Stay up-to-date via RSS!

The word scientist was first uttered at a meeting of natural philosophers in 1833. This, of course, postdates Isaac Newton, Galileo and Francis Bacon.

"Scientist" was proposed modeled upon "artist," because, if philosophers ask what questions and answers mean, natural philosophers would be armchair thinkers, discussing the world around us. If an artist performs art, a scientist performs science. Seems like a logical move.

I've been fairly reclusive this winter. Another five-month stretch of gray weather coupled with a job I work from home means I have to manufacture reasons to leave the house, apart from going to the grocery store and letting the dog out.

Last night I went to the CNY blogger get-together and actually spoke to both friends and strangers.

Now, I collaborate with a team of people at work each night. We chat about who's doing what and we edit each other's work. Sometimes the conversation degrades into methods for cooking salmon. Well, maybe that's a rising of the conversation, not a degradation of it. I have a fiance and some friends I speak to regularly.

But as for a collaboration that leads to a mapping of the world's tides or creating a mechanical calculator, I don't have that group of breakfast mates. Except that I do. We don't have to all be around a table to have big ideas, though I guess it couldn't hurt.

Laura Snyder, who gives that talk at the top of the page, makes a quip that if we could lay off Twitter and Facebook, we'd get some real work accomplished. I don't think that's true. Social networks are powerful collaboration tools – if we use them as such.

Let's put forth some big ideas, then. Let's collaborate. If you're local and want to talk over coffee, let's do that; if you're not, we can tweet or email or whatever to exchange those big ideas. Let's change the world, even if it's an armchair discussion about what our questions and answers mean, because that's important, too.

Share/Bookmark

I've been kicking around an idea in my head for the past 10 months. It's an idea that keeps popping up, which means it needs to be done.

Over the past week or so, this idea I've had came back up to the surface, and then just sat there, manifesting in my head, rather than just poking me in the shoulder.

It's a project that's important to me, and I think it'll be important for a lot of people.

It's going to be hard work, and I'm sure I'll be met with lots of resistance and excuses along the way.

I'd like two things from you:

1. Patience. I'm going to ignore my blog unless something else needs to be said. I know that other stuff will pop up, because while this thing is manifesting and I'm getting stuff down on paper, I'm listening to radio news and getting pissed off. I'm also making other positive changes in my life. I'll want to say those things, but it will only be sporadically.

2. Vigilance. If I get to a point when I'm posting regularly again, call me, text me, email me (all that contact info is over on the right there) and tell me to get back to work. You'll know when I'm done with the thing, because it will be announced. Until I ship the thing, it's not done, so if I'm posting regularly and I haven't said anything about the project, it's not done.

Thanks for both those things.

Share/Bookmark

First, a reminder that opinions here are mine, not my employer's.

We've all heard the phrase "choose your attitude." Most frequently, it's used in response to people who complain about work. Here are some tips for choosing your attitude, particularly at work.

Let's start with some givens. We all have frustrations at work. The number and intensity of those frustrations varies greatly from individual to individual. You're working because you're in a situation that requires you to earn money (that sounds judgmental, but really it's just a fact – if you didn't need the money, you'd either be working at something that had no frustrations or not working at all).

So, here we are. You're frustrated. Now what? Here are tips for choosing your attitude at work.

Figure out what you can control and control it. This one's really hard to do. There are a lot of things you feel like you have control over, but the fact is that you don't. There are things you definitely control, though, things like the amount of effort you put into your work, the way you interact with co-workers and customers, and whether you can make things easier by, say, showing up 10 minutes early or getting up 20 minutes early and having breakfast.

Corollary 1: Figure out what you can't control and let it go. If you're working for someone else, you can't control a lot of things. (Remember that leaving is always an option; there are other jobs out there, and that is something you control.) Figure out what those things are and go at them with the expectation that you simply cannot do anything about them, so you're not going to worry anymore. If linen deliveries are on Tuesday and you're out of linens at noon on Monday, you're just not going to have any linens until tomorrow. You can't worry about it.

Corollary 2: Figure out what you can change and change it. Maybe this requires the assistance of a supervisor or co-worker. Maybe it simply requires a break from tradition, like storing something in a different place or changing vendors. Maybe it's brighter lighting so you don't feel like you're in a basement all the time.

Think about the positive things at work. If you can't list any, you're doing the wrong job. Seriously. Just go pour coffee somewhere; you get people at their crankiest and turn them into productive creatures for the day. It's pretty rewarding on a small scale, and it gives you the chance to think about what you should actually be doing. Personally, I work at a gym. It takes one person smiling over 20 pounds lost, or one story about 80 pounds gone in a year, or one person walking in the door smiling hopped up on pre-workout to lift heavy stuff asking for a fist pound to make 7 hours and 59 minutes of frustratingly bad day worth it. [And let's face it, I rarely have that much frustration, primarily because I've followed my own advice.]

Adjust your priorities. Work is just work. You're there for two reasons. One, to make someone else happy. Two, to give you time to do the important stuff. Figure out what's important to you, and figure out how to make those things happen.

