, if, net of spam, I receive an average of 30 emails per day, then I should be averaging 30 emails dispatched per day— they need not be one and the same emails. One day I might dispatch 50, and another day, 10. The point is, there's no there there, as long as my email account is working, barring volcanic explosions of a geological nature, I'm probably never in this lifetime going to get to inbox zero. What matters is maintaining a consistently adequate dispatching process.
The easiest way to keep track of the process is to keep a running tally of all undispatched emails as of the close of the last session of the day. (In Outlook Express, for each folder of undispatched email, select all, go to the main menu, click edit, select "Mark all unread," and it will automatically generate a tally for that folder.)
(And by the way, when the batching session is done, I close my Outlook Express. I never, ever leave it open. And would I never, ever, use any alarm for new email.)
UPDATE: On using a Zassenhaus kitchen timer.
2. DO THE DDO:
DOWNLOAD, DELETE, ORGANIZE
I used to download email into an undifferentiated inbox at random moments and, oftentimes, even as email was still downloading, start answering willynilly. How about that for an attention-fracking technique!
Now I begin each email session as I would with a haul of paper mail: first, by taking it all in; second, deleting the junk; and third, organizing the correspondence I want to look at and/or answer into precisely labeled files.
Files are easy to create and, when emptied of their contents, to delete, or rename or whatever— a powerful tool within a tool. And I cannot overemphasize how effective a simple and flexible filing system has been for helping me focus and more quickly dispatch my email.
Of course, just like a paper filing system, too many files can be counterproductive. For me, the best filing system is one that holds 15 or fewer emails per file. So if I have a bunch of files with one or two emails, I might consolidate those; if I have, say, 50 emails in one, I might to break that up into, say, two to four more files.
My filing system changes depending on what I'm working on or dealing with in my life. This week, nearing the holidays, it looks like this:
INBOX (this has whatever I'm going to tackle now, preferably never more than 11 emails)
BACKLOG: TEXAS (anything to do with my book in-progress)
BACKLOG: FAMILY
BACKLOG: FRIENDS & COLLEAGUES
BACKLOG: FINANCIAL
(By the way, in case this looks like a "to do" list, it isn't... quite... It's just email. For my "to dos" I use Allen's GTD system with a Filofax along with the brilliant flexibility of using—thanks to Julia Morgenstern for the idea— little yellow PostIts for noting next actions. )
If I can answer an email inside of two minutes, I usually do. (That's a tactic from David Allen's Getting Things Done.)
I might receive some gigazoodlesque number of emails in a typical day, but after doing the DDO, which takes only a couple of minutes at most, I am left with a tidy number of uncategorized emails in the main inbox— sometimes as few as two or three. (I try to keep the active uncategorized inbox at 11 messages, tops, because for me a longer list becomes visually overwhelming.)
3. JUI-JITSU-BLOCK TROLLS, KRAY-ZEES & SPAMMERS
I do not respond to rude or certifiably ultra-weird messages, and as with businesses that spew spam,* I add those email addresses to my "block sender" list. Happily, there are not many of those, and happily, once I've blocked them, with lightning ease, I never see their emails again!
Out of sight, out of mind.
*(Phishers tend to use one-time only emails; those I just delete.)
Many of my writer friends agonize over emails (as well as social media comments) from trolls and nuts and spammers. I tell them as I tell you, dear reader, it really is this simple to make them all go away. The challenge is, your ego, prompted by its its arch sense of justice, might jump-up-and-down-insist on responding to them, but your ego, if it's like most people's, including mine, should not be in driver's seat here. Surely you have better things to do with your time and attention than engage with emotionally stunted, social-skill-challenged, and possibly dangerously disturbed individuals. (If you lived in a big city, would you leave your kitchen's back door open to the alleyway 24/7?)
If you relish unnecessary fights and pointless thrills, well, as they say in Mexico, dios los hace y ellos se juntan (God makes them and they get together.) I prefer the Polish saying, Not my circus, not my monkeys.
4. PRIORITIZE & TACKLE
Stopwatch ticking, after having done the DDO, then I prioritize emails (and other related tasks as noted below), and then I tackle them.
There's no magic formula here: I might think about it for a moment or three, then decide what should come first.
(Once dealt with, I archive each email by year. Some people just delete them; in my repeated experience, however, that is not a good idea.)
