Writing for life

Image by Emilie Ogez via Flickr

As words go procrastination has to be one of the best. I like the way it rolls around on your tongue, taking, as you might expect, a little longer than necessary to get itself out. It’s a word that lingers, without really knowing why.

Putting things off is something most normal people do as a matter of course. Unless a task absolutely needs to be done now we’ll typically set it aside and do it later, focussing instead on what we feel is more immediately compelling. Psychologists, as is their wont, weave a complex tapestry of theoretical meaning around people’s very natural tendency to defer things until tomorrow. They call it procrastination, and describe it as a mechanism for coping with the anxiety of making a decision or starting any task.

But who in their right mind pays much attention to psychologists? They’re masters at taking perfectly natural human behaviour, sticking it in a box, adding a fancy label and attributing it to potentially serious underlying mental health issues. They’re so good at it because they spend an awful lot of time doing it… time they could easily allocate to more productive work, but choose not to. Sounds very like procrastination in action to me.

According to the psychologists then, procrastination stems from issues of anxiety, a low sense of self-worth, and a self-defeating mentality; too much of it, they maintain, can be a symptom of underlying mental health conditions like depression or ADHD. What a load of old cobblers!

Image via Wikipedia

I noticed last night that my RSS feeds had stopped working. Disaster!

Well, OK, not quite, but a problem nonetheless. Now solved by getting my web host to alter a technical behind-the-scenes whojamawhatsit.

If you suddenly stopped getting posts from this blog in your reader, apologies, everything should be working again now (if not please leave a comment below to let me  know).

And of course, if you fecked off unsubscribed in the meantime please, please, please re-subscribe by clicking on the big feed icon in the sidebar .

If you’re wondering what an RSS feed is check out this video, then subscribe to receive new content direct to your chosen reader:

Image by gin soak via Flickr

Because this week’s column about working from home with children, was career related, I’ve posted it over on the new Career Moves blog, where you’ll find lots of other great career, jobs and recruitment related content from the Evening Echo Career Moves section and also stuff written exclusively for the blog.

Check it out, share it with your friends, and don’t forget to let me know what you think via the comments ….

A while back I agreed to write four weeks worth of content for a new Evening Echo section on careers and recruitment. Dubbed “Career Moves” this new section would run on a Monday, and would focus on jobs, employment, education, training and career development.

Two-and-a-half years later and Career Moves is still going strong, and I’m still penning the content.

A while back I figured that it would probably be a good idea to take all of the careers related content I’ve amassed for Career Moves and publish it online, making it accessible and searchable for a much wider audience. But I’ve been busy with other things (haven’t we all?), so it’s taken me a while to get around to it.

Finally I’ve started to populate the all new Career Moves blog with content. I’ll be augmenting the stuff I’ve written for the paper with other bits and pieces too – so be sure to subscribe to the Career Moves RSS feed or visit the site and sign up for e-mail updates in the sidebar.

The Career Moves blog is very much in its infancy and is a “work in progress” that I’ll be developing and evolving as time allows – so by all means let me have your feedback via the comments system on the site.

Apologies to anyone who was subscribed to my RSS feed and stopped receiving posts in their feed reader recently — or who tried to subscribe from the link on the homepage and got an error .

Big thanks you to Joe Scanlon who pointed out the problem last night. It’s sorted now — for those who care about the ins-and-outs of it all, the error was caused by an invalid CNAME record for the feed when FeedBurner switched to Google’s servers.

If you’re not sure what an RSS reader is, or how it could help you check this video out — and don’t forget to subscribe to this feed once you’re done watching .

Anyway… everything seems to be working again now.

If you’re having problems picking up the feed please try re-subscribing using the link on the home page. If you still have problems please drop me a line and let me know.

C!

The finalists of the Irish Blog Awards have been announced!

Unfortunately neither this blog nor the SOHO Solo West Cork blog made the cut — but I can’t say I’m surprised. The shortlisted blogs are superb, and I’ve been neglecting mine a bit of late. I was plenty stoked just to make it to the long-list .

Anyway, this is just a quick post to congratulate all those who made it through, and to wish them all the very best on Saturday night in Cork.

If you haven’t already, check out the blogs that made the cut… they’re well worth a look.

Yay! This blog, and the SOHO Solo West Cork blog that I look after, have both made it to the Irish Blog Awards longlist.
 

