Careers

Writer, Writer, or Writer

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com, Steve’s Tumblr, and Pillowfort.  Find out more at my newsletter, and all my social media at my linktr.ee)

Serdar and I often discuss what people really want when they write. Many times we encounter people who want to be writers in the I-make-a-living at it, and/or the It’s-my-life-sense. This “writer lifestyle” is a very abstract, boiling down to “some author is famous for some series and makes a living at it.”

Such a vision doesn’t really say much. Writers have to ask what they really want and honestly, and in my experience it’s often not what they think.

A few examples – perhaps ones that will help you.

Want to make writing doing fiction? Well, you might be able to get a hit series you enjoy writing. Or you’re going to have to write your backside off, doing whatever works, targeting your marketing, and still possibly doing it wrong. If you want to write fiction, get ready to rely on luck or demographics – and probably both.

Want to just write for a living? That’s very possible. I know people who do it, but you have to think broadly. Tech writing, training manuals, marketing content, all of that is writing. You’ll need to find what works for you, and then probably still play broad. Also be ready to write some stuff that’s not world-changing or impressive, because someone has to make that powerpoint.

(Seriously, the world needs people that can just communicate, trust me, I’m not joking about the Powerpoints).

Maybe you want to make money. No offense, writing may not be the way to do it, or maybe it’s just part of your work. That’s my case, where writing is a hobby and an edge as a Project Manager, but not exactly the core thing I do. But I make more than a tech writer, and I get to talk very seriously about timelines, but maybe that’s just me who finds that cool.

Maybe you really like the connection of writing, perhaps you like having fans and readers or a writing community. Then write whatever you want as a hobby, do zines, run a writer’s group, do a newsletter on whatever, and so on. If you want community, then focus on community first – yeah a newsletter for historic preservation may not sound cool, but may be satisfying.

Maybe you like helping writers. Your future might be teacher, editor, publisher, etc. Maybe other people’s writing is what really matters, and your own is a hobby or a side thing. Sometimes it’s fun to help things happen for others. It can even pay better.

There’s no real one kind of writer to be, there are many. But you have to ask why writing matters to you and what you want out of it – and all the things associated with it.

Even me, I am asking what my next writing goals are. I enjoy writing, I’m not exactly looking to make it as a career, but I’ve also had multiple indie author stages. It’s good to ask questions about what you want.

And like me, even when you get it, keep asking.

Steven Savage

The 4 Day Work Week?

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr.  Find out more at my newsletter.)

I’m going to put my geek job guru hat on for this column and discuss the idea of the four-day workweek. I’m sure we’ve all heard about Iceland’s experiments in such an arrangement. I want to go into how it’s possible to do so with little interruption – but there’s something else to address first.

Namely, a lot of current working arrangements are awful. People are underpaid, abused, work in bad conditions, etc. We must fix these things, and we must have a robust social safety net. Also, a four-day workweek would be good for mental health, period.

With that out of the way, let me explain why I think a four-day workweek is possible for many jobs. I believe that people can be just as productive, with some exceptions. I also don’t care about the exceptions because I think a four-day workweek is a good idea.

But, anyway, a four-day workweek is possible because many businesses and organizations burn a lot of time on useless stuff. Imagine if organizations worked to do things better and that saved time meant less time on the job?

FIXING MISTAKES IS A PART OF TOO MANY JOBS: And I’m not talking QA or editing, but fixing mistakes that should be rare. People burn cycles going over poorly filled-out forms, bridging gaps that shouldn’t exist, and so on. Ever know someone whose job boils down to “talk to people who don’t talk to anyone else?”

TOO MANY BUSINESS PROCESSES ARE TERRIBLE: The reason so much goes wrong is many business processes are awful. Endless forms with no guiding documents and poorly implemented reports suck up time. Many people waste time doing things that don’t work very well as no one wants to fix them.

MEETINGS: Somehow, in the last two decades, meetings got even further out of control. I suspect technology has made it even easier to schedule time-wasters – meetings with no point or where only a few people are needed. What if we, you know, had less?

USELESS TOOLS:  I remember being excited about business tools – programs, spreadsheets, etc. However, they may not solve problems and can even create more if they’re not the right ones. How many times did you give up on something and use Excel (the duct tape of tools).

NO IMPROVEMENT: Agile has taught me how to focus on improvement. However, a lot of businesses don’t seem to want to improve by, you know, improving. THere’s not much bottom-up feedback (like Agile) but plenty of consultants ready to take your money. In the end, it seems not enough changes anyway.

LACK OF TRANSPARENCY: I have heard this since . . . forever. It’s hard to know what’s going on in any large organization. This may not be nefarious – sometimes miscommunication happens. But when you don’t know what’s going on, you can’t plan.

BURNOUT:  All of the above leads to more people burning out. Burnout leads to failure, resignation, inefficiency, etc. If you had fewer of these problems, you’d have less burnout. Burnout makes bad things worse.

I firmly believe if organizations committed to a four-day workweek, many could make it happen by making things run better.

For fun, spend a week or two and ask yourself what tasks could be more efficient – or removed altogether. The answer . . . well, it won’t surprise you.

Steven Savage

Work From Home: The Meaning Of Space

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr.  Find out more at my newsletter.)

I was listening to the book Atomic Habits, when the author spoke about space that one works in. That got me thinking about what the spaces we live and work in mean for us while working from home during the Pandemic.

Sure, we’ve all heard the advice on space usage. Have different spaces for different things like work and gaming. Don’t have work stuff in your bedroom. If you can’t have separate spaces have separate zones, and so on. Have one place one use.

But now we’re stuck indoors. We’re probably Working From Home (WFH)

We’re not able to go out to other spaces.

And there’s a chance you’re working, eating, sleeping, cooking, and binge-watching Netflix under restrained conditions.

So what does space mean to us now? What will it mean to us afterwards? When we WFH more, what will we do to rethink our homes and spaces? Honestly, we’re not ready for it.

But more WFH means we have to be. Because bad use of space is bad productivity and not good for us mentally.

So a few thoughts

  1. Organizations moving to more WFH need to do research and provide advice and equipment so people use space effectively. We can’t count on people to do it effectively because they’re doing it turning a traumatic time. They may need some help.
  2. We ourselves need to figure out how to WFH and make best use of space. This doesn’t mean just reading a book. We need to help each other out, be supportive, share advice.
  3. If you’ve tried shopping for certain office supplies, then you’ll notice some are hard to come by. Will this change? Probably – but we’ll want to plan our purchases ahead, and maybe look at discount and used office supplies (that may pile up with the changes).
  4. Once the Pandemic is under control (I expect it to become like the flu) the meaning of public spaces will change. There may be more people working at the library, a park, a coffee shop, etc. People may want or need different spaces, and there may be more of them (I’ve had many a writing session move due to a crowded coffee shop)
  5. All our other relations will change as we work from home – what we’re experiencing now is the intense, involuntary reminder. We may know our neighbors more, we may want our kids out more, our marriages will change, etc. We need to start learning now – voluntarily, as opposed to the way this was forced on us.

We’re going to have to think aboutspace in the new world of more Work From Home. We may be tired of being in the same space, but that just means we have more to consider . . .

Steven Savage