Man things are going well right now. So well that I am not spending much time looking for items to post on the blog. Instead, I’ve been writing articles for the Office Nomads to use to promote their business on work-life balance. Finding, and maintaining that balance is near impossible in today’s go-go-go world so it was really eye opening to look into that topic. I’m happy with the advice we came up with and encourage you to read the article.

I also had the opportunity to take part in a branding workshop with SCAN Community Access Media. SCAN is Seattle’s community access cable channel. You know, that anything-goes channel where you can watch Bong Hit Championships, bad local bands, and late-night topless talk shows. Well, in a few years SCAN has to become financially self sufficient and is changing its business model. One day soon, the shows will be moderated, they will add a ton of community-created and supporting content to the SCAN site and, of course, the whole thing is being re-branded.

It was so inspiring to spend the day talking about the goals of a media outlet with 13 people dedicated to the concept of locally produced media and ultra-local reporting. Not only that, but I also got to learn a lot about how to create a brand and how to deliver your business’ message, so the day benefitted us all.

That’s only a small part of what I’ve been working on over the past few weeks. I’ve been planning a fund raiser with some friends to support the efforts of Mercy Corps in Darfur, met a bunch of great indy business owners and may soon be adding one or two of them to my client list as well as writing for Seattlest and all the other publications and sites I work with.

Man, I love spring.

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Someone I share office space with at Office Nomads started a conversation on Biznik about multi-tasking. He used an article on TheAtlantic.com as a jumping off spot. I think that piece is worthy of sharing because it speaks so directly to an issue many of us in business have: Basically, multi-tasking seems to be the only way to get everything done, but multi-tasking is a terrible way to get things done.

I can hear you asking: “What?” But I ask you to think about it for a second. Do you get more done on a project when you focus on that project or when you work on it while also checking your e-mail, switching the laundry into the dryer and considering your evening plans? Even if you get the project done while also doing all that, do you remember the details of your work? Was it easier or harder to get that work done?

According to The Atlantic article, you probably don’t remember most of the details of anything you do while multi-tasking and it takes longer to get a project done too. In the case of the laundry, it’s probably okay if you don’t recall all of the task afterwards, but you probably want to keep some of the numbers from that report in your head or know why you said what you did in a blog post.

Chris, the guy who started the Biznik thread started talking in the office about working for 90 minutes and then breaking for 30. No matter what, he said, keep to that schedule. If you’re in the middle of a sentence at 90 minutes, no matter. Stop and go take a break. He’s also been turning off his email, his phone and even his computer’s clock lately when he needs to get some serious work done. It’s his new thing and it definitely seems to be working for him.

I’m not quite at that point yet, but tomorrow, when I have to write an article for one of my clients, I’m turning off the e-mail and planning to work in 90-minute blocks to see how it goes.

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I’ve been slowly working my way through The Paris Review Interviews Vol. 1 which my mother gave me for Christmas in 2006. I recently read the interview with Ernest Hemingway. Without waxing too poetic about how amazing it must have been to sit down with such a legend (just reading what he says, verbatim feels like an honor), I’ll highlight one quote that caught my eye:

“The fun of talk is to explore, but much of it and all that is irresponsible should not be written. Once it is written you have to stand by it.”

I’d like to take that quote and break it into two parts to address it. First of all, you have the fun of talk part. “Papa” hit the nail on the head with that one. When I walk out of a movie, finish a book, have a weird dream or get done writing an article or a post, the first thing I want to do is talk about it. It’s how I decompress and explore all the various and sundry thoughts milling about in my head.

The second part of the statement is what really caught my eye though. Exploring an idea through writing and all the different angles people take on it is what I do for a living.

Partially, I think he’s correct. Some of what one thinks should not be written down. Putting thoughts out into the blogsphere willy-nilly, as so many bloggers do, may quickly drive up traffic to your site because you make such controversial or unpredictable comments. That may be good in the short run, but even with the immediate nature of the Web, we still need to think in the long term about our virtual actions.

You may find that you’ve re-thought the premise of a post so you take it down or edit it. But other people agreed (or disagreed) with what you had to say, and put it up on their blogs with credit and a link pointing back to you. Now you’re aligned with that thinking for all of that site’s readers.

Turns out Papa was right.

Or was he? Part of the beauty of blogging is that when I write and post a thought, I consider it only one statement in a conversation. So often I take something that someone else wrote and jump off from there. In the hopes that they and others will see what I think and respond, I give a link back (I’m also giving credit of course). The point is to push conversation forward.

So maybe Papa would have changed his mind had he ended up blogging (which is not something I could see him doing, but hopefully you see my point). Had he lived, maybe it would be him reading this collection of interviews and he would have been moved to announce his change of heart in a blog post, albeit carefully.

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