Hey fine folk who are subscribed to jillbinder.wordpress.com through the WordPress.com ecosystem,
I am moving my blog over to http://jillbinder.com (which since most of you subscribed this way are Automatticians, you’ll see that that’s jillbinderweb.wordpress.com).
I hope to see you resubscribed there!
Image: Eight year old me (sitting) and my cousin when she was nine (standing). I believe this was a skit with songs that we inflicted on our parents.
Read: My First Web App, Part 1: The Origin Story
I’m a Creator. I love making things. Both as a kid and as an adult I’ve made poems, songs, skits, simple video games, and plans for how-to books. (I was a weird kid.)
As an adult add to that: unique performance art shows, new workshops, and businesses no one else has done before. (I’m an eccentric adult.)
I had tried making digital products before.
I have a little wasteland on my computer — no, a little… Dreamland! — of half-concocted ideas, courses, apps, and systems that I fully intended to make public some day. I even got as far as user testing a couple of them. (They failed said testing.)
In the Spring/Summer of 2016 I had about 5 ideas on the go that I was sure that, as soon as I did some market research, I would know which ones to finish. I didn’t know how to do market research though so I kept putting it off.
And then on July 14th, 2016, on that adorable, rickety, old Montreal apartment’s balcony with the plants, this web app concept happened. Read the first origin story. It didn’t matter to me that I hadn’t researched it. It didn’t matter to me that I hadn’t user tested it. It didn’t even matter to me if people wanted it. At that moment, I knew it had to happen. I needed it. I had a feeling in my heart that other people out there wanted and needed it too.
I began working on it obsessively for the next few months. It’s a simple little tool but it has a lot of details — user-wise and coding-wise.
What clinched the deal for me? What made me KNOW that I was going to finish this one and actually put it out into the world for real? How did the idea get validated and the obsession to complete it get lighted?
Image: Jill Binder on the rickety balcony in Montreal with the plants and the view of the brick buildings, July 2016
On July 14th, 2016, I was being pretty hard on myself.
Normally a Vancouverite, I was sitting in my July-in-Montreal sublet adventure—on the rickety balcony with the plants and the view of the brick buildings—and I was staring at my screen.
I had a website coding deadline for a client.
I didn’t want to do it.
That’s not right. I wanted to do it, but I just… couldn’t. All I had in me that day was staring, not doing.
“Well this is silly,” I told myself. “I’m a productivity nerd. I’ve lectured friends about productivity a thousand times. I know how to do this. In fact, I could write out the steps to do this and then follow those steps.” (I love lists and steps.)
Before I knew it, I had written out an (unpublished) blog post.
Was I then ready to do the thing? No, I had more procrastination left in me. “It would be better if I had a web page that walked me through doing these steps, carrying the info forward to each step, giving me a timer, etc. Then I will be able to focus on my work easily.” (I have excellent procrastination logic.)
For the rest of the day, I brushed up on my Javascript skills and I made one page that made going through my steps a breeze.
At the time I pointed to someone else’s online countdown timer that I could change from my page. I set it for 25 minutes, a standard Pomodoro sprint. I still just couldn’t. The thought of even the “doing nothing” step (more on that another time) was too much.
I told myself, “Ok, 10 minutes or bust.” I changed the timer to 10 minutes and you know what? I finished my original task in that 10 minutes.
I’m reading this book about how to be a successful serial digital maker (apps and things): http://makebook.io/
Turns out I’ve done exactly what he says not to do: Creating something in isolation for over a year. 
Lalala!
I’ve been working on a productivity app for creatives.
As part of my new process, I’m going to start blogging about it. 
Welcome to the journey!
Sometimes when I’m chatting with clients, I refer to these three classic story-jokes (with kindness):
The story of the plumber: “.25 cents for wear and tear on the hammer and $75.00 for knowing where to hit the pipe.”
🙂
The soprano ukulele sounds best strummed at the base of the neck instead of at the sound hole.
It never made sense to me why, nor why larger ukuleles sounded better strummed closer to the sound hole.
I was finally enlightened at a workshop lead by Lil’ Rev. He explained that the “sweet spot” is exactly half-way down the strings. Physics!
Give it a try on any uke. Don’t go by what’s shown here but rather by the half-way point between the bridge and the nut.
Update: I just learned something else at another workshop — the 12th fret is always the half-way point. There you go!
Hey guitar players! You wanna try something different and play a uke? Wondering what’s the difference?
This is how to turn a (standard) guitar into a (standard) ukulele:
A ukulele is 5 frets higher and uses the four high pitched strings, as demoed by my fingers. The guitar’s DGBE is the uke’s GCEA.
A guitar player could pick up a ukulele, start playing, and probably sound fantastic, but everything will be 5 semitones off. Your G is our C.
You could learn to transpose your chords, or you can “cheat”: Play a baritone ukulele. It’s tuned DGBE the same as a guitar.
Happy strumming!
When there’s too much to do and not enough time to do it, this is what I do:
This creates a simple plan of attack and eases my mind. I am then able to power through the list and get a lot done!
I can mess around with ideas in my head all I like, but it isn’t until I put the pen to the paper that the real creativity happens. I doodle it out, pieces come together, I get new ideas, and then ~MAGIC~.1
It’s a good metaphor for life. Thinking vs doing.
1 It only works if I turn off my inner Editor for a while and let my Creator take over, à la Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg.
In the summertime, Vancouver is a sweet songstress. Nothing could be better.
In the winter, dark Vancouver is dark. Everyone gets mopey and talks about leaving for other snowy-yet-at-least-it’s-sunny climes. A shadowy depression seems to fall over the city.
I love Vancouver too much to let a little seasonal depression get in my way. Each year I try playing with a few different techniques, and this year, judging by how great I’m feeling, I think I’ve got it nailed.
These are the things I’m either doing or know that I really should be doing. Heh.
It’s amazing how doing even just one or two of these can help this half year of darkness seem that much brighter.
What are you going to try? What have you found has helped?
