A self-published book about how a writer can increase productivity by stepping away from digital tools early in the writing process.

Stop Typing & Start Writing: Analog Productivity for Digital Writers

After I moved house, one of my goals in setting up a new workspace was to have a desk I actually used. I had tried the laptop-connected-to-a-monitor thing and it just didn’t work that well. So I found a small PC that could mount behind a monitor and then I hung the monitor on an arm so nothing would be on my desk except for a keyboard and mouse. This way I could have a clear desk that wasn’t taken up by computer stuff.

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• bar
• baz

This also meant I needed a keyboard and mouse. Before setting up my writing desk, most of my work was done on the laptop’s built-in keyboard and trackpad. Now I had a nice mechanical keyboard and an average mouse.

Once I started putting in serious hours at the new desk, I started to notice a twinge of pain/soreness in my right wrist. The pain was mostly a dull ache in the outside of my wrist centered around the joint. This started not long after I began using a mouse again. Maybe it wouldn’t have been so bad if I had splashed out for a nicer mouse. Maybe not. The way the pain started up as soon as I picked up the mouse bothered me. It was like flipping a light switch.

Before diving into the ergo-mouse world I walked away from the desktop for a few days. I wanted to see exactly what I was dealing with and if it would clear up on its own. My writing came to a standstill during this time, but I needed to be sure about my wrist. Having a few days “off” was worth way more that doing more damage. I also realized that the type of work I was doing was contributing to the problem. I was heavily involved in getting a client project out the door. So I was outside of my usual Vim writing environment, and had to use the mouse a lot more. Had this not been the case, the sore wrist might not have happened right away.