5. SWEEP OUT THE SPAM FOLDER ONCE PER DAY
I check the spam folder once per day because that is precisely about how often I find an important email in there. These days floods of spam are coming from phishers (easy to spot for many reasons, also because they vary their email addresses); those I don't touch, I just delete them.
(I remain perplexed by correspondents who do not check their spam folders. On the other hand, checking too often wastes time—small amounts, but they add up.)
6. APPLY AND ADJUST "SENDER FILTERS" AS NEEDED
I'm not talking about an app or programming or anything complicated. By "sender filter," a concept I grokked an eon ago but a term I first encountered in Cal Newport's Deep Work, I mean some specific information on one's contact page that, ideally in a kind and generous spirit, encourages potential senders to not send email— so that, for the few emails that do squeeze through, I am able to respond quickly, politely, and thoughtfully.
My contact page, pictured right, includes a long lineup of sender filters: First, a newsletter signup (mainly for those who want to know when I will be teaching a workshop or post a new podcast); then it answers FAQs, such as "where can I find your books?" (I am ever-amazed by that question in this day of amazon and Google, but I do get such emails fairly often); for book club inquiries; the best way to reach me for media and speaking inquiries; answers to writerly questions ("how to find a publisher," etc.); rights inquiries; press kits including high res images; and finally...
... (few indeed seem to have the attentional snorkel gear to arrive there at the bottom)....
... if someone still wants to email me, he will find my email address.
Like many other writers, back in pioneer days, once I had a live website showing my email address, I found myself receiving so many messages from people seeking my advice about / feedback on / encouragement of their writing, it would have been impossible to answer them all individually. As a solution, many authors have opted for what I think of as "The Wall of Silence"— no email address at all—and/or what seems to me a snotty-sounding third-person notice along the lines of "Wiggy Blip is so famous and busy being fabulously famous, he cannot possibly deign to acknowledge your email."
(Well, bless you, Wiggy Blip. And Ziggy Stardust, too.)
Cal Newport's various sender filters conclude as follows— I quote from his book, Deep Work: "If you have an offer, opportunity, or introduction that might make my life more interesting, e-mail me at interesting (at) calnewport.com For the reasons stated above, I'll only respond to those proposals that are a good match for my schedule and interests."
Of course, some emails, even from perfectly civilized and well-meaning people, do not merit a response— they presume too much, they're eye-crossingly vague or, as in a few cases, they clearly neither expect nor invite a response. But as for myself, because my own sender filters work beautifully, my stance is that I will do my darnedest, most reasonable best to answer everyone, whether family, friends, students, literary colleague, or mysterious Albanian, who takes the trouble to write to me a civilized email.
On occasion a sender blazes past or perhaps never saw the relevant sender filter, so I reply with the link or paste-copy the text of my long-ago posted answer to their question. (For example, I am often asked by students, friends, relatives, neighbors and utter strangers if I will read their manuscript. Here's my answer to that one.)
If you want to comment on this blog, which I sincerely welcome, click here and what you'll get is this sender filter:
This simplest of sender filters, stating that I read but do not usually publish comments, works blazingly well. Trolls and their ilk took a hike, never to return! (As for my fierce-looking writing assistant, I assure you, dear reader, Uliberto Quetzalpugtl only bites cheese.)
P.S. Cal Newport's take on some industrial-strength sender filters. Personally I would not want to use such forbidding sender filters, but for some writers, and some people, that might be the right strategy. In any event, a sender filter beats the daisies out of the Wiggyesque Wall of Silence.
UPDATE: For a good example of strong but both friendly and polite sender filters, here is a screenshot of publishing consultant and blogger Jane Friedman's contact page:
7. FUNNEL IT ALL INTO MOOOOORE EMAIL!
Over the past year and some I have freed up chunkoids of time and energy for email by deactivating my Facebook account, minimizing Twitter and LinkedIn (including turning off email notifications), and closing this blog and my YouTube channel to published comments. In other words, I have reduced the number of channels for people to communicate with me, funneling as many communications as possible into ye olde email.
I tell everyone who asks, the best way to find me is by email.
Yes, I receive more email as a result, but interestingly, many of my "friends" who were so chatty & likey on Facebook rarely if ever trouble to send me email. I have also found that many of the younger generation do not respond to email. Hmmm, also interesting! (Have a nice life, kiddos!)
