Productivity Maxed In The Middle Of The Night

I’m beginning to think that the years I spent working 9PM to 5AM Eastern on the night crew shift at the grocery store has ruined me. It’s been over a year since I left that lifestyle and yet, in the middle of the night is when I’m most productive.

I’ve always been a night person. I hate getting up early and by early I mean 8, 9 AM. When I start my work day at 7 or 8 AM, I feel like a zombie. By noon, I want to take a nap and if I fall asleep in my La-Z-Boy, I won’t be getting up for a while thereby ruining any chance of getting done early.

The middle of the night is nice. People are gone or asleep and the tasks I’m working on have my full attention. The jams are maxed out in my headphones and I’m in the zone. It’s when I get the (best) most work done.

Is it a healthy work style? Probably not, but damn, it’s productive for me.

Can Writing About WordPress Change Someone’s Life?

I write about WordPress for a living. It’s a great job, has its pros and cons like anything else in life but I’ve been able to turn some of the cons into pros lately. I don’t think of my job as anything special. I write my opinions, thoughts, and generally just cover the WordPress ecosystem. It’s not something I’d consider world-changing.

I don’t think I can change someone’s life for the better simply by writing about them, their product, or their visions. Maybe I can? It’s just that so many people have an occupation that benefits society. I wonder what my place is in the grand scheme of things. People value WordPress news, what I write, and appreciate the heads up on things I think they should know about. But does that change their life for the better? It’s not like I’m building a house for a needy family, or participating in a charity that gives people a second chance at life.

Perhaps changing someone’s life is too extreme of a desire. Instead, I’d like to know that because of my work, they are more successful than they would be without it. If I became a millionaire, I’m that guy that would continue to eat at Applebees, Fridays or Longhorns and talk to the servers. Find out what pain points they have in life and if financial aid would be the biggest help, give it to them with a fat tip. I’d be so giving with my money, I’d probably end up broke again while others benefited. That’s just who I am.

WordPress may be just software made up of code that runs on servers, but it’s the backbone of so many sites. Sites that are trying to change lives and make an impact for so many people on this planet.

So in the grand scheme of things, I don’t think what I do for a living is earth shattering, life changing stuff. But I love it when someone tells me face to face at a WordCamp that because of what I do or a post I’ve written, they’ve been more successful whether it’s financially or the exposure opened up new doors. Those are the times I’m reminded that even a young man in the buckeye state can make a positive impact on people’s lives that he may never cross paths with.

 

Censorship At The Price Of Success and Fame

The price of success is censorship. We bring it on ourselves, and we enforce it on others with this giant pyramid scheme which we call “life”.

So says John O’ Nolan, the man who founded the Ghost blogging platform. How can anyone with any measure of success not feel the same way he does? I’m not even a celebrity and it strikes a chord with me. As Nolan explains, the little guy, the underdog, can get away with being themselves, speaking their mind, with little to fear. The more success and fame you achieve, the more aware you have to be of what you say, act, and do. You end up having to structure your life in a way that doesn’t piss anyone off. God forbid if you do something in your personal time and or space that reflects poorly on your employer.

Five to six years ago, I was the little guy, the underdog speaking his mind about all things WordPress. I didn’t care about traffic, I cared about what people thought. The Tavern was a place for not only myself to voice opinions, criticisms, and just report on things I found cool or interesting in the community, but it was a soapbox via the comments and forums for everyone else to chime in. The bigger I could make the Tavern, the louder the voice I gave to those who didn’t have one. During the past few weeks, I’ve struggled to figure out why the job I was a natural at is now so fucking difficult. I question how I put myself in this position.

Now that the Tavern is owned by Matt Mullenweg and I’m an employee of Audrey Human Capital, everything I say, do, or act out is magnified and representative of my employer. I’m not the little guy anymore, I’m the big fish in the pond. Now there are huge responsibilities that I’ve struggled to carry on my shoulders. Even if no one tells me to watch what I say or censors me, it’s a natural occurrence because of fear. All it takes is for the fear to be present to alter behaviour. Fear of losing my job for saying the wrong thing. Fear of upsetting everyone for being wrong in a story. Fear of making my boss look like an idiot for employing me. Fear of not being able to be myself because being myself is offensive to people.

Yet, not once has any of those fears been realized. But then again, I’ve never been close enough to determine whether those fears are justified. Those fears are the electric fences that Nolan mentions, I’ve put up around me.

When you have nothing, you don’t fear being torn to shreds by the mob. You stand up and you call bullshit when you see it. But then when you start to do well… when you start to make a name for yourself… when you start to make money or have a certain number of Twitter followers, the spotlight turns to you.

You start to be more diplomatic and politically correct. You start to mould yourself into the shape of what everyone else expects you to be, because if you aren’t that, then the mob is waiting like it’s Lord of The fucking Flies.

Electric fences start to pop up all around you. Issues which you don’t even go near because touching them, in any way, is fatal. You can’t talk about sexism any more, because one wrong move there is career-ending. You don’t call out the bullshit industry awards, because you’re nominated to win some of them. You fail to draw attention to the morally bankrupt venture capitalists and journalists, because then they might not write about you or give you money any more.

