On the Priorities of Minimalism

On this week’s episode of Back to Work, Dan and Merlin discussed the meta-distractions of minimalism. I highly recommend listening to the episode because many great points are made. I talk about minimalism semi-frequently on this website, and the word “simplicity” is in the tagline, so I thought it best to offer my thoughts.

The concern Merlin has about minimalism is that “The removal of distractions can quickly become its own distraction.” That sounds paradoxical since removing distractions seems like a productive use of one’s time, and indeed it can be, but it’s also easy to go overboard. If we get to a point where we don’t get any work done because we’re too busy creating minimal work environments, then minimalism — or rather, the pursuit of minimalism — becomes counterproductive. It becomes another excuse for procrastination.

I’m pretty sure Merlin doesn’t consider minimalism itself to be a bad thing. As he said on Back to Work, we in the Apple community enjoy a certain aesthetic that is founded on simplicity and elegance. That’s great, but it also shouldn’t become a requirement if we are to get work done. Convincing ourselves that we can’t write if there are things on our desk is not a productive mindset to have. Dan advised against becoming attached and clinging to minimalism, just as we should avoid becoming attached to material things.

As Merlin says, if you’re getting distracted, then maybe you just don’t care enough about the thing you’re being distracted from. I think that’s profound. For example, people always complain about being distracted when trying to write a paper for school because they probably don’t really care about what they’re writing about. On the other hand, if you love playing video games, you will find the time to do it.

Or, as Merlin is fond of saying:

No one needs to set an alarm to masturbate.

I advocate minimalism because I think it has many benefits and can be applied on several levels. The physical level might be that of the minimalist workspace, which I enjoy because it makes me feel calm rather than stressed. If there are things piling up on my desk, it usually means there are things that require my attention. The more things that require my attention at once, the more anxiety I feel. That’s not how everybody works; it’s just how I work. If piles of paper and clutter give you comfort and help you do your work, then I encourage you to maintain that environment for yourself. Do what works for you.

Minimalism on a metaphysical level is even more important. Minimalism advocates the removal of needless things. Not every thing, just needless things. That might be things on your desk, but it also might be people in your life or thoughts in your head. If they don’t contribute something positive to your life, I say remove them. That way, you can dedicate more of yourself to the things you actually care about.

I avoid preaching minimalism as the only solution to things, but I also think it’s worth considering not just for productivity reasons, but also for inner peace reasons. I could post something every day about how you should put that stapler you use once a week in a drawer somewhere, but in reality, that stapler isn’t that big of a deal. Doing the work is the big deal, and whether it’s with a messy desk or a clean desk is up to you. It’s the minimalist mind — one free of needless thoughts and perspectives — that I strive for.

Read to Discover

Devir Kahan has a nice post on reading outside your bubble, wherein he shares a conversation with a teacher who feels curating what we read is problematic:

He said that reading things solely online - and curating what you read through things like RSS - is an even bigger problem. If we are only reading things that interest us, we'll never find anything new. We'll never try something a little bit outside of our comfort zone, and we'll never grow as humans.

I definitely see his point, but like Devir, it makes me feel a little self-conscious because I enjoy reading things online. In fact, browsing my RSS reader is one of my favorite things to do on my iPhone or iPad.

I also agree with Devir in that I feel I've grown a lot via the articles I read online. If I had never gotten hooked on reading the web, I might never have discovered minimalism, the Apple community, the Paleo lifestyle, or any of the other things I'm passionate about today.

That's why I feel it's important to differentiate between merely "reading the news" and "reading online". For me, "reading the news" refers to the headlines and events of the day. Whether that comes from CNN or Engadget, it's primarily informational and (hopefully) fact-based. You could say it's the who, what, when, and where: the essence of reporting.

This basic reporting is different from opinion pieces and editorials about the news. John Gruber discussed this distinction with Josh Topolsky on On The Verge last week:

The thing I always wanted to do is, in newspaper parlance or magazine parlance, is I don't want to be a reporter, I wanted to be the columnist. I wanted to be the guy on the back page. I wanted to be the guy on the ed-op page who just gets to say what he thinks.

What distinguishes Gruber — and what makes me prefer Daring Fireball to a news aggregate like Engadget — is that he tells me what happened, but he also tells me what it means and what he thinks about it. It's the "how" and "why", which I feel is more valuable and more interesting. This is not to say I prefer to be told what to think, but rather that I enjoy hearing others' opinions on topics that interest me. It humanizes what would otherwise be a list of facts.

(Coincidentally, there's been quite a bit of fervor over opinions in the news lately. See: MG Siegler and Ben Brooks.)

This distinction comes down to reading headlines versus reading writers. That is, I prefer to read Gruber rather than Engadget, Gizmodo, TechCrunch, et al. because I feel he offers more depth than a typical reporter. Most of the online reading that I do, therefore, is not "reading the news", but reading my favorite writers. I don't follow CNN, I follow Merlin Mann, Shawn Blanc, and Michael Lopp because these are the writers that offer valuable articles on topics I enjoy. Rather than an endless regurgitation of headlines, these writers expose me to new ways of thinking: their own. That's why I choose to follow human beings.

That brings us to this quote by Tim Van Damme, which Devir cites:

Living inside a comfort zone is dangerous, and turns you into an uninteresting human being fed by other people’s opinions. Broaden the topics of things you read and learn how to have your own opinion.

This is true, and it's good advice, but I don't think you should force yourself to read things you don't care about either. How many topics do we need to read about to avoid becoming "uninteresting"? I think a better strategy would be to seek out as many different opinions about our chosen topics as possible. I'd rather be knowledgeable and passionate about A, B, and C than knowledgeable and indifferent about A-Z. We do, however, need to be mindful and avoid the trap of accepting opinion as fact, which I've discussed several times before. It is the responsibility of the reader to evaluate an opinion before accepting it.

Devir concludes that there are three different types of reading, all of which are vital to our growth as human beings:

1. "Technical writing". To me, this is reporting. While I wouldn't necessarily label this kind of reading as "dangerous", it can be dry, unimaginative, and do little to expand our horizons. That doesn't make it useless, however.
2. "Books". I agree with Devir here. Books are timeless, fun, and have the potential to inspire. I use books as a means of escape. Reading a book is also different from reading online, which is why I own both an iPad and a Kindle.
3. "Inspirational and insightful articles". For me, these are original pieces written by the authors mentioned above. Very different from just "covering the news" — and far more fulfilling.

The only tweak I would offer is that any piece of writing — not just articles — can be inspirational and insightful. An aspiring journalist might find a piece of technical writing very impressive, just as a budding author might be in awe of Dostoyevsky. We must also not discount verse, newspapers, magazines, or other ways to read. So, while there are innumerable mediums, any and all of them may be deemed inspirational and insightful by a particular individual. As I've said in defense of e-readers, it's the content that matters, not the medium in which it is presented.

I can see why some would argue that reading only technical writing is cause for concern, and it's certainly possible. In the end though, my conclusion is a cliché: variety is the spice of life. For those of us who live to read and learn, the solution should be wonderfully obvious. We shouldn't force ourselves to read stuff we don't care about, but by exposing ourselves to a greater variety of media, we increase our chances of discovering something new and delightful.

Tame Instapaper with ReadNow

ReadNow is a Read It Later and Instapaper app for the Mac:

ReadNow gives you access to your Instapaper or Read It Later accounts in a single easy-to-use application. Within ReadNow you can manage your read later account without logging in to the services via browser. With ReadNow all stored articles are just one mouse click away. Its design offers you a fast navigation and will save you time storing and accessing articles you are planning to read.

I love Instapaper, but I’m guilty of letting my account overflow with thousands of articles I’ve promised to read later. The fact is I usually have too much to read just keeping up with RSS and Twitter.

One of the ways I manage to keep my RSS feeds under control is by using a great RSS app. Reeder is my preference on the Mac, iPad, and iPhone because it allows me to process hundreds of new RSS items quickly and efficiently. It’s both functional and enjoyable to use, so I rarely have trouble zeroing out my Google Reader.

Instapaper is an entirely different beast. When I send something to Instapaper, I’m promising to sit down with it one-on-one and read it slowly and carefully. By its very nature, Instapaper is a service meant for reading, not skimming and processing. At least, that’s how I feel.

An Instapaper’d article is one I believe contains unmissable information. Of course, that’s not always the case, and that’s where ReadNow comes in.