Well, at least we still have telephones. But sorry, don't count on me to retrieve my voicemail, I am too busy answering email!
(What about Whatsapp? Ask me again after I've lugged home my taxidermied hippopotamus.)
8. BE QUICK & CLEAR, MY DEAR, BUT ADD DETAIL TO CUT THE CLUTTER
The emails I send myself have a clear subject line and the text clearly calls for or implies expected action or inaction. For example, some of the younger generation in my family prefer to text rather than use email, and getting them to answer an email, such has been my experience, requires laser-like focus in this regard. Hence, subject lines like this:
What do I mean by "add detail to cut the clutter?" Minimize the number of emails needed to arrange things by politely making specific actionable proposals and provide websites, addresses, phone numbers and any other information that your correspondent might need, and hence avoid further emails. For example, instead of blah blah blahing about when and where to maybe kind of sort of meet for coffee, go ahead and make a specific proposal, e.g., "How about if we meet for coffee at 4:30 PM this Tuesday or, if you would prefer, 5:30 next Wednesday at Café Thus-and-Such, 123 Avenue ABC."
Cal Newport offers more detailed advice about this brain power-saving email tactic on his blog, Study Hacks and his book, Deep Work.
9. WHEN CALLED FOR, FOR HEAVENSSAKES, JUST GO AHEAD AND APOLOGIZE!— BRIEFLY
Muse.com's Aja Frost offers a batch of handy templates categorized by degree of situational horribleness.
10. AT THE END OF THE LAST EMAIL SESSION FOR THE DAY, DO THE SCARLET O'HARA
It is a fact that for me, as well as for everyone who uses email, night falls in this Theater of Space-Time... and falls again, and again.... Funny how that happens once every 24 hours... until it doesn't. I guess. In the meantime, some emails fall through the cracks of all good intentions.
Anyway, as Cal Newport writes in Deep Work,
And no, I am not worried that one day, should my one of my books be made into a movie starring Brad Pitt, or something, I might need to raise the Wall of Silence, or else bring on a bucket brigade of secretaries to cope with cannon-hoses of incoming emails.
Why am I not worried, pray tell?
(1) Because my 10 point system works splendidly well.
(2) Furthermore, should the need arise, it would be a simple matter to add more sender filters / templates, and perhaps, now and then, an autoresponder.
(3) Moreover, I need only note the numbers of smombies I see on city streets to conclude that, alas, the world of those of us who still have the cognitive focus to actually read the sorts of literary books I write and to engage in thoughtful correspondence is, and seems destined to remain, a cozy one.
And if I turn out to be wrong, so what? Then I will get a secretary! In the meantime, I shall make do with my writing assistants (although, alas, with emails, those two are all paws).
> Your comments are always welcome. Write to me here.
UPDATE: Further Noodling on Email
1. SCHEDULED BATCHING
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| [[ CLICK HERE for your free online countdown stopwatch ]] |
For me, of all the 10 points in my method, processing emails not one or two or three at a whim, but in scheduled batches was the game-changer.
I usually do 20 minutes of email processing with a stopwatch. It's not that I am trying to hurry through my email, but rather, I am respecting the limits of my brain's ability to effectively focus on it. I'm a speed-reader and I can type faster than lickety-split, but on most days I can deal with email for only about 20 minutes before my brain cells run low on glucose and I end up scrolling up and down the screen, dithering, feeling scattered— in short, procrastinating. (You might be able to do 10 minutes, or, say, an hour in one go— of course, not everyone's energy to focus on their email is the same, or the same every day and in every circumstance. One can always set the stopwatch for a different amount of time.)
Don't believe me about batching? Check out the extra-crunchy research at MIT (PDF).
By processing email in 20 minute batches, when the sessions all add up over the arc of the day, I find that I accomplish more in, say, one hour of three separate 20 minute sessions than I would have had I plowed on for an hour straight.
When the stopwatch dings, I do not expect to have finished— "inbox zero" is a fata morgana! And that's OK, because I have another email batch session already scheduled (a few hours later, or five minutes later. It's important to take a break, at the very least stand up and stretch.)
