(I hope) I get by with a little help from my Mac

Here I go again.

Getting distracted. Doing a whole buncha nothing, while there's plenty to do.

I'm at the car dealership, waiting for my vehicle to be serviced. I decided to bring my PowerBook along so I could force myself to actually do something.

I did something, alright: I spent the last 45 minutes playing Solitaire.

To be fair, just prior to launching Solitaire, I thought I'd organize the fonts on my computer. That lasted all of about 20 minutes, before I realized it was going to monopolize the system resources and not let me do anything else for the next God-knows-how-long I'll be here. Enter Solitaire.

I could be organizing my list of supported Macs at work. I could be studying for my A+ OS exam. I could be working on my blog or on one of my website ideas. I could be creating.

Creating. There's something I haven't done in a while. The last creative project I worked on was a logo design for FreeBSD. They held a logo design contest, which I learned of only hours before the deadline. I started playing around to see what I could come up with, and I managed to put together (or, more accurately, pull out of thin air) what I think is a pretty decent design in a matter of a couple of hours, so I submitted it. I'm still waiting for the results of that (not that I'm holding my breath).

I remember the original reason I stated for getting a computer was to help me create. I was so full of ideas, and a computer was going to help me get those ideas in motion.

Bullshit.

I didn't count on the impact that computer ownership would have on my life. Pandora, let's see what's in that Box....

No sooner did I have a computer that I was online with it. My wife quickly became an "internet widow;" I dove head-first into whatever I could: Online chat. Gaming. Free porn. All the news and information I could ever need at my fingertips.

I've never been much of a "recreational reader;" that is, I don't read novels or fiction very much. But information...my Lord, when I was growing up, I used to snag a volume of the World Book encyclopedia for reading material before I went to the bathroom. I can't get enough information.

There was a time when I was a young adult where I was down on my luck. Thanks to the generosity of family, I had a place to stay, but I wanted out badly, so I thought I'd start a small catalog of services and products for Sci-Fi fans. I remember busting my ass and putting together novelty buttons, hand-sculpting little penguins and pins, and a few other items. I drew pictures of everything I offered, typed up some descriptions, and cut-and-pasted the catalog together (we're talking scissors and glue here, folks). I placed an ad in a national Sci-Fi magazine, and the next thing I knew, I was buried in catalog requests. And soon after that, I was buried in orders.

I had been so busy just trying to get the catalog done that I completely forgot to plan exactly how I was going to fulfill all the orders. Realizing my mistake, I filled what orders I could, and returned the payments on the ones that I couldn't, along with an apology.

"Damn," I thought to myself. "This would've been a whole lot simpler with a computer to help me along."

So, a few years later, as fate would have it, I finally got a computer. What did I do with it? I played games. I surfed the internet. I downloaded porn. I talked in chatrooms. I had the chance to use this new incredible tool, along with my creativity and talents, to produce great things, and I squandered it. I kept squandering it for many years to come. I do suffer from attention deficit disorder (so the resulting behavior should really come as no surprise), but that's really not much of an excuse.

Sure, I've kept up on the Mac community, and I've learned a lot of technical stuff about how it all works...enough so that I'm now working as a Mac help desk technician, so I suppose it hasn't all been for naught. Still, though...I miss the creativity. I miss the adrenaline rush of cramming for a last-minute deadline and the sweet euphoria that follows when a great project is completed.

I suppose it all comes down to organization. I've never been an organized person, and even today, organization plays little part in my life. There is a reason this blog is called "Chaos Deconstructed" -- I'm on a journey to rediscover my creative side, but also to establish some semblance of order so that I can be as productive as I can be -- for me, and more importantly, for my family.

I first got a computer because I thought it would get me organized and productive, but I learned over time that there is NO tool that do that for me; that's something that must happen from the inside out. The computer is a powerful tool for doing so, but it's still just a tool: a hammer won't drive a nail without someone there to swing it. The problem with computers is that they're such varied and diverse tools that one can easily get lost in all its other functions. That's what happened to me; the computer didn't organize me, it just gave me a whole new world of things to organize.

Yes, this blog will focus on Macs and tech and whatnot, but it will also focus on my journey from chaos and frustration to productivity and sanity. Having established that, I'll end this entry with a funny anecdote:

As part of this journey, I discovered a couple of great resources to help get me started: Merlin Mann's excellent 43 Folders website, and David Allen's book "Getting Things Done." I ordered GTD from Amazon and started reading it with great enthusiasm. I also bookmarked and regularly checked 43F for a while. However, it's been a few months since I've done either: I misplaced the book, and the website is lost in my long list of bookmarks that have yet to be organized.

Now please excuse me while I beat my head on the desk for a bit....