ReadNow is like Reeder for Instapaper. It allows me to quickly process articles that have been sitting in my account for years(!), waiting to be read. It comes with gestures for navigation and archiving, so I can fly through a hundred articles in half an hour. I can read the most worthwhile items and archive the rest with a swipe, just like Reeder allows me to do with RSS. Short of deleting my entire account, I can’t think of a better way to manage Instapaper overflow.

Read Later Guilt is a terrible affliction among us web nerds, and ReadNow is the solution I’ve been waiting for. It’s efficient Instapaper processing in a clean, simple UI, and its brand new 2.0 release is only $3.99 in the App Store. Highly recommended.

On Self-Improvement

Leo Babauta has a big post on quashing the self-improvement urge.

I don’t love it.

So what’s the problem? You could say it’s great that people are constantly trying to improve themselves, but where does it end? When is anyone ever content with who they are? We are taught that we are not good enough yet, that we must improve, and so … we always feel a little inadequate.

I do say it’s great that people are constantly trying to improve themselves. It’s what I’m doing, and I think it’s what most self-aware people are doing. But, while I do strive to get better, I also feel proud of who I am at the same time. That varies from day to day, but overall I’m a self-confident person. I wasn’t always, but luckily my parents dragged me to a karate class when I was nine, and I was able to develop a sense of self-worth. I found a drive within myself to get better, but it didn’t come from being told “You suck!” all the time; it came from a desire to be awesome. So while I suppose I did feel “inadequate”, it inspired me to grow into a better, stronger person. Why would I want to be content with being a shy little dork? (Part of me remains a shy little dork, of course.)

We are never adequate, never perfect, never self-confident, never good enough, never comfortable with ourselves, never satisfied, never there, never content.

While I’m sure some people feel that way, I think it’s a sweeping generalization. There’s a big difference between wanting to get better and thinking you’re a worthless human being with nothing to offer anyone. I hope the latter are a minority.

And it becomes the reason we buy self-help products, fitness products, gadgets to make us cooler, nicer clothes, nicer cars and homes, nicer bags and boots, plastic surgery and drugs, courses and classes and coaches and retreats. It will never stop, because we will never be good enough.

I agree that much consumerism is driven by a feeling of lack, and that many people attach their self-worth to their possessions. It’s a tenet of eastern philosophy, and that line of thinking is obviously incorrect.

I think there are two levels to this “self-improvement is bad” argument:

1. Self-improvement is bad because it convinces people to buy things they don’t need, like self-help books.
2. Self-improvement is bad because it never allows people to be happy.

I agree with number one. Advertising that suggests, “You need to eat this! You need to wear this! You need to buy this!” scares people into spending money. It’s like when the news tells us to stock up on bottled water, canned food, and generators because there’s snow in the forecast. “Self-help” as an industry is in fact probably unhealthy. Everyone has issues, but that doesn’t mean everyone needs to buy XYZ product. That’s just about the money.

I disagree with number two. If self-improvement consumes your existence, then yeah, that’s bad. But it’s not difficult to see how people can aspire to be better without becoming debilitated in the process.

We must improve. We must read every self-improvement book. When we read a blog, we must try that method, because it will make us better. When we read someone else’s account of his achievements, his goal system, his entrepreneurial lifestyle, her yoga routine, her journaling method, her reading list, we must try it. We will always read what others are doing, in case it will help us get better. We will always try what others are doing, try every diet and every system, because it helped them get better, so maybe it will help us too.

I suppose that would be the case for an individual incapable of thinking for themselves — and perhaps that’s the majority of the population — but not everyone looking for self-improvement lives that way. The way to self-improvement lies in introspection. But that’s not to say we can’t or shouldn’t learn from others.

New information must be considered before being implemented. We must evaluate new information before deciding if it’s applicable to us.

Would that be horrible, if we were just content and didn’t need to better ourselves every minute of every week? Would we be lazy slobs, or would we instead be happy, and in being happy do things that make us happy rather than make us better?

But doesn’t getting better make people happy? Again, there’s a difference between wanting to get better and being obsessed with your own inadequacy. Too much of any thing isn’t good for you. If the quest for self-improvement causes you to neglect other aspects of your life, then yes, it’s probably time to reevaluate. But self-improvement is not inherently bad, so long as it’s done in moderation, like anything else.

Think of how [being content] might simplify your life. Think of how many self-improvement books you read, or listen to in the car. Think of how many products you buy to make yourself better. Think of how many things you read online, in the hopes of being better. Think of how many things you do because you feel inadequate. Think of how much time this would free up, how much mental energy.

Yes, it would help many people who are consumed by their feelings of inadequacy. While books and audio tapes may contain valuable information, looking for magic bullets in them is futile.

Realize that you are already perfect. You are there. You can breathe a sigh of relief.

Striving to get better is not the same as striving for perfection. If you were perfect, you’d never make a mistake, and that’s unhealthy.

You are not perfect. But you’re probably awesome anyway.

Quash the urge to improve, to be better. It only makes you feel inadequate.

But a feeling of inadequacy often inspires us to get better, to learn new things, and to grow. You can’t grow if you think you’ve nothing left to learn. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to get better as long as it’s not hurting you or someone else.

Ultimately, I see what Leo is saying, but to suggest that all self-improvement is bad doesn’t make sense. Striving for contentment is itself a form of self-improvement. Growing is what life is about.

I can think of nothing more valuable than having an unconditional love for yourself. That love should be for your strengths and your weaknesses. You should be happy with who you are while recognizing your flaws, and yes, striving to improve them. These flaws do not render you a broken or worthless human being. On the contrary, they are as much a part of who you are as your best qualities.

I agree that people shouldn’t beat themselves up over their inadequacies. Don’t feel bad about not being perfect; no one is, and you’re awesome. But still try to be the best person you can be. Why wouldn’t you?

I say love yourself right now, and get better all the time; it’ll only give you more reasons to love yourself.

And then explore the world of contentment. It’s a place of wonderment.

Well, that’s true.

Journey to Love

I’ve heard that the reason Space Mountain is such an effective roller coaster is because it’s in the dark. Since you can’t see the track, your body can’t prepare for the twists and turns, which is what makes it so thrilling.

Of course, the more you go on the ride, the easier it is to anticipate each moment. Every left, right, up, and down.

More and more, this progression from unknown to familiar reflects my experience with music, particularly when it comes to digesting records I’ve never heard before.

Listening to a new album for the first time is hard work — especially if you listen from start to finish. Like your first ride on Space Mountain, every moment is unexpected. Every note is foreign. Every lyric is unfamiliar.

Such a listening experience is overwhelming, and it’s easy to dismiss things we don’t understand because of that pesky fear of the unknown.

Maybe the first song comes on, and you think it’s pretty good. And then the second track comes on, and that one’s OK… But then there’s another track. And another, and another, and another, and suddenly you have no idea what’s going on.

You try to pay attention, but eventually the music wears you out. Twelve tracks of strange music is a lot to take in. It taxes your brain. You can’t get your bearings. Saxophones come out of nowhere. The lyrics don’t make any sense. That bridge is unbearable. The music assaults your ears, and you’re not enjoying yourself at all. It’s exhausting.

Maybe you don’t even make it all the way through the album. Maybe you decide never to listen to it again. Maybe it’s too much work.

But, as is often the case, hard work can pay off.

“When I was 15 years old, I used to hang out at a local record store. And there was this guy who worked there who thought he knew what I liked, and he handed me this album one day, and it was John Coltrane. So I took it home, and I put it on the machine. And I hated it. I mean, I really hated it. I just didn’t get it. So, I played it again. I played it again… and I played it again… and then I just couldn’t stop playing it.” - Mr. Holland’s Opus

If you have the patience to listen — to make that journey — again, it’ll be just a little bit easier. You’ll start to remember things. Little moments. Everything will seem a bit more familiar. “Oh yeah, this is the song that goes do do do dodo dooo… That’s actually kind of nice.”

I love this process. You’re literally developing a rapport with the music. You’re getting to know one another. You can see and feel the individual moments coming now. You anticipate their arrival. You begin to see how they all fit together. Lyrics that made no sense become a little clearer. They start to speak to you. What used to be a sneak attack becomes your favorite part.

And with each repeated listen, your relationship with each song gets stronger. You start to see the big picture. Until eventually you know every note and every word of every song, forwards and backwards.