Above all, because I am focussing on email at my convenience, on my schedule, my attention is no longer so fractured. I need not attempt to wrestle with each and every email as it comes in; and of course, some emails cannot or should not be answered immediately. I aim to dispatch the average daily inflow. In other words, if, net of spam, I receive an average of 30 emails per day, then I should be averaging 30 emails dispatched per day— they need not be one and the same emails. One day I might dispatch 50, and another day, 10. The point is, there's no there there, as long as my email account is working, barring volcanic explosions of a geological nature, I'm probably never in this lifetime going to get to inbox zero. What matters is maintaining a consistently adequate dispatching process.
The easiest way to keep track of the process is to keep a running tally of all undispatched emails as of the close of the last session of the day. (In Outlook Express, for each folder of undispatched email, select all, go to the main menu, click edit, select "Mark all unread," and it will automatically generate a tally for that folder.)
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| [[ For reals ]] |
(And by the way, when the batching session is done, I close my Outlook Express. I never, ever leave it open. And would I never, ever, use any alarm for new email.)
UPDATE: On using a Zassenhaus kitchen timer.
2. DO THE DDO:
DOWNLOAD, DELETE, ORGANIZE
I used to download email into an undifferentiated inbox at random moments and, oftentimes, even as email was still downloading, start answering willynilly. How about that for an attention-fracking technique!
Now I begin each email session as I would with a haul of paper mail: first, by taking it all in; second, deleting the junk; and third, organizing the correspondence I want to look at and/or answer into precisely labeled files.
Files are easy to create and, when emptied of their contents, to delete, or rename or whatever— a powerful tool within a tool. And I cannot overemphasize how effective a simple and flexible filing system has been for helping me focus and more quickly dispatch my email.
My filing system changes depending on what I'm working on or dealing with in my life. This week, nearing the holidays, it looks like this:
INBOX (this has whatever I'm going to tackle now, preferably never more than 11 emails)
BACKLOG: TEXAS (anything to do with my book in-progress)
BACKLOG: FAMILY
BACKLOG: FRIENDS & COLLEAGUES
BACKLOG: FINANCIAL
(By the way, in case this looks like a "to do" list, it isn't... quite... It's just email. For my "to dos" I use Allen's GTD system with a Filofax along with the brilliant flexibility of using—thanks to Julia Morgenstern for the idea— little yellow PostIts for noting next actions. )
If I can answer an email inside of two minutes, I usually do. (That's a tactic from David Allen's Getting Things Done.)
I might receive some gigazoodlesque number of emails in a typical day, but after doing the DDO, which takes only a couple of minutes at most, I am left with a tidy number of uncategorized emails in the main inbox— sometimes as few as two or three. (I try to keep the active uncategorized inbox at 11 messages, tops, because for me a longer list becomes visually overwhelming.)
3. JUI-JITSU-BLOCK TROLLS, KRAY-ZEES & SPAMMERS
I do not respond to rude or certifiably ultra-weird messages, and as with businesses that spew spam,* I add those email addresses to my "block sender" list. Happily, there are not many of those, and happily, once I've blocked them, with lightning ease, I never see their emails again!
Out of sight, out of mind.
*(Phishers tend to use one-time only emails; those I just delete.)
Many of my writer friends agonize over emails (as well as social media comments) from trolls and nuts and spammers. I tell them as I tell you, dear reader, it really is this simple to make them all go away. The challenge is, your ego, prompted by its its arch sense of justice, might jump-up-and-down-insist on responding to them, but your ego, if it's like most people's, including mine, should not be in driver's seat here. Surely you have better things to do with your time and attention than engage with emotionally stunted, social-skill-challenged, and possibly dangerously disturbed individuals. (If you lived in a big city, would you leave your kitchen's back door open to the alleyway 24/7?)
If you relish unnecessary fights and pointless thrills, well, as they say in Mexico, dios los hace y ellos se juntan (God makes them and they get together.) I prefer the Polish saying, Not my circus, not my monkeys.
Viva Moti Nativ!
(Seriously, I took Moti Nativ's Feldenkrais workshop, it was a blast.)
(Seriously, I took Moti Nativ's Feldenkrais workshop, it was a blast.)
4. PRIORITIZE & TACKLE
Stopwatch ticking, after having done the DDO, then I prioritize emails (and other related tasks as noted below), and then I tackle them.
There's no magic formula here: I might think about it for a moment or three, then decide what should come first.
(Once dealt with, I archive each email by year. Some people just delete them; in my repeated experience, however, that is not a good idea.)