Want an example of this stuff in action? It's Wednesday morning at about 5:45am. I go into work at 7. I have management responsibilities, so I'm open to getting calls, texts and emails whenever the gym's open. There's a water main break in the neighborhood, so we don't have things like showers and water fountains. It doesn't matter whether I'm sitting at my desk at home or sitting at a desk at the club – there's nothing I can do about the water main. So I'm writing this instead of rushing in. I'm in touch with a staffer who has concerns, but there's nothing I can do from the gym that I can't do from home. So I'm home, getting ready to take the dog for a walk and have breakfast before I go in, and I'll gladly have my smart phone on me throughout the morning to help keep things under control.

I get to do the things that are important to me (write, eat breakfast, spend time with Rufus). I don't try to control the things I can't control (the water main break), but I do control the things I can control (interacting with staff to keep them calm and on task). It's actually really easy to do (*sips coffee*).

What are your tips? How do you choose your attitude at work?

Share/Bookmark

Stranger: Just one thing, Dude.
Dude: What's that?
Stranger: Do you have to use so many cuss words?
Dude: What the fuck are you talking about?
Stranger: OK, Dude. Have it your way.

You may have noticed a few F-bombs being dropped around here lately.

Phil definitely commented on it, so apparently it's noticeable.

It would make some people unhappy, but here's the thing: this is how I speak.

When we write professionally, we write professionally. But this is Josh Shear dot com, so maybe it should sound like Josh Shear. Make it personal, like you and I are sitting down for coffee. Or beer.

Speaking of which, I'm now working 7-3, maybe it's time for a regular happy hour. Someone make a suggestion, or I'm going to, and you never know where that shit leads.

If you think about why you come here, there are probably three reasons:

(1) You like my voice.
(2) You like what I have to say.
(3) We're related so you feel obligated.

I'm going to venture a guess and say at least 75% of you are here for #2.

I appreciate you guys and I don't want to lose you, so I'm going to continue providing that same stuff.

I'm just going to start saying it the way I would say it if we were sitting down to talk about it instead of doing it on paper. Because you know what? This isn't paper. This is My. Fucking. Home. on the Internet. (See? I still have to do it in AP style, capital I Internet. Jeeee-zus.)

If you want to hire me to write and not cuss? Cool. I can do that. But I want the people who like my in-person voice to come here, too.

I say "fuck" a lot in real life. That's not a sign of a bad upbringing or small vocabulary. It's how I speak. I grew up in city schools. I played sports. I performed music and poetry in front of audiences in bars. It's part of the vernacular. And I know when not to use it, which is probably the biggest power I have with the word.

Share/Bookmark

Bear with me here. It's going to start off looking like an exercise post at the beginning. It takes a little while, but I wind up making what I think is a valid real-life point eventually.

I slowed down my workouts this week.

My typical workout looks something like this. Set my Nike+ iPod to 5K. Run as fast as I can manage over the distance. Finish in about 14 minutes. Feel like crap. Sit for a minute (well, three, really) and have some water and try to catch my breath. Set the chest press on 135, the lat pull-down on 140, the seated row at 125 and the shoulder press at 90. Do 3x5 quickly on each (that's three sets of five repetitions). Walk the track a couple of times. Climb up the stairs and sit long enough to let my heart rate down and to let the flow of testosterone normalize.

The next morning, I'm fine. Possibly a little stronger, but I don't hurt.

Reference, for those of you who don't know me personally. I'm somewhat fit (14 minute 5K on an indoor track is competitive, even). I have about 15 pounds of fat to lose (I'm 20& body fat at 160 pounds – 15 pounds of fat down would get me to about 14% body fat, which on a guy maybe let's you start to see the top two portions of the ab muscle). (Also, I work in a gym, so I've become a bit of a fitness geek. The rectus abdominus is a single muscle; a 6- or 8-pack is really just definition of one muscle.)

My workout today was excruciating. I ran something like 3.8 miles in 28 minutes. A 5K, which I do in half that time, is about 3.1 miles. I slowed my pace WAY down and went for time. I did the same four machines, but I did 3x8. Very slowly. Like 6 seconds out, 6 seconds back. My last set on the chest press I was having a hard time cranking out 50 pounds (you'll remember I do 135 normally). 70 on the lat pull-downs, 60 on the rows and 35 on the shoulder press.

I'm currently having a hard time lifting a glass of iced coffee.

This makes me a bit curious about the value of slowing down. Now, don't get me wrong. Pain and soreness are not always the measure of a good workout. But I can tell that this is muscle confusion, not injury.

One thing going slowly does do is make us pay attention to detail. It also requires us to be more efficient. Neither of those is a bad thing.

In fact, there's a whole industry of innovation going on for making us more efficient. Go ahead. Turn on your smart phone. Go to whatever your app store is – it doesn't matter if it's a BlackBerry, iPhone or Android device. I'll bet there's a whole category of apps called "productivity."

These are things like to-do lists. Task monitors. Things that disconnect you from the Internet or social media so you can do some actual work. Apps that make multiple social media accounts easy to use together. Things that help you do stuff faster, so that even if you're doing those things more slowly, they're getting done in the same amount of time.

Want another way to do things a little more slowly?

Take a look at your to-do list. Rate stuff on a scale of 1-5, with 1 being very important and 5 being not at all important. Cross off everything with a 5. Move everything with a 4 to the bottom so that you can get to them when you get to them. Go do all your number ones right now.

And...go!

Share/Bookmark