It’s funny how our tastes change over time. We might hear a song one day and think it’s horrible, only to hear that same song weeks or years later and discover it perfectly encapsulates everything about our lives life right now. It reflects our every emotion, as if the singer has been in our exact situation and knows all our fears, doubts, joys, and triumphs. The music becomes a source of tremendous comfort, loyal and always there when you need it. It’s like a stranger who ends up becoming your best friend.

That’s when an album — which previously had nothing to do with you — becomes one of your most precious treasures.

What Is Inner Peace?

I talk about inner peace a lot on this website. It’s in the tagline, after all. The concept seems self-explanatory, but I thought I’d take the time to detail what my definition of inner peace is, because understanding it will help us achieve it.

My college philosophy professor first introduced me to the concept of inner peace years ago. He called it “perfect peace”. It’s the goal. The ideal state of being. It’s what everyone wants. Inner peace means being perfectly content, mentally, physically, emotionally. You have no fears. No worries. You have no wants, needs, or desires. No stress. No anxiety. No troubles. No fear. You just are. It can perhaps be considered an enlightened state.

Sounds lovely, doesn’t it? But the unfortunate truth is that perfect peace is very difficult to attain — or more accurately, very difficult to maintain. If there is even the slightest splinter in your mind, you are not experiencing true inner peace. The slightest concern — even if it’s just a thought — can sneak its way inside your mind and disrupt your contentment.

Think of it in terms of percentages. True perfect peace is 100%. Every day, that number fluctuates up and down in correlation with our thoughts and emotions. Bad things cause it to go down, while good things cause it to go up. The thing is, even if you get up to 99%, all it takes is a single thought to disrupt your inner peace. Sometimes you may actually get up to 100% for a moment or two before you think of something — something you need to do, something you’re anxious about, something you fear — that makes your number drop. Even worse, that thought often pops into your head without warning and takes root there, growing until it becomes the central focus in your mind and causing your peace percentage to plummet. Because of this, perfect peace is very difficult to maintain for long periods of time.

My objective, therefore, is to learn how to first achieve inner peace, and then maintain it for as long as possible. This is a constant and never-ending process. Having 100% perfect peace all the time is a sign of true enlightenment, so the best we mortals can do is practice as frequently as possible. Much of this practice involves being mindful. We must be self-aware enough to recognize when we feel a moment of perfect peace, and then reflect on what led to that moment.

Inner peace is achieved through innumerable sources. QLE focuses particularly on simplicity, technology, and perspective, among others. That’s what this website is about: finding inner peace through different means. The more columns that support our inner peace, the more frequently we can achieve that blissful state.

Of course, what gives me inner peace may not work for you, and vice-versa. But as I’ve said before, my goal is to document my experience with inner peace in the hopes that you may find my successes and failures useful in your own search. Plus, it’s nice to have company.

Beating the Sunday Night Blues

There’s this thing called the Sunday Night Blues, which is loosely defined as “a bad mood caused by Monday’s imminence”. The weekend magic is over, and a new workweek is only a few hours’ sleep away. Back to reality. Back to the grind. Case of the Mondays. Clichés abound.

It’s a total drag, but lately my Sunday Night Blues has been replaced with a profound sense of inner peace. A feeling of contentment, and maybe even excitement. This hasn’t exactly been a conscious decision, so I took the long way home to try and figure out what causes my Sunday night mood to vary so drastically.

On this particular Sunday, the answer was confidence.

A lack of confidence often causes Imperfect peace. When we don’t feel confident about something, we fear it. Public speaking. Math tests. Competition. When we do feel confident, much of that fear subsides.

Confidence begets inner peace.

It seems to me that there are three areas in which we must feel confident if we are to avoid the Sunday Night Blues:

1. Confidence about the past, which means not having regrets or second-guessing the decisions that have led to this moment.
2. Confidence about the future, which is tricky because the future is largely unknown. Even if we have plans for the future, life can alter them without warning, and that could result in tremendous disappointment. The confidence here comes less from correctly predicting the future and more from being in a state of mind capable of handing whatever the future holds.
3. Confidence about yourself, here in the present moment. To me, self-confidence refers to a complete love of who you are. Not just a celebration of your strengths, but also an acknowledgement of your flaws and an optimism about their improvement. Pride for the current version of yourself, but also excitement for the iterations of tomorrow and beyond.

The crux of all this, of course, is that the only difference between having or avoiding the Sunday Night Blues is our perspective. The past, future, and present are the same either way. They cannot be altered. What can be altered is the mind: how you think of and perceive your past, future, and present self.

Invariably, this peace is fleeting. I often go to bed feeling content only to wake up miserable at the sound of my alarm clock. But the pursuit of inner peace is a constant, never ending process. The slightest interruption threatens to take it away from us, and so we must work to maintain it.

Tomorrow, I’m going to talk about what inner peace is, why it’s so hard to attain, and how we can experience it more often.

The Scratch Space

I bought a white legal pad from Office Depot the other day, and it’s taken up residence next to my MacBook Pro, along with a black Pilot G-2 0.38mm gel ink pen.

Despite being used to the 0.7mm, I switched to the 0.38 upon Shawn Blanc’s recommendation, thinking the finer point might help my atrocious handwriting. It doesn’t. But I like it, and while I’m not sure if it’s better than the 0.7, I think the finer point gives me slightly better control. The 0.38 has a scratchier feel to it, which is foreign, yet satisfying. Time will tell which prevails.

I bought the legal pad because I’ve been having the urge to write things down while I’m at my computer: to-dos, thoughts, ideas, outlines, etc. I try to use my iPhone and iPad to take notes and capture things because it cuts down on clutter, but sometimes it feels better to scrawl something on paper. So now I have a legal pad here on my right. I like it.

The scratch space has already proven itself to be very practical, particularly since I’ve started using it to plan out my day. I was getting depressed because I started falling into the habit of completely wasting my days off. My Mondays, for example, are twelve-hour affairs, but my Tuesdays are mostly free. Amidst the nonstop Monday action, I always found myself wishing I had time to do this and that. I’d tell myself, “Oh, I can do that tomorrow.” But when tomorrow showed up, I usually had no idea where to start or what to do first, so I ended up getting distracted by something. Suddenly it’s dinnertime, and I’ve gotten nothing accomplished. Not good for morale.

So I started planning out my day the night before, like so. It works. Instead of wondering what I should be doing with myself when I wake up, it’s right there in front of me. The list inspires me to action. At the end of the day, I can see what I accomplished. And it’s damn satisfying to cross things off with my shiny new Pilot G-2 0.38mm.

We’ll see how the scratch space evolves, but I plan on covering every inch of the page with ink before throwing the sheet out. There’s a kind of romanticism to filling a page with your brain’s miscellanea. I can write down anything I want, no matter how trivial or earth-shattering. Getting things out of your head and onto paper is good. It keeps your brain from getting overwhelmed and you from having a breakdown. That’s worth adding a third item to my desk.

I Am My Settings

Devir Kahan on the issue of choice and stress:

There is a certain bliss when you don’t have to make a choice. Or more specifically, when a choice is made for you. Most all of our stress comes from having to make choices, so why not take some of that stress away? Well, because having choices made for us can result in some bad choices, and ones we don’t agree with. I need to be able to choose and configure certain things just how I like them.

I totally agree. Choice is a source of stress, perhaps not in a harmful way, but in a this-is-making-me-hesitate sort of way. But really that hesitation evidences who and what I am, which is awesomely nerdy.

When it comes to app settings, I’m usually pretty good with the “set it and forget it” strategy. In fact, the first thing I usually do upon installing a new app is go through its preferences, tweaking them as I see fit. Once the app is configured to my liking, I don’t revisit the settings unless additional preferences are added via an update. Something like buying a stick of deodorant, however, can take me upwards of ten minutes, even though it doesn’t matter at all which scent I choose. (Must be the fear of smelling like the wrong kind of tree.)

As a nerd, I like to fiddle. I like settings and preferences. Like Devir says, customization allows me to make things my own. People may complain about how iOS’s closed system isn’t customizable like Android’s in the sense that you can’t change how the icons or the operating system looks. But I feel my iPhone is so uniquely my iPhone because of the apps that reside on my home screen, the apps I’ve chosen to put there. These apps, with their respective qualities, values, and features, define me. OmniFocus represents my love for GTD; Twitterrific my love for simplicity; Reeder my love for quality writing; Instacast my love for nerdy podcasts; Music my love for eclectic artists; Notesy my love for capturing random thoughts and ideas.