5. SWEEP OUT THE SPAM FOLDER ONCE PER DAY
I check the spam folder once per day because that is precisely about how often I find an important email in there. These days floods of spam are coming from phishers (easy to spot for many reasons, also because they vary their email addresses); those I don't touch, I just delete them.
(I remain perplexed by correspondents who do not check their spam folders. On the other hand, checking too often wastes time—small amounts, but they add up.)
6. APPLY AND ADJUST "SENDER FILTERS" AS NEEDED
I'm not talking about an app or programming or anything complicated. By "sender filter," a concept I grokked an eon ago but a term I first encountered in Cal Newport's Deep Work, I mean some specific information on one's contact page that, ideally in a kind and generous spirit, encourages potential senders to not send email— so that, for the few emails that do squeeze through, I am able to respond quickly, politely, and thoughtfully.
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| [[ My contact page as of 2016, rich with "sender filters" ]] |
My contact page, pictured right, includes a long lineup of sender filters: First, a newsletter signup (mainly for those who want to know when I will be teaching a workshop or post a new podcast); then it answers FAQs, such as "where can I find your books?" (I am ever-amazed by that question in this day of amazon and Google, but I do get such emails fairly often); for book club inquiries; the best way to reach me for media and speaking inquiries; answers to writerly questions ("how to find a publisher," etc.); rights inquiries; press kits including high res images; and finally...
... (few indeed seem to have the attentional snorkel gear to arrive there at the bottom)....
... if someone still wants to email me, he will find my email address.
Like many other writers, back in pioneer days, once I had a live website showing my email address, I found myself receiving so many messages from people seeking my advice about / feedback on / encouragement of their writing, it would have been impossible to answer them all individually. As a solution, many authors have opted for what I think of as "The Wall of Silence"— no email address at all—and/or what seems to me a snotty-sounding third-person notice along the lines of "Wiggy Blip is so famous and busy being fabulously famous, he cannot possibly deign to acknowledge your email."
(Well, bless you, Wiggy Blip. And Ziggy Stardust, too.)
Cal Newport's various sender filters conclude as follows— I quote from his book, Deep Work: "If you have an offer, opportunity, or introduction that might make my life more interesting, e-mail me at interesting (at) calnewport.com For the reasons stated above, I'll only respond to those proposals that are a good match for my schedule and interests."
Of course, some emails, even from perfectly civilized and well-meaning people, do not merit a response— they presume too much, they're eye-crossingly vague or, as in a few cases, they clearly neither expect nor invite a response. But as for myself, because my own sender filters work beautifully, my stance is that I will do my darnedest, most reasonable best to answer everyone, whether family, friends, students, literary colleague, or mysterious Albanian, who takes the trouble to write to me a civilized email.
On occasion a sender blazes past or perhaps never saw the relevant sender filter, so I reply with the link or paste-copy the text of my long-ago posted answer to their question. (For example, I am often asked by students, friends, relatives, neighbors and utter strangers if I will read their manuscript. Here's my answer to that one.)
If you want to comment on this blog, which I sincerely welcome, click here and what you'll get is this sender filter:
This simplest of sender filters, stating that I read but do not usually publish comments, works blazingly well. Trolls and their ilk took a hike, never to return! (As for my fierce-looking writing assistant, I assure you, dear reader, Uliberto Quetzalpugtl only bites cheese.)
P.S. Cal Newport's take on some industrial-strength sender filters. Personally I would not want to use such forbidding sender filters, but for some writers, and some people, that might be the right strategy. In any event, a sender filter beats the daisies out of the Wiggyesque Wall of Silence.
UPDATE: For a good example of strong but both friendly and polite sender filters, here is a screenshot of publishing consultant and blogger Jane Friedman's contact page:
FURTHER UPDATE: For an at once Groucho Marx-esque and expert example of sender filters by someone whose religious ideas seem to attract trolls as ripe bananas do fruit flies, see John Michael Greer's Frequently Thrown Tantrums page for his Druidical Order of the Golden Dawn.
Over the past year and some I have freed up chunkoids of time and energy for email by deactivating my Facebook account, minimizing Twitter and LinkedIn (including turning off email notifications), and closing this blog and my YouTube channel to published comments. In other words, I have reduced the number of channels for people to communicate with me, funneling as many communications as possible into ye olde email.
I tell everyone who asks, the best way to find me is by email.