So you mellow. And slowly but surely you turn into the very thing that you once rebelled against so strongly in your first album. When you had a voice. When you actually fucking stood for something.

And then you can’t talk about anything any more. The fear has taken over. All hope of the change that you once so strongly believed in has now been lost.

So the advice I get is to let loose, be myself, that’s the Jeff they want to see come through in what I write. But how the hell can I be that Jeff if I’m subjecting myself to so many fears, pressures, and all sorts of other bullshit. Why is writing about WordPress the way I want to write about it so god damn hard for me? What happened over the past year or so to take that Jeff away.

It’s so ridiculous that people can’t be themselves as they acquire more fame and success because of fear. It’s bullshit but that’s the way it is.

Music Is A Powerful Language

Maybe it’s weird but I try to spend some time Friday nights listening to some really good tunes thanks to Youtube. Everything from Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd to Lynyrd Skynyrd – The Ballad of Curtis Loew. Some songs bring back memories that are as fresh as yesterday while others just make me feel good. It’s weird how music can take you back to the place, time, and environment where you felt connected with the music. For example, every time I hear Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here, I’m reminded of my Grandpa’s funeral where my uncles played the song on their acoustic guitars.

Other songs like Lynyrd Skynyrd – The Ballad of Curtis Loew take me back to traveling on the highway towards home. This song just has a good rhythm albeit a sad story line. Hotel California by the Eagles makes me sing along no matter where I’m at. Buckcherry’s Lit Up as well as Foofighter’s Everlong gives me a boost of energy when I hear it. Music is a strange and powerful force.

What song overtakes your senses, bringing you back to a time of happiness or sadness?

My WordPress Origin

While it’s not all in text format, the following image is from a blog post in 2007 that pretty much explains how I ended up using WordPress for the long haul. I obtained the image from an archive I had on an external hard drive.

How I Started Using WordPress

How I Started Using WordPress

I used a blogging network called EFx2 before I found out about WordPress.com. EFx2 was awesome not only for what it offered but also because of the community surrounding the effort. The community and network effect of EFx2 far surpassed any killer feature EFx2 could offer as far as blogging was concerned.

What Is A Journalist Anyways?

Let me start off by saying I’ve never gone through a journalism class or have received training to become a journalist. I’ve used various sites within the past 10 years to write about things I’m interested in. It just so happens I took a big interest in WordPress when I discovered how easy it was to publish content and modify themes to make it look the way I wanted.

I started watching the project and would publish my thoughts on the direction WordPress was traveling. I published news articles, opinions, and linked to others in the WordPress community when I thought their article was something others should see. The way I write posts I consider to be common sense. I read a blog post, figure it out in my head and then write what I think, linking where possible. I’m a curious guy who doesn’t have all the answers so I ask questions when possible to those I thought would have the answers.

Somewhere along the way, people began to view me as a WordPress Journalist. I think of journalists as people who report on a story, with all the facts in hand, checking them 50 times to make sure they’re right. They write for the New York Times, Washington Post, and appear on CNN. Journalist is a serious word and I think it carries with it a lot of baggage or responsibilities. Baggage I’ve not trained myself to carry around. I don’t view myself as a journalist but rather, an enthusiast blogger fascinated with the WordPress open source project. That at least sounds a lot more fun than being a journalist, where everything seems to be so serious all the time.

In the age of blogging, it’s been discussed multiple times as to when blogging becomes journalism. When is that line crossed if the line exist at all? I don’t have the answer. I’m just some guy who lives in Ohio, that writes about WordPress because it’s something I’m interested in. I’m not trying to be a 60 Minutes kind of guy but rather, satisfy my own curiosity. If that’s what a journalist is, I guess I’ll add that to my list of fancy titles and live with it.

The Frustrations Of Not Being An English Major

English is my native language but I’ll be damned if I know the intricacies of writing it, let alone speaking it. I’ve learned a few things along the way but there is a part of me that avoids trying to learn the proper way of writing the English language. Knowing verbs, adjectives, possessive this and that. All the stuff I’ve forgotten from the days of school. I’ve relied on the spell checker in the browser and occasionally, I’ll Google the definition of a word before I use it.

In the past few years of publishing content, I’ve been able to avoid people intent on making sure every grammatical mistake on the web is fixed. Sure, I’ve had the comments where people suggest other words or corrected a typo or two and I’m thankful for those. The thing is, if you can understand the point I’m trying to get across, what’s with all this other crap surrounding the point.

In certain situations, I can see how punctuation, grammar, and the like are important for people to understand points I’m making. The ability to publish things I write the way I speak is fulfilling. But correcting this mistake, that mistake, and seemingly never being able to write something that doesn’t require at least one correction, sucks. Why do I have to subject myself to those rules? I’d like to tell the English language to kiss my ass and let me do things my way.

I guess I should just hunker down and read English for dummies and try to at least obtain some semblance of writing skills. After all, if I can stop making those writing mistakes, that’s less I have to bitch about! By the way, style guides are books used to put people to sleep.