I’m delighted… although a little curious that I’m in the “journalist” category. I’ve been accused of journalism (very) occasionally, but have never really considered myself a journalist, as such. I write about stuff that interests me… and I’m very lucky that sometimes people pay me … but you won’t find me actively hunting down the latest scoop, or unearthing some nefarious government scheme.

This post is very much a case of “Better Late than never”. I meant to post about it last week when the longlists were announced, but decided to migrate to a new operating system (I ditched Microsoft Windows Vista in favour of the Kubuntu variant of the Ubuntu Linux Distribution — but more on that in another post) which took more time than anticipated.

So I’m rushing this out just before the shortlists are announced. Whatever happens I’m over the moon to have made the longlist… twice.

Image by kajvin via Flickr

I was reflecting recently on the Christmas and New Year break.

Over the holidays I took some time off, like lots of people, but as well as taking time off work, I also found myself paying little attention to the various blogs I look after (this one included). Family, friends, children and the like took precedence… which is only right and proper.

So why did I find myself feeling guilty for not blogging?

As I pondered this question I had to ask whether a line been crossed somewhere in my subconscious. When had blogging taken on such a level of gravity in my life. How could I possibly feel even the tiniest twinge of guilt for choosing to spend time with my family instead of posting stuff online?

It’s a fine line… and while it’s obviously important to keep a steady stream of content flowing on the blog(s) there are many, many things in life that are far more important.

Sometimes I look at the flood of posts from prolific Irish bloggers like Damien Mulley, Alexia Golez, and others in my feed reader and despair. Between work, family and other commitments I don’t have time to read all this stuff, let alone write my own.

But then I realised that it doesn’t really matter… not in the grand scheme of things. Different people have different priorities, are at different stages in their lives and are blogging under vastly different circumstances. A missed post here, a sparse week there… so what!

I enjoy writing the blog – that’s why I do it – but feeling guilty for not posting isn’t an acceptable part of the equation.

I purposely didn’t make a new year’s resolution this year… but in hindsight I think I probably will take up a belated one: I WILL NOT FEEL GUILTY FOR NOT BLOGGING!

In 2009 I’ll post here and elsewhere when I can, when I want to and as time allows… without any guilt, remorse or regret for failing to maintaining a punishing posting schedule.

What about you?

This is what greeted me when I logged into my Google Reader account this morning.

Now, quite where Google got the idea that I’d be the remotest bit interested in vegan food I really can’t imagine. The concept of veganism is complete anathema to me. I’m a carnivore through and through – even took the pet ferrets after rabbits recently in the hope of securing some fresh wild meat for the pot (with no luck, unfortunately, but will try again soon).

It’s pretty hard to think of anything that would interest me less than a blog touting purely vegan fare.

I’m thinking that perhaps Google’s recommendation algorithm could do with a bit of fine tuning here and there….

Had to write a quick post to announce the launch of a unique new wedding date site for couples in Ireland. I have an interest in wedding sites, mainly because we run our own photo wedding invitation business, and naturally we keep an eye on what’s happening online in the weddings space. (NB. I know our site is in dire need of a facelift – it’s on the To-do list).

Last week saw the launch of an exciting new website on the Irish wedding scene: Weddingdates.ie opened its virtual doors on Friday (24/10), and offers a unique facility that helps engaged couples in Ireland to select their ideal wedding venue.

Simply enter your preferred wedding date and the county you want to get married in and Weddingdates.ie will return a list of venues in that county with reception availability on your date. It’s simple… and priceless. No more trudging through the golden pages and ringing around laboriously to come up with a shortlist of wedding reception venues who can accommodate you: Weddingdates.ie does it all for you.

This is very different to the swathe of run of the mill “Wedding directory” sites that simply list service providers. This is an indispensible tool for engaged couples.

When you’re planning a wedding anything that can reduce the time, effort and, lets face it, the stress involved is certain to be a huge boon. And that’s exactly what Weddingdates.ie offers.

If you’re getting married, or know someone else who is, why not head on over and take a look. If you’re a hotel manager, and your hotel isn’t featured, you might want to remedy that pronto!

The site is the brainchild of Ciara Crossan, who I had the pleasure of meeting briefly at a SOHO Solo / Cork Open Coffee joint meeting a few months back. Congratulations Ciara on a great concept, a great looking site and something that I’m sure will make life easier for countless Irish couples over the coming months and years.