Yes, I receive more email as a result, but interestingly, many of my "friends" who were so chatty & likey on Facebook rarely if ever trouble to send me email. I have also found that many of the younger generation do not respond to email. Hmmm, also interesting! (Have a nice life, kiddos!)
Well, at least we still have telephones. But sorry, don't count on me to retrieve my voicemail, I am too busy answering email!
(What about Whatsapp? Ask me again after I've lugged home my taxidermied hippopotamus.)
8. BE QUICK & CLEAR, MY DEAR, BUT ADD DETAIL TO CUT THE CLUTTER
The emails I send myself have a clear subject line and the text clearly calls for or implies expected action or inaction. For example, some of the younger generation in my family prefer to text rather than use email, and getting them to answer an email, such has been my experience, requires laser-like focus in this regard. Hence, subject lines like this:
Re: Super Quick URRRRRgent Question about X—
or, say:
Re: Confirming dinner at at 9 PM this Saturday
What do I mean by "add detail to cut the clutter?" Minimize the number of emails needed to arrange things by politely making specific actionable proposals and provide websites, addresses, phone numbers and any other information that your correspondent might need, and hence avoid further emails. For example, instead of blah blah blahing about when and where to maybe kind of sort of meet for coffee, go ahead and make a specific proposal, e.g., "How about if we meet for coffee at 4:30 PM this Tuesday or, if you would prefer, 5:30 next Wednesday at Café Thus-and-Such, 123 Avenue ABC."
Cal Newport offers more detailed advice about this brain power-saving email tactic on his blog, Study Hacks and his book, Deep Work.
9. WHEN CALLED FOR, FOR HEAVENSSAKES, JUST GO AHEAD AND APOLOGIZE!— BRIEFLY
Muse.com's Aja Frost offers a batch of handy templates categorized by degree of situational horribleness.
10. AT THE END OF THE LAST EMAIL SESSION FOR THE DAY, DO THE SCARLET O'HARA
It is a fact that for me, as well as for everyone who uses email, night falls in this Theater of Space-Time... and falls again, and again.... Funny how that happens once every 24 hours... until it doesn't. I guess. In the meantime, some emails fall through the cracks of all good intentions.
Anyway, as Cal Newport writes in Deep Work,
"[I]n general, those with a minor public presence, such as authors, overestimate how much people really care about their replies to their messages."Newport's bluntness may sound cruel. I don't think it is; rather, he points to a cruel fact: that even when surrounded by other people, in fundamental ways we are each of us in this Theater of Space-Time alone. Writing is a technology that permits us to send thoughts from one axis of space-time to multiple others. And this is precisely why I write books— and why I read books, and why I welcome correspondence, albeit in electronic form.
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| [[ In my dreams... Brad Pitt plays US ambassador to France John Bigelow and Salma Hayek, Princess Josefa de Iturbide. Academy awards all around. Viva! ]] |
And no, I am not worried that one day, should my one of my books be made into a movie starring Brad Pitt, or something, I might need to raise the Wall of Silence, or else bring on a bucket brigade of secretaries to cope with cannon-hoses of incoming emails.
Why am I not worried, pray tell?
(1) Because my 10 point system works splendidly well.
(2) Furthermore, should the need arise, it would be a simple matter to add more sender filters / templates, and perhaps, now and then, an autoresponder.
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| "Smombies" are not the guy in the Chewbacca costume. Watch the WSJ video here. |
(3) Moreover, I need only note the numbers of smombies I see on city streets to conclude that, alas, the world of those of us who still have the cognitive focus to actually read the sorts of literary books I write and to engage in thoughtful correspondence is, and seems destined to remain, a cozy one.
And if I turn out to be wrong, so what? Then I will get a secretary! In the meantime, I shall make do with my writing assistants (although, alas, with emails, those two are all paws).
> Your comments are always welcome. Write to me here.
UPDATE: Further Noodling on Email
Willard Spiegelman's Senior Moments,
Guilt Management, and the Six-Point Magic-Wand of an Email
Why I am a Mega-Fan of the Filofax
Guilt Management, and the Six-Point Magic-Wand of an Email
Why I am a Mega-Fan of the Filofax
Literary Travel Writing:
Notes on Process and the Digital Revolution
Why Don't We Chatter Away to the Dead, Too, While We're At It?
Notes on Process and the Digital Revolution
Why Don't We Chatter Away to the Dead, Too, While We're At It?
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