For the past few months I have had difficultly blogging. Part of the difficulty has been finding the time to blog, but most of the problem has been my blogging environment. My desk had become cluttered, my work environment noisy, and I could not find a moment of peace to myself.
I solved these problems by starting to write my rough drafts on paper, away from my normal work area. I write while I’m waiting for class, or even in class when the professor is boring. When I am on my computer, I have started using an excellent application, WriteRoom, which removes the normal background noise. This combination has allowed me to resume a regular post schedule without much difficulty.
I’m curious if other bloggers and writers run into the same problem as me. Do you find your working environment difficult to write in at times? How do you deal with this? Change of scenery? Hit up Panera or Starbucks? I’d love to hear how others deal with this frustration.
3 Comments
When I take my Macbook to class, I usually just put on my Shure SE210s and play some pink-noise while they lecture, hand out worksheets, etc. For your problem (noisy environment), it’s best to plunk down some money for some quality, noise canceling earbuds, and cut yourself off from the world. People on my bus are loud (a bunch of gangsters rapping isn’t appealing to an indie/geek kid), and all I have to do it turn up the volume to about 25%, and their voices are gone. Plus, people are much less likely to try and get your attention if you’re wearing earbuds.
Now, about WriteRoom. I don’t really see a need for it. Don’t get me wrong, it’s good at what it does, but I don’t see the point of spending ‘X’ amount of dollars when the functionality for full-screen, black-and-white writing is built into Leopard. I usually just fire up Textmate and take notes (while working on design projects
), or head into Terminal and start typing away with VIM. Not only is learning how to use VIM beneficial if you’re going to work as a “tech guy,” it’s also amazingly geeky to be able to use.
As for my environment, I like to keep everything as minimalistic as possible. I usually hang out in my school’s library, or head to a coffee shop and work there. Mind you, I’m only 15, so my options are very limited in this department.
Good luck with keeping productive, and keep up the great work,
Julian Montez
Casual Revolt.com
Going to another room is usually enough for me. Thank God I don’t have loud neighbors, so the only thing I need to deal with is a loud (not so loud really) wife
As to WriteRoom, I’m with Julian on this one. Usually full screen editing (new feature in WP 2.5) is enough.
I already have. I own a pair of Sony’s MDR-EX81s, and I recently picked up a decent pair of Sennheiser’s over-the-ear noise-canceling headphones. Both do their job wonderfully when I’m coding or working on school work, but for some reason when I write I need complete silence. Music tends to break my thought process.
Where is full screen writing built into Leopard? I have never seen that functionality from any writing application.
TextMate is great as well, but I tend to leave TextMate for code. I haven’t got into using TextMate for its multi-purpose functionality yet.
I’ve tried WordPress 2.5′s full screen mode, and I wasn’t too impressed. Not that WordPress’ full screen editing is bad, but I prefer to avoid rich text editing. In addition, I find writing with a black screen much easier to work with. I realize WriteRoom is truly a niche product, and most people have no need for it, but for me, it serves its purpose wonderfully.
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