I guess my point is that my passion for tinkering — for making little choices — allows me to arrive at a place that suits me best. My former girlfriend once made a comment while I was driving, something along the lines of, “There’s a reason for everything you do, isn’t there?” And yes, that’s exactly it. There’s a reason why I keep my sunglasses in the overhead compartment in my car instead of in my center console. There’s a reason why I use a cassette adapter to listen to my iPod, rather than an FM transmitter. There’s a reason why Reeder is on my home screen, but Instapaper isn’t, even though I love both.

The reason is I’ve tried — or at least considered — the alternatives and, in doing so, have determined what’s best for me. Some people can’t be bothered with changing fonts or scrolling through settings, but for me, those few minutes are well spent because they ultimately allow me to remove friction from my experience. Choice is a wonderful thing because it gives me control. As long as the choices don’t overwhelm and paralyze me (as in the case of deodorant), I find joy in making these little decisions; they’re a product of my identity.

Push-up Habits

On Wednesdays, I teach the black belt class and the junior beginner class back-to-back. The black belt class is for ages twelve and younger, and the junior beginner class is for white, yellow, and orange belts, ages seven to eleven.

The difference between the two classes is striking for a number of reasons, some of which are on my end, and some of which are on the students’. For my part, the black belts get to learn advanced material, while the beginners work on the basics. The black belts sweat and throw each other around, while the beginners have fun and learn about respect, self-discipline, and self-control.

However, what the juxtaposition of these two classes illuminates is the level of enthusiasm between a beginner and an advanced student. While the length of their careers evidences their love of the martial arts, the black belts are often lazy and complacent because they’ve been doing it for so long. They’re comfortable, and it takes extra effort on my part to keep them motivated, interested, and at peak performance.

By contrast, the beginners are hungry, brimming with excitement, and eager to please. Everything is new, so they don’t mind doing jumping jacks, push-ups, and sit-ups. It’s still fun because they haven’t amassed the thousands of repetitions that come with wearing a black belt.

These two dynamics are ironic because my expectations for the black belts are much higher than they are for the beginners, but the beginners exceed my expectations far more frequently than the black belts do.

One pet peeve of mine is when a black belt wimps his way through a set of push-ups with terrible form, rushing just to get them over with. It’s inexcusable. Upon seeing this today, I realized that such a student suffers from one thing: bad habits.

Somewhere along the way, they allowed themselves to get by with crappy push-ups, and now they can’t imagine doing them any other way.

The problem with bad habits is that the longer they’ve existed, the harder they are to rectify. Hence, my inability to cure certain students of their straight-leg syndrome, noodle-arm disease, or mountain-butt push-ups. As I explained to them, I can only tell them what to fix so many times; eventually, the change has to come from within. Self-discipline is the name of the game.

I’ve only been working with this particular generation of black belts for about seven months — a fraction of their training — while I’ve known most of the beginners from day one. It dawned on me that I did not want these beginners to lose their enthusiasm or develop bad habits that would plague them for the rest of their martial arts careers.

As such, we spent about ten minutes discussing what makes a good push-up, what bad habits to avoid, and what good habits to cultivate instead. Nothing depresses me more than seeing an advanced student with his arms out in front of him and his butt up in the air, bobbing his head like a chicken and groaning because I told him to do twenty-five. I told the beginners that if they wanted to get stronger, they needed to start doing good push-ups right now. If you develop bad habits now, I said, you will always groan over push-ups because they will always be painful and difficult. But if you learn to do them right — even if you can only do one — you’ll get stronger every single day. That’s when one becomes two, and two becomes ten.

Imagine doing crappy push-ups for four years; they’re still going to hurt, even after all that time. But imagine doing awesome push-ups for four years; think of how many you’d be able to do! I’ve learned to love push-ups by doing a lot of them properly. As I stressed to the class, creating a foundation of good habits serves you well time and time again.

I don’t mean to tout my teaching abilities, but the “good habits vs bad habits” lesson seemed to resonate, and it got me thinking about my own bad habits, which kick my ass on a daily basis:

I’m pretty sure I’ve been biting my nails since birth.

I will go to bed at 3am and sleep until noon if left undisturbed.

I usually say, “Nothing.” when asked what’s bothering me.

Just to name a few. Some time long ago, I picked these things up, and now I struggle with them. Sometimes I can stop biting my nails for a few weeks, but I always regress. Alarms and obligations do a pretty good job of managing my sleep schedule, and sometimes I’ll be comfortable enough to express myself openly. But it’s always an effort.

A foundation of good habits is invaluable. You can’t be a strong martial artist if you have a weak horse-stance. You just can’t. And bending your knees after years of having straight legs hurts like hell.

Brain Dump: November

I don’t love November.

Traditionally, it’s a busy month for me, one laden with stress and anxiety. 2011’s version is proving to be no different.

This year’s November started off with a freak Halloween snowstorm, which left us without power for five days and nineteen hours. Let me tell you, no suburban plight brings you closer to moral collapse than sitting in the dark for six days with nothing but your thoughts, particularly when those thoughts center on the fact that you broke up with your girlfriend a week before your one-year anniversary. That sucks no matter who you are.

November also happens to be NaNoWriMo, short for National Novel Writing Month, in which participants attempt to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. I’ve completed NaNoWriMo twice, but this year I find myself languishing with little time, energy, or motivation to produce anything other than emotional brain vomit: a nonsensical stream-of-consciousness rant largely concerning the aforementioned romance issue. At this point, I’m many thousands of words behind schedule, and there’s a good chance it’s not going to get done, which disappoints me. I’m not one to half-ass something.

I also haven’t felt like much of a writer lately regarding this website, which has resulted in increased link posting and far fewer long-form articles than I’d like. This is my fourth month writing QLE, so I guess a little slump is inevitable once the initial novelty wears off, but it still disappoints me that the site isn’t operating at a level I’m happy with.

November is also the month of our annual tournament in Old Sturbridge, Massachusetts, which attracts over 500 competitors every year. I’ve never loved competing. It stresses out my shy and introverted side, and my heart rate increases just thinking about it. I’m much more used to competing now than when I was younger, and I have to do it to set a good example for the students, but it remains a source of dread nevertheless.

And of course, underlying these issues are the usual drags: student loans are looming, the days are growing shorter and colder, and my thesis has taken a back seat to the above grievances.

However.

Times like these are when our perspective becomes most important. We may not be able to control the things that happen to us, or the obligations we have to go through, but we can control how our mind deals with them. Making it through to the other side comes down to two things: focusing on the positive, and reframing the negative so it doesn’t seem so bad.

For every stressor, annoyance, and bummer November throws at me, there are many, if not more, things to be thankful for and happy about. It is the month of Thanksgiving, after all.

For example, I love my Kindle. Thanks to this little $79 guy (and said power outage), I was able to rip through all 656 pages of the Steve Jobs biography in about two weeks. Finishing a big book like that was tremendously satisfying and gave me a feeling of accomplishment I haven’t had in a long time. I’ve now moved on to Stephen King’s memoir, On Writing, and I’m really enjoying it. The Kindle makes me want to find time to read. I do, and that feels fantastic.

I also love my yoga class. My dad had been going to our local yoga center for a while, so to get my mind off things, I decided to stop in and try it out. I had taken a men’s yoga class while working on my master’s degree and loved it, but it only lasted eight weeks. I tried doing P90X’s yoga video once a week at home, but at ninety minutes, Tony Horton quickly fell out of favor with me. Taking a class is so much more satisfying and rewarding. Yoga people tend to be very warm, calm, and inviting, so meeting them is a pleasure. You get to sweat like hell and forget about everything else bouncing around in your head for a while. Plus, the strength and flexibility training has been an invaluable asset to my martial arts ability. I’m going three times a week now, and I absolutely love it. Having something to look forward to on your schedule is always great for lifting your spirits.

As a nerd, I’m psyched that Apple finally released iTunes Match, which enables you to upload your entire music collection iCloud and access it on all of your devices. It took more than 24 hours for iTunes to match and/or upload my 13,000 song library, but now all of my music is only a tap away wherever I go. I don’t have to haul my dinosauric iPod Classic around anymore or deal with picking only 32GB worth of music for my iPhone. That makes my life easier and simpler, so of course I’m all about it.

My friend Rich has also been teaching me how to play chess. I’m terrible, but I still find the game very enjoyable, and it’s a good brain workout. A new hobby is a great distraction from what ails you.

