I have nothing against zombies and squirrels -apart from the not getting bitten part- but I really don’t want to behave like either one of them. You’ll see what I mean if you read on.

Let me start my suggestion of the week with a confession. I talk really fast and I have trouble sitting still. When I am forced to sit on a chair, like now when I want to get work done on the computer, then it’s always been very hard for me to focus.

Since a lot of my work involves the computer I have learned to slowly reach “the zone”, my focus mode. I can stay in focus mode for a couple of hours, but I would also easily get catapulted out of it by a phone call, a knock on the door, me running out of coffee or other banalities. For a very long time my answer to this problem was simply to lock myself up in the basement, in a library, or work through the night. And prepare about a half gallon coffee of course.

As you can imagine, this behavior is not very social. The more I had to write the more I had to disappear, without cellphone access or other means to reach me. Well, or I would be pretty unresponsive even when present due to zombie-like tiredness. Since it wasn’t sustainable anymore to be unresponsive for half of the day, something had to change. (more…)