Timothy's Thoughts

I frequently read Mike Hyatt's blog and I sometimes post comments there, but his comment form leaves much to be desired. Sometimes it just won't work for me. Today, is one of those days. Today's post was about a video that Jason Fried did on where we're the most productive. After taking the time to write a response to Mike's post, I hate to see it go to waste, so I'm posting it below: Jason Fried is well spoken and gets plenty of laughs by saying things that plenty of people are thinking, but I think it is a mistake to assume that "work" is what we do when we are off by ourselves. I suppose it says something about our society in which the individual is valued more than the group. One of the things that I have found is that my most productive time is when someone interrupts me and asks me how they should be doing something. Yeah, I may have to put aside something that I was doing, but when I get back to my desk, the person I helped is off being prod...

W hen I write, I always have reader in mind. Even though hundreds or even thousands of different people may read what I’ve written, I always image that I’m writing to one person. That person usually doesn’t have name, but he’s that guy that isn’t doing something right. If he were, I wouldn’t be writing to him. Today, my reader is an author who probably doesn’t have a traditional publishing contract and needs to change in order to achieve success. That reader could be you. The reader always needs to change. If he didn’t, what would be the point writing to him? So when we write, the first thing we do is to help the reader determine that he needs to change. We want him to see the problem as his problem If we’re writing fiction, we want him to see that the problem the character faces is similar to something our reader might face. Once we helped the reader identify with the problem, we give him a solution to the problem. That sounds simple enough, but we have to assume that the reader has ...