Despite all these new sources of joy, the negative things can still find a way to overwhelm and get you down. The only way to overcome these pains in the ass is to reframe the way your mind thinks about them. I could stress out about not finishing my NaNoWriMo novel this month, or I could simply tell myself that it’s just for fun anyway. Whether I write 50,000 words or 5,000, that’s still more than I would have written otherwise. Something that’s supposed to be a fun creative endeavor shouldn’t stress me out.

As much as I can already feel the nervousness and anxiety of this weekend’s tournament, I can just as easily envision the feeling of relief when it’s all over. It’s just one day. One day of nerves and excitement, and it will inevitably come to an end. Those feelings aren’t going to last forever. When I wake up Saturday morning, every minute that goes by brings me closer to the end of the day, when I can finally breathe a sigh of relief and relax, win or lose. It’s going to be a big day, but when it’s over I can enjoy a long drive home listening to my favorite music, and then it’s smooth sailing to the holidays.

As for the breakup, I can’t have any regrets about my performance or the person I was for the past year. When you look at the big picture, it was really, really great. My expectations were a little mismanaged, but what can you do other than remember that for next time? If something doesn’t work out, something else will.

Sometimes there’s so much going on in our heads that it can be impossible to think straight, and that’s when we get overwhelmed. As I’ve said here before, there’s only a finite amount of space between our ears; keeping everything locked up and bouncing around in there is a recipe for a mental breakdown. That’s where the brain dump comes in: writing down every single thing on your mind in one huge list. Every phone call you have to make, assignment you have to do, errand you have to run, person you have to talk to, thought you need to capture, anything and everything. Once it’s down on paper, you can stop worrying about it. You don’t have to think about it, and you won’t forget it because it’s written down. It’s out of your head. Emptying your brain frees and calms your mind, which makes it much easier to breathe.

I still don’t love November, but emptying my mind out here helps me put things in perspective. The good things will last forever; the bad feelings are temporary. November is just a bump in a very long road, and it’s only a matter of time before December 1.

Burnout

Dsyke Suematsu:

What is deceptive, especially in the West, is our assumption that repetitive and mindless jobs are dehumanizing. On the other hand, the jobs that require us to use the abilities that are uniquely human, we assume to be humanizing. This is not necessarily true. The determining factor is not so much the nature of our jobs, but for whom they serve. ‘Burnout’ is a result of consuming yourself for something other than yourself. You could be burnt out for an abstract concept, ideal, or even nothing (predicament). You end up burning yourself as fuel for something or someone else. This is what feels dehumanizing. In repetitive physical jobs, you could burn out your body for something other than yourself. In creative jobs, you could burn out your soul. Either way, it would be dehumanizing. Completely mindless jobs and incessantly mindful jobs could both be harmful to us.

I’ve always struggled with the concept of burnout, having held both completely mindless and incessantly mindful jobs. In both cases, I’ve run out of patience and the will to continue.

When I was a Medical Records Coordinator (read: file clerk) at a hospital, I spent hours doing nothing but finding charts for people, organizing them, and putting them away afterward. All while listening to the same six songs on Lite 100.5 WRCH. That job, with its innumerable annoyances and excruciating monotony, was the most soul-crushing position I’ve ever held. I did it for two summers before I vowed never to return.

I’ve been a karate instructor for almost half my life, and in many ways it’s very rewarding. It keeps me in shape, enhances my own art, and I get to help children develop strong characters. But there are also times when I feel like if I have to tell one more kid to “BEND. YOUR. KNEES.” I’ll literally set the building on fire.

I often fear that there is no job I won’t eventually get burned out on. At the hospital, I suffered under the meaningless demands of others. In the dojo, while it’s exponentially more rewarding, I nevertheless always have to be at 100%. Whether you’re ecstatic, depressed, happy, or sad, you always have to be fired up for the students. Even if you broke up with your girlfriend moments before (and I have), you still have to smile and act like you’re enjoying reminding them to go lower in their stances for the hundredth time.

Suematsu says burnout is “the result of consuming yourself for something other than yourself.” That was certainly true at the hospital, and it’s true in the dojo, even though the something else is a bunch of little kids. I don’t think I can consider any job I’ve held to be sustainable to the point where I could do it for the rest of my life.

Perhaps that’s why I love writing this website. It affords me solitude and a space for personal exploration and growth. Other people may benefit from reading about my experience, but really it’s a vehicle for myself. I’ve said before that I don’t claim to know everything or even anything. I’m just trying to figure things out. I know plenty of other people are too, and it’s nice to have some company. Advice I give to my readers is really advice I’m giving to myself.

Maybe I’ll get burned out one day and have nothing left to say, but right now it seems like this site fulfills my desire to write, learn, and help people without consuming myself to the point of exhaustion. It remains a fulfilling challenge.

Via Adam W. King

Tri-dentity

I’ve been struggling lately with the concept of having multiple identities and not knowing which should be my primary identity.

Like most people, I have several big interests that make up who I am. Writing is one, martial arts is another, and so is music and bass playing. Depending on the time of day, I might say any one of those is my favorite. There are times when I’m so obsessed with writing, but just as often I find myself frustrated and with nothing to say. Likewise, there are times when I adore playing my bass, and there are times when the music escapes me.

Sometimes I wish I could just do one thing and get really, really great at it. Sometimes I wish I could practice playing bass all day, every day. Sometimes I wish I didn’t have anything to do but write this website. Sometimes I wish all I needed to focus on was my martial arts training.

I got to work out with a champion tournament fighter today, and I found myself thinking, “Wouldn’t it be great if martial arts was my life?”. I would love to be able to work out every day and train without having to worry about anything else. But tomorrow, I’ll probably wish I didn’t have to work so I could write. And the next day, I’ll probably want to play my bass for eight hours.

Part of this struggle comes from only having so many hours in the day. I want to be awesome, and I feel to truly master any of these skills, I’d have to fully immerse myself in only one of them. If I want to be a world class bass player, I need to play every day. If I want to be a respected writer, I need to write every day. If I want to be a certain caliber of martial artist, I need to train every day.

I guess what it comes down to is trying to figure out who I want to be for the rest of my life. I’m finishing my formal education and looking for what’s next. Do I want to be Andrew Marvin the Writer, the Bass Player, or the Black Belt? Or something else? I suppose I’ll always be all three, but which do I want to become known for? Then again, who says I have to choose?

So goes the quarter-life crisis, I suppose.

Review: The 2011 $79 Kindle

Note: This is my first product review. Please pardon the shoddy photography.

About a week ago, I was in need of a distraction, so I bought one of the new $79 Kindles. I’d been thinking about making this purchase for quite a while and finally decided to pull the trigger.

It’s delightful.

Unboxing

The Kindle arrived two days after I ordered it, thanks to Amazon Prime’s free shipping. The packaging was neat, tidy, and product-specific. When you open the box’s lid, you find the Kindle cheerfully nestled there, accompanied only by a USB cord and a “Getting to Know Your Kindle” index card, which labels the device’s buttons and ports.

My first reaction was surprise at how small the Kindle was, probably because I’m so used to the iPad 2. The Kindle is 6.5” x 4.5” and only 0.34” thick, according to Amazon, and it only weighs 5.98 ounces compared to the iPad 2’s 1.33 pounds. It’s very light. More on iPad vs. Kindle in a little while.

After plugging it into my computer, the Kindle powered up quickly. Although it didn’t ship with a full charge, the battery reached capacity in less than an hour. Amazon says it only takes three hours for a full charge. I haven’t owned the Kindle long enough to be able to speak to its battery life, but I have no trouble believing Amazon’s claims. I don’t think I’ll need to charge it for at least a couple of weeks.

“Andrew’s Kindle” automatically appeared in the menu bar, as the device is pre-registered to whomever’s Amazon account made the purchase. (You can change the registration information in the settings if need be.) After selecting my home wi-fi network, all of my Kindle books appeared in a few seconds with virtually no action on my part. It’s great that you don’t have to log yourself into your Amazon account on the device, which would be a pain using the onscreen keyboard and 5-way controller. It feels like Amazon said, “This is Andrew Marvin’s Kindle” when they put it in the box.

I assume Amazon has gotten really good at shipping people Kindles, and it shows. The unboxing and setup process was painless, and I was ready to read within minutes.

