When it doubt, do the most fun thing first

This makes it easier to procrastinate the rest, the not-so-much-fun stuff, which you can always get around to later. 

Right now (and here’s a depressing thought) the most fun thing on our list is fooling around with cleaning up the blog a bit. Recent software woes, blah blah, plus a query from our Midwest bureau which reminded us we really ought to pay a little more attention to typography than we do (this a perfect example of of a project that would be completely unnecessary if we hadn’t thought of it in the first place). So, a second piece of advice: Quit thinking stuff up.

For example, “markdown.” Markdown is something somebody thought up when he (or possibly she) would have been better off with a work-avoidance strategy such as hanging around right here. It—markdown—is a system for marking up text to indicate the way it should appear when published. In other words, it’s an alternative to using HTML, or Rich Text, or a pencil. Writing with markdown is like writing with WordStar.

Long, long ago, near the dawn of time, before computers had graphic interfaces and therefore could not WYSIWIG documents, a word processor named WordStar ruled the earth. Writing with WordStar involved inserting specially formatted commands into the copy to indicate how it should appear in print. Like a guy with a pencil. Or Rich Text. Or HTML. Or…

…wait. Markdown is a work avoidance strategy. 

We are for it, one hundred percent.