ALA 321, the first issue of 2011 is live. ALA 321: A Simpler Page by Craig Mod and Design Criticism and the Creative Process by Cassie McDaniel.

According to Paul Graham, procrastination practiced thoughtfully, is productive: There are three variants of procrastination, depending on what you do instead of working on something: you could work on (a) nothing, (b) something less important, or (c) something more important. That last type, I’d argue, is good procrastination Graham urges us to become “type C […]

Mary Oliver, editor of the Best American Essays 2009, asks the question, “What is an essay?” In her answer she quotes Michel de Montaigne, who popularized the essay as a literary genre: The world always looks straight ahead; as for me, I turn my gaze inward. I fix it there and keep it busy. Everyone […]

Steven Pressfield says that to be a professional, you have to retain curiosity and look for possibility: A pro turns up his nose at nothing. A pro respects everyone and everything, however humble. A pro keeps his eyes and ears open. All things are fascinating to the professional, because he understands how much thought and […]

From Merlin Mann‘s address at Rutgers on time and attention: Attention is the raw material for what you’ll ever be able to make that’s excellent and useful. Time is the resource for executing that.

Clay Johnson over at infovegan.com uses attention interval training to increase his ability to focus and concentrate on productive work. From How to Focus: Neuroplasticity is how your brain changes its organization over time to deal with new experiences. It involves physical changes inside of the brain based on the particular tasks the brain is […]

Sunday breakfast: see the full set on Flickr.

Jeff Deck and Benjamin D. Herson, armed with their typo correction kit, traveled across the US to correct spelling and punctuation errors on public signage. I stared at that no tresspassing sign, and I wondered: Could I be the one? What if I were to step forward and do something? The glare from the extra […]

Once you train yourself to spot errors, you can’t not spot them. You can’t simply shut off the careful reading when you leave the office. You notice typos in novels, missing words in other magazines, incorrect punctuation on billboards. From What it’s Really Like to be a Copy Editor

I love Field Notes. I live by my lists. I have to-dos for ALA, for each of my freelance projects, as well as lists of books I want, sites to visit, compelling quotes, and things to pick up at Safeway. Earlier this week, Field Notes wrote to say they were offering Field Notes Colors subscribers […]