Hardware

The $79 Kindle has a six-inch e-ink display. It has “Next Page” and “Previous Page” buttons on both sides, the former being about twice as big as the latter. Below the screen are, from left to right, a Back button, a Keyboard button, the 5-way directional controller with a Select button in the center, a Menu button, and a Home button. A USB port and Power button can be found on the bottom edge.

The Kindle’s case is a pleasant silver color, and it’s made of plastic. The back has a slightly grippy feel to it, and I wouldn’t describe the Kindle as a “slippery” device. The combination of plastic and the device’s minimal weight do make it feel somewhat fragile, and I found myself cradling it as I would any new electronic device. Marco Arment, in his review, said, “Nearly everything about the $79 Kindle is cheap.”, and while I tend to agree, I don’t consider it a negative sentiment. That is, I didn’t regret my purchase upon taking the Kindle out of the box, nor did I think, “What a piece of junk…” The Kindle doesn’t need to do much except feel good in your hand and provide an enjoyable reading experience, which it does.

This is my first Kindle, so I can’t compare it to previous models, but I found the tactile response of the Next and Previous Page buttons to be perfectly adequate. You press the buttons down — as in away from you — rather than in toward the screen, which took a few pages to get used to. The buttons on the bottom aren’t amazing, but they don’t really need to be. They click when you press them, so I have no difficulty determining whether or not I successfully hit one. Because they’re centered below the screen, it does take some finesse to use them with one hand; my right thumb has to reach pretty far to hit the Back button. My thumb also cramped up slightly the first time I used the 5-way controller to add my name, phone number, and email to my device’s Personal Info. The Kindle is about twice as wide as the iPhone 4, so it’s not as easy to operate the buttons one-handed. Justin Blanton noted in his review that the Kindle 3’s controller was in the bottom right corner, which would have been nice, but oh well. Fortunately, the Page buttons are a piece of cake to use, which is what really matters since they receive the most presses. When you’re reading, which comprises 95% of your Kindle time, using it one handed is no problem. I also like that the Next Page button is larger than the Previous Page button, which obviously gets used less. I usually switch to two hands when not reading, i.e. navigating menus and the like.

The top of the device just says “kindle”, and it’s nice that the Amazon logo isn’t in your face. (It’s on the back, centered at the bottom where the word “iPhone” would go.) The frame/bezel is maybe half as thin as the iPad’s. I don’t know if I have small thumbs, but there’s just enough room for my thumb to rest and have easy access to the Next Page button without obstructing the screen.

Notably, the Kindle doesn’t ship with a power adapter. It charges via the USB cord that connects to your computer. I thought about buying the sold-separately power adapter, but I felt that, given the Kindle’s charge cycle and battery life, so little time would be spent charging that it wasn’t even worth the $10 on sale.

Similarly, I didn’t feel the need to buy a case either. I don’t want to add weight or bulk to the Kindle, and I consider the zone between my bed and nightstand to be pretty safe. Cases on Amazon range from $30 to $50, and the Kindle itself was only $79. No thanks.

The Kindle is light; my hand doesn’t get tired after holding it for a while, unlike the iPad. I wish the Power button was in the top right corner, since I’m used to putting my iDevices to sleep that way, but it’s no matter. I don’t have much else to say about the hardware. I like it, and I haven’t found any glaring annoyances. Screen/display discussion can be found below.

Software

The $79 Kindle is ad-supported. (Amazon calls them “Special Offers”.) It’s available without ads for $109. The ads show up when the Kindle is asleep and at the bottom of the Home screen. No ads are displayed while reading, and you can remove them by paying $30 after the fact on your Kindle Management page at Amazon.com. You can also supposedly change the types of ads you see, but I haven’t noticed any difference so far. At some point, I’ll probably pay to remove the ads, but their unobtrusiveness is sufficient enough for me to put off doing so.

The Kindle’s Menu button reveals options to turn off wireless connectivity, shop in the Kindle store, view archived items, search, create a new collection (folder), sync, access settings, view special offers, and configure the screen orientation. There’s also an option labeled “Experimental”, which — obviously — launches the Kindle’s makeshift web browser. Doing so brings up a list of generic bookmarks to Amazon.com, Wikipedia, Google, Gmail, Yahoo, Facebook, Twitter, etc., but that’s about as far as I bothered to go with it. Because typing is so slow, I can’t imagine ever using the browser. It’s there in a pinch, I guess.

Speaking of typing: using the onscreen keyboard is painful. The non-touch Kindles still require the 5-way controller to select each letter, and the keyboard has an alphabetical layout, not QWERTY. Again, since the controller is centered below the screen, I had to hold the device in my left hand and operate it with my right. But, since the most you’ll probably do is type out the title of a book in the Kindle store, it’s not that big of a deal.

Shopping in the Kindle store is a pretty decent experience. You can browse books, newspapers, magazines, blogs, and Kindle Singles, which are essays and other short-form writing. I bought Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson simply by going to the Top Sellers page. Selecting a title brings up detailed information about the book, similar to what you’d see on Amazon’s website. Clicking the Buy button sends the book to your device immediately and charges your on-file billing information at Amazon. It’s very simple and should facilitate quite a few impulse buys.

Amazon says turning off wireless increases the battery life from weeks to months. I would turn it off since I only use it for a minute or two when buying a book, but I’m going to leave it on for a while because I want my Kindle to sync with the Kindle apps on my iPhone and iPad. Perhaps I’ll turn it off in the future.

Amazon recently released version 4.0.1 of the Kindle software, which adds the option of configuring the device’s Page Refresh setting. This Kindle model refreshes (blinks) on every sixth page, but as Marco pointed out, it causes the text to degrade slightly after several pages. I turned Page Refresh on so that it blinks with every page and keeps the text looking sharp. The blink itself only takes a second, and you get used to it very quickly.

Oddly, my Kindle shipped with version 4.0, and I could not get it to prompt me for an over-the-air software update, at least not in the first hour of playing with it. You can manually download software updates on Amazon’s website, click-and-drag them onto your Kindle, and then install them in the device’s settings. It was easy, but I expect to be automatically prompted in the future.

The Kindle’s menus are contextual, meaning that, depending on what screen you’re on, a different menu will pop up when you press the Menu button. The variations are mostly minor. For example, the “Change Font Size” menu item is present on both the Home screen and reading menus, but you can only select it while reading, which is dumb. Also, you can’t actually change fonts, only size, typeface (regular, condensed, or sans serif), line spacing, and words per line.

Nothing is present onscreen while reading except the text, any black-and-white pictures, and a progress bar at the bottom, which shows how much you’ve read as a percentage. The progress bar is also filled with dots, spaced seemingly randomly, which actually indicate the length of chapters. I find the progress bar a little distracting, but it’s nice to see how much further the next chapter is.

One thing I had to learn was that the 5-way controller doesn’t bring you to the next page. For some reason, I had to break the habit of pressing “right” on the controller instead of the Next Page button. Pressing right or left actually brings you to the next or previous chapter, which confused me until I realized I was an idiot.

Reading Experience

Never mind those two thousand words, let’s move on to more important matters. What’s it like to read on this thing?

Simply put, it’s wonderful.

You hear all about how great e-ink displays are, but they’re definitely one of those things you don’t understand until you’ve tried it. They’re really great. The Kindle’s 6” display is easy on the eyes, clear, and soothing. It displays pictures nicely. The font, which a very quick Google search says is called Caecilia, is pleasant enough, although some choices would be nice. It’s easy to read in low light, and the text only looks better in well-lit conditions.

The Kindle is about the size of a mass market paperback. (See a comparison shot here.) I would guess it’d be easier for the visually impaired to read on the Kindle’s screen than on a standard mass market paperback’s page.

I absolutely love how there are Next and Previous Page buttons on both sides of the device, so it doesn’t matter which hand you use to hold it. Sometimes I accidentally think the left buttons are for Previous Page and the right buttons are for Next Page, but that’s only if I’m holding it with both hands, and I suspect it won’t last.

Something about the Kindle’s display encourages me to slow down and enjoy what I’m reading. It’s a wonderful break from the frantic skimming of reading on the web or any backlit screen. You can stare at the Kindle’s display for hours with minimal fatigue or strain, unlike a backlit display. I know many people are afraid to leave tangible paper-and-ink books behind, and as an English major, I completely understand. But the Kindle has many advantages, and I maintain that it’s the (for lack of a better word) content that matters. The medium in which it is presented is of far less consequence. A book’s spirit is contained in its words, and whether those words appear in ink or e-ink shouldn’t really matter. Still, I do know how good books feel, smell, taste, and all that. Just don’t fear the Kindle, especially if you haven’t given it a try.

