Clint Hill

I just finished watching a presentation given by Merlin Mann. It made me think of a recurring theme that has been in my head for a few weeks now. The theme: I waste a lot of my time.

Merlin’s talk was about creativity patterns. More specifically patterns of behavior that people can create for themselves to be more productive. In his discussion he says a pretty critical thing which is creative work is still work. He then goes on to labor the point by saying “stop building up devices and ticks to induce creativity and start working” (I paraphrase).

I took it this way: shake and bake. Do something.

For a while now I’ve had ideas for projects and things I want to build. And in order to help with that I do all kinds of reading online. Searching for the 1 or 2 things that will spark my fire to get it done. I’m doing it wrong.

I took out a paper and drew my day into blocks. I marked sections of the day on what I do and sections I think I would like to devote to my work. Turns out I waste a lot of time. Like close to 4 hours a day. Huh? Yep. And most of it is on TV.

I work a full day, spend time with kids and eat at proper intervals. And yet I can still waste 4 hours on TV. Yes I can. Seems to me I’m not prioritizing my time to the things I want. I’m letting them get sucked into the 1 eyed monster.

Kimberly and I have already decided to turn off the cable. Actually this conversation has been going on for almost a week now. Today however it is crystalized with me. No more TV. Thats a sacrifice I’m willing to make. And I bet that I will find that creative spark to light my fire and get my projects going. At least I’ll have more time for it to happen.

Draw your day into blocks. Mark off each hour. What is it your doing all day? How many hours do you lose to things like TV? I bet you might be surprised.

I have a .NET project I’m working on right now. It’s been O.K. Nothing to complain about yet nothing to write home to mom either. However I have noticed that I’m a different developer nowadays.

I used to do a lot of .NET work, specifically using C#. It’s all I did for a long time. But then I made the switch to open source and in particular Ruby. Which means I changed a lot of things. Not only the language, but the SQL databases, the frameworks, the testing libraries, the operating system, editors and everything in between. It was one of the best decisions I’ve made professionally. I learned more about writing code because of that switch then I ever did with all of the certification crap I achieved under the .NET umbrella.

Which now makes me realize that I have a totally different brain now. I don’t have the Visual Studio crutch anymore. I actually look at the code behind the code if you will. And going back to Visual Studio has really opened my eyes to this. Visual Studio and the ilk, more often than not force you to not look at the code behind the code. In fact if you try hand-typing a lot of your code (HTML,CSS,T-SQL,etc) you will find it actually interrupting your work.

If there is one thing I can say about this little trip back to .NET land it would be this: I’m just passing through. I may come back for little trips here and there – but not often.

Ronnie Dean Hill SN

United States Naval Training Center (San Diego 1969)
Company 69 414
USS Juneau LPD 10 (1969)
Deck 2nd Division
Yokosuka, Hong Kong, Da Nang, Philippine Islands

He didn’t fall in service, but served. That’s enough for me.

September 18, 1949 – April 25, 2008

God Speed