On Owning a Kindle and an iPad

Now, I know those closest to me can’t wait to lovingly mock my Kindle purchase because I’m such an iPad evangelist. After all, one of my biggest reasons for buying an iPad was for reading. I’d like to discuss this here because I think it’s a valid debate, and I want to explain why I think owning both devices is nothing to scoff at.

First, let me clarify that a Kindle is not an iPad, and an iPad is not a Kindle. Yes, an iPad is capable of doing everything a Kindle can do; there is, after all, a Kindle app for the iPad.

Conversely, the Kindle obviously can’t do everything the iPad can do. The iPad is a mobile computer, just like the iPhone. It’s capable of just about every casual task a laptop can do: email, web browsing, reading, writing, music, games, etc. Whether or not a particular device is better for certain tasks is a different issue all together, and we won’t get into that here. (You’re welcome.)

Despite the iPad’s ability to read eBooks, reading on a Kindle is an entirely different experience. Let’s do this in bulleted form.

• It’s healthier. Everyone knows that staring into a backlit screen for hours isn’t good for your eyes. The Kindle’s display doesn’t sear your retinas, even after many chapters. It also helps you sleep better. Blue light, such as the kind emitted by most electronic screens, keeps us awake by affecting melatonin (sleepy hormone) production. That’s why it’s recommended that we cease using backlit screens in the couple hours before bedtime. Reading on the Kindle before bed is about as harmful as reading a real book, i.e. not at all. It may not seem like a big deal, but when it comes to getting a good night’s sleep, every bit helps.
• You can read outside. The iPhone and iPad have great displays, but they aren’t very useable with the sun glaring overhead, like, say, at the beach. I wouldn’t want to bring my iPad to the beach anyway, but a $79 Kindle? Absolutely. Not to mention I’ll be able to bring one Kindle with a ton of books on it, which is easier to carry than even a single paperback.
• It’s for a different type of reading. I bought my iPad so I could read on it, that’s true. But most of my iPad reading comes in the form of blog posts, RSS feeds, Twitter, Instapaper, and other websites. It’s great for long-form articles, especially with Instapaper, but when it comes to really long-form reading, like books, it can grow tiresome. I read David Allen’s Getting Things Done on the iPad, and it took me forever. Twitter, Facebook, RSS, and the entire Internet are only a tap away, so it’s easy to get distracted. The Kindle is built for a single task: reading eBooks. I can get lost in a book on the Kindle, whereas I was prone to skimming on the iPad. Skimming is fine for the web, but when it comes to a novel, I want to be totally present.

I’m sure the majority of people with tablet computers still buy hardcopies of books. It would be illogical to assume otherwise. I see the Kindle as a replacement for stockpiles of books that go untouched after one reading, if any. Could you use the iPad for the same purpose? Sure, but I argue that the Kindle is better suited for book-length reading. Just because someone owns an iPad doesn’t mean they shun books, and I don’t think it means they should necessarily shun the Kindle either.

I plan on bringing the Kindle anywhere I’d normally bring a good book, whereas I bring the iPad anywhere I need to be able to do mobile computing over wi-fi.

The bottom line is that the iPad and the Kindle are not competing products. Buying a Motorola Xoom or an HP TouchPad when you already have an iPad doesn’t make sense because they’re the same type of product: tablet computers. Buying an e-reader to supplement your tablet is much more logical. I’m not saying that everyone who has an iPad should buy a Kindle, but I do think it’s easy to understand why someone would prefer to own both, whether you’re a gadget nerd or not.

So, anyway.

I’m very happy with my purchase. For a long time now, I’ve been unable to read books as much as I’d like to, and even then, I rarely finish them. I foresee the Kindle being a great asset in helping me get back to enjoying books. It’s a device designed for one thing, which it does very well and for an inexpensive price. Richard J. Anderson sums it up nicely:

For all intents and purposes, the Kindle comes off as a unitasking device. When I pick it up, I am picking it up to read something—and I love to pick it up.

I agree with every word of Richard’s article. The Kindle has already changed my reading habits by eliminating excuses to read.

As much as I love the iPad, I’m now an avid supporter of Amazon’s Kindle as well. I think any book lover would do well to consider one.

Favorite Apps: 1Password

Being a nerd, I have more login credentials than I’d care to count, and I’m also aware of how important it is to have strong passwords. 1Password is the best password management solution I’ve come across.

The problem with passwords is one of quality versus quantity: you don’t want to use the same password for every website, but you also need to be able to remember all of your passwords so you don’t get locked out of your accounts. That’s where 1Password comes in.

1Password acts as a database for all of your login credentials. It generates very strong passwords and stores all of them for you, and it can even log you into your favorite sites automatically. The only password you need to remember is your Master Password. Once you input your Master Password, you can have access to all of your private data. Thus, you don’t need to remember your Gmail password, your Facebook password, your Twitter password, etc. The most secure password is the one you don’t know.

You may ask what good that is, since if someone knew your Master Password, they’d be able to access all of your information. But 1Password also supports pass phrases, which allows you to create a Master Password consisting of a random group of words, making it very difficult to hack.

We see people’s Facebook and Twitter accounts get hacked all the time. If you’re worried about the security of your online identities, 1Password is the professional solution. I use it on my Mac, iPhone, and iPad, and it’s one of my favorite apps. Once you try it — even if you don’t think you need it — you’ll feel much better knowing your login credentials are safe and secure.

Primal Workouts

I posted earlier this week about Mark Sisson’s new book, The Primal Blueprint 21-Day Total Body Transformation, and reading it has reminded me of one of the many things I love about the Primal lifestyle: simple workouts.

The underlying theme behind the Primal Blueprint’s quick and efficient fitness regimen is that 80% of our body composition is the result of diet, not exercise. It might only take 15 minutes to eat a 1000 calorie cheeseburger from McDonald’s, but you’d have to run for well over an hour to burn most of that off. Thus, killing yourself in the gym to make up for a poor diet is not only inefficient, but exhausting and unsustainable. It’s much easier to eat healthy and exercise less. As Mark says in the book, exercise should be about the movement rather than the calories. It’s about staying young and active, not compensating for ice cream cones.

Primal Blueprint fitness consists of three elements: moving slowly, lifting heavy things, and sprinting once in a while. The majority of exercise takes the form of low intensity activities, like walking or hiking. Two days a week are dedicated to bodyweight exercises, including pushups, pullups, squats, overhead presses, and planks. Finally, once a week or so, you sprint with maximum effort.

The best part of these routines is that they’re quick and enjoyable. Lifting Heavy Things only lasts about 45 minutes, and that’s with a high amount of reps. Sprint workouts only last ten or fifteen minutes. If you’re active most of the time — i.e. not at a desk for eight hours a day — and have a proper diet, little else is necessary.

I’ve tried Insanity and P90X, and while they’re great for a swift kick in the ass, by the end of the program, you’re going to be exhausted and burnt out. Find me someone who completes P90X and then exercises the next day. It’s unsustainable longterm. Overtraining is what causes us to fall out of healthy routines, and being too tired to workout sucks.

That’s why I love the Primal Blueprint. It doesn’t demand an hour of my time six days a week, and it’s much more fun than working out in front of my TV at night. My mood is elevated afterward, and exercise doesn’t become a source of dread. Coupled with the Primal diet, it all just works.

No Cables in the Cloud

I usually go to great lengths to hide wires and cables. My MacBook Pro’s power cord is fed neatly through a hole in the back of my desk. The cables for my entertainment system are tightly bound with twist ties. When I worked at SCSU, I ordered a wireless mouse and keyboard to make the Dell I was using a little more tolerable.

Cables are ugly, and they can be a significant source of clutter if not managed properly.

One cable that I’ve been unable to do away with is the USB cable for my iPhone and iPad. Until now! With the release of iCloud, I hardly have any reason to connect my devices to my Mac ever again.

iCloud offers wi-fi sync, which allows me to sync my devices wirelessly. Even now, my iPhone is sitting here on my desk, and I can see it in iTunes.

iCloud backs up my devices while I’m sleeping. I don’t have to plug my iPhone or iPad into my Mac to back it up anymore. When I wake up and check the settings, my devices read “Last Backed Up: 4:42 AM”. Every time. It’s automatic and awesome. Backing up everything to iCloud also means that, should I have to wipe my device or get a new one, I can restore everything on the spot, without having to go home and plug into my computer.

When iTunes Match becomes available at the end of the month, I’ll be able to download any of the music in my collection wirelessly. That means I won’t have to carry my iPod around anymore. I can have access to my entire library wherever I am.

iOS 5 also provides wireless software updates, so I don’t have to connect to a computer to update my devices.

All this equates to a sense of freedom. While the cynic would argue that I’m bound to Apple’s ecosystem, I’m actually free to leave at anytime. I don’t resent living in Apple’s ecosystem because it’s the most frictionless option available. Everything works seamlessly as a unified system. This is an incredibly exciting time to be part of the Apple community, and it’s going to be fascinating to see how things develop over the next few years.

Take Photos, Be Happy.

Mike Tyson reveals a tech secret to making yourself happier: take lots of photos.

As far as the types of pictures you should take? Anything. It doesn’t have to be artistic or taken with any grand purpose. But you should use photography as a way to simply document even the most slightly unique things you see in your world whether they’re visual curiosities, a funny moment, you eating somewhere new, the arrangement of clouds in the sky… anything. And what you’ll find when you start sorting through your photographs, you actually will have an opportunity to recount all of these minor fleeting moments which you may would otherwise have forgotten.

I fully endorse this advice. Any camera will do.

Ever since I got my iPhone 3G a few years ago, I’ve been snapping photos whenever the urge strikes. The quality of the iPhone 4’s camera has turned picture-taking into an easy and enjoyable hobby, and the iPhone 4S’s camera is even better. People often say, “The best device is the one you have with you”, and that’s certainly true for cameras. My iPhone 4 is always in my pocket, so I can capture a quality photo whenever and wherever I want.

But rather than make this another OMG-the-iPhone-is-so-great post, I want to emphasize Mike’s point about documenting your life. That’s exactly the way I treat the camera roll on my iPhone: it’s like one big photo album of my life. I have pictures dating back to right after I graduated college, and I have pictures of the pork and mushrooms I ate for dinner tonight. Calm down; just one. I like food photography.

The point is, I can flick through these photos and remember exactly what I was thinking or feeling when I took them, and that makes me happy. Like Mike says, these are moments I probably would have forgotten. Instead, I’ve documented in pictures the past three years of my life. The 1,814 pictures I have on my iPhone are really 1,814 memories I can revisit whenever I please.

Instapaper 4.0

As you might have learned in your internet travels today, Instapaper 4.0 has been released for the iPhone and the iPad, and it is tasty. Be sure to read Marco’s post about the whats and whys of the update.

If you don’t know what Instapaper is, then shame on you, and prepare to have your life altered for the better.

Instapaper is a read-it-later service created by Marco Arment. After getting a free account on Instapaper.com, you get access to the Read Later bookmarklet (i.e. button), which sits in your browser’s bookmark toolbar. Whenever you come across something you’d like to read, but don’t have time to do so at that moment, you click the Read Later button. The article gets sent straight to your Instapaper account, where you can read it at your leisure. It strips away everything but the text and any relevant pictures, which creates an ideal distraction-free reading environment.

This is huge. Even if you don’t understand what’s so great about what I just described, you owe it to yourself to give Instapaper a try. Instapaper is one of those things you didn’t know you needed until you actually start using it. Then, it becomes invaluable.

Why?

Because I always have something good to read no matter where I am. In line at the store. On the train to NYC. In bed before I go to sleep. Anywhere.

Instapaper is available as a website, an iPhone and iPad app, and it also supports Kindle subscriptions. In addition to the browser bookmarklet, many Twitter clients and RSS readers support Instapaper. You can even email articles to your account, so it’s easy to to fill Instapaper with things that you find intriguing.

It’s a refreshing respite from the breakneck pace of the internet. As Marco explains, Instapaper encourages you to become absorbed in a single piece of writing, rather than skimming through things as fast as you can just to clear your news feed. It allows you to get back to enjoying the act of reading.

About 90% of what I read comes from the internet. Fortunately/unfortunately, I don’t sit at my computer all day, so I often don’t have time to read the amazing things I come across. Instapaper is the perfect solution. It’s your “instant newspaper”, and it’s only filled with articles that interest you. As Merlin Mann wrote, Instapaper lets you decide what, when, and where to read. Its flexibility and ease-of-use remove all excuses for not reading.

If you like to read, you’ll love Instapaper. It’s as simple as that.

On a personal note, I’d like to say that Marco himself is someone you should know. He was the lead developer of Tumblr for four years, and now Instapaper is his full-time job. His creation has made thousands of people’s lives more enjoyable, and he’s an inspiration for anyone looking to make a living from their own creativity.

Instapaper fundamentally changed the way I browse the web. 4.0 is a fantastic update with new features and an improved interface. There’s no better time to start using this app. You should get a free account and/or buy it right now.

Thanks, Marco.

Relationships Are Like Smartphones

Note: This post is equal parts facetious and serious.

I was eating food with a friend earlier this evening, and three quarters of a quesadilla into the meal, we concluded that relationships are a lot like smartphones.

I know. Hear me out.

Most people (read: non-nerds) are uneducated about the smartphone market. They’ve heard of the iPhone, but they don’t know anything about operating systems, RAM, or megapixels. As such, when they go into the phone store, they’re vulnerable to this: “Here. This is an Android phone. It’s pretty much the same thing as the iPhone, but it has a bigger touchscreen. And it’s only [a cheaper price than the iPhone].”

But, as most iPhone owners know, it’s not pretty much the same thing as an iPhone.

This scenario comes down to one thing: not knowing any better.

Sure, there are some solid Android phones out there. Maybe they only have a few annoyances. Maybe the scrolling isn’t perfectly smooth, or an app crashes here or there, or the email application is kind of a pain. But it’s totally useable. It’s good enough.

Most people are like Android phones. There are a ton of them out there.

Similarly, there are over six billion people on the planet. That means it’s impossible to know everybody. Since the human brain can only manage a finite amount of relationships at one time, making sure each one counts is essential. Each relationship should contribute something positive and amazing to your life.

Those people, who you love and keep closest to you, are like iPhones. These relationships don’t cause you stress or anxiety. They’re loyal and reliable, and they provide nothing but love and support. They are awesome.

Now, the iPhone only has 5% of the mobile phone market. That figure is analogous to the amount of awesome people on Earth. Most people are not awesome. I mean, they’re fine. They’re good enough. But, you’re not going to gain much from having relationships with them. And that’s OK. You can’t know everybody.

This is going to sound dumb, but listen, because this article isn’t about cellphones.

Making the switch from an Android phone to an iPhone is like meeting your future wife/husband after years of tried-and-failed relationships. When you meet that person, you realize how much better they are than anything you’ve ever had before. All that fighting and compromising and struggling fades away with a tremendous sigh of relief. A feeling of “Finally! This is how it should be.” A feeling of “Why didn’t I find you sooner?” A feeling of “This just feels right.” The relationship just works.

Up until that point, we often settle because we don’t know for certain that someone better is out there. We’re comfortable with what we have now, and even though it’s not perfect, we fight for it because it’s all we know. We’re afraid that maybe this is the best we can do.

We don’t know any better.

I’m assuming that you, being a reader of this site, are like an iPhone: awesome. The problem with being awesome, though, is that we’re outnumbered. There are way more dumb people out there than awesome people. It’s unfortunate, but that’s the tradeoff for not being average.

Dumb people are a dime-a-dozen. You can walk down the street and bump into fifty dumb people. That’s why that guy (“THAT guy?!”) is happy and you’re still single. There’s nothing wrong with you, it’s just easy for one dumb person to find another dumb person. It takes a lot more effort and luck for two awesome people to meet because there are fewer of us out there. It takes longer for us to find one another.

Again, this is not about cellphones or which one is better. If you think the iPhone is stupid, that’s fine. Just replace “iPhone” with something else you love.

The lesson here is simple: “Keep looking. Don’t settle.”

Using your phone does not have to be a pain in the ass, and you don’t have to bend over backwards to make a relationship work. Don’t waste your time and energy fighting for something that’s flawed just because it’s familiar.

You can find something better if you have the confidence and the courage to look for it. There is someone out there who is as awesome as you are. Finding them requires patience, and it takes having faith in the fact that it’s only a matter of time.