life

Monotasking

Posted on July 11, 2014July 3, 2014 by Jack Flacco

Monotasking is one of those words you hear and quickly dismiss as nonsense. After all, we live in a world where we don’t have time to dedicate 100% of our time to one thing. Right? Multitasking has always been the way to go. But for today’s Freedom Friday post, I want to talk about monotasking vs. multitasking and the benefits of doing one thing and doing it well.

Let’s get some of the definitions out of the way first.

Multitasking: The handling of more than one task at the same time by a single person.

Monotasking: The handling of one task at one time by a single person.

For a long time I’ve been a proponent of multitasking. Who wouldn’t be? The mere definition entices the idea that someone can become twice as productive as, say, performing one task at a time.

But how effective are we when we tackle more than one task at a time? Let’s put it this way, if you have a 24-hour day, it is physically impossible to squeeze 48 hours from it. Experts disagree. Who hasn’t written an email while on the phone? Who hasn’t prepared a post while chatting in a meeting? Who hasn’t checked the sports scores while supposedly researching for their next assignment?

There’s this movement taking place in social circles called Tabless Thursday. It promotes monotasking by encouraging everyone to ditch the tabs in their browsers and work in one window for the entire day. The movement supports one’s ability to produce quality work at the risk of ignoring efficiency.

I’m all up on these interesting trends and for years, I’ve been an efficient multitasker. For instance, I’ve written posts, watched TV and read all at the same time. Don’t ask me if I remember any of it because I’ll tell you the same thing I’ve told my wife when she asks me if I hear her voice while I’m reading an article on the internet. The answer is a resounding no. Oh, I’m sure I was efficient, knocking off tasks from my to-do list as if they were all important, but how good had I produced the work on a scale of 1-10?

Multitasking serves its purpose in an aggressive environment where products have to go out the door quickly. However, monotasking has its purpose, too.

Whenever I have to get something important finished, I now turn off the phone, disconnect the internet, hide my task bar on my laptop, and type furiously at my keyboard until I’m done. It’s amazing how much I can accomplish without interruption.

The other argument for monotasking pertains to the quality of work. This, I can’t judge. I can only go by the reaction of the audience to see if my monotasking ways are effective. All I know is I can get the work done at a faster pace considering I have fewer distractions to keep me from accomplishing my goal.

What are you, a multitasker or a monotasker?

RANGER MARTIN AND THE ALIEN INVASION, on sale October 21.

What do you think of monotasking? How would you go about adding monotasking in your workflow?

Women Who Wow Wednesday

Jamie Sullivan

Posted on June 18, 2014June 18, 2014 by Jack Flacco

I don’t talk about God much. If anything, I sometimes hint at what I believe, but I don’t make it a personal mission to preach. I leave that job to the preachers. I’ve had folks, though, who have asked me what I believe, and it’s with some reservations I tell them.

In the movie A Walk to Remember, Jamie Sullivan (Mandy Moore), however, doesn’t hold back. She loves God, and she’ll take every opportunity to show it. You see, Jamie comes from a strict Baptist background. Her father (Peter Coyote) is the town’s minister and her mother passed away some time ago. She enjoys lending a hand at the orphanage, working with animals, and taking care of her father. No one’s ever asked her out on a date, but she’s quite fine with that. She’s happy living a quiet life away from what the other teens at her school are doing. Her most prized possessions are the sweater she wears every day and her bible.

When Landon Carter (Shane West) walks into Jamie’s life, she doesn’t think anything of it. After all, he’s part of the popular crowd and to other girls, he’s worth falling over to get his attention. If anything, she’s happy to have a new friend, regardless of his troublemaking ways. Jamie considers him an accomplished goal. Her number forty-two on her to-do list—to befriend somebody she doesn’t like.

Jamie’s to-do list also contains some other notable goals such as spend a year in the Peace Corps, make a medical discovery, be in two places at once and get a tattoo. Her number one goal is marry in the church where her mother grew up and her parents were married.

Aside from Jamie’s lofty ambitions, she’s also not shy with speaking her mind. Thinking Jamie to be a pushover, one of Landon’s friends stands on the receiving end of her quick wit:

Dean: If there is a higher power, why is it He can’t get you a new sweater?
Jamie: He’s too busy looking for your brain.

Another aspect of Jamie’s character is having the wisdom to see where things are going with her friendship with Landon. She asks him to promise he won’t fall in love with her. A silly request, but she asks it anyway given her circumstances.

The funny thing is how can Landon help not falling in love with Jamie? The truth is more powerful than fiction as is Jamie’s friendship with Landon. They can’t run from feeling what they feel for each other, but more importantly, Jamie sees Landon’s love by everything he does for her. His actions speak more than words.

And this is where I have to stop. I can’t continue without revealing spoilers. Suffice it to say, Jamie is selfless in every way a person can be selfless. She loves Landon more than words can express. And she is more of a woman than anyone could ever imagine hadn’t it been for Landon walking into her life.

I’m proud to feature Jamie Sullivan for this week’s Women Who Wow Wednesday post because she represents freedom—freedom from the typical Hollywood love story, and freedom from the heroine stereotype often posed in stories like this.

RANGER MARTIN AND THE ALIEN INVASION, on sale October 21.

What do you think of A Walk to Remember? What do you think of Jamie Sullivan?

Love Is…

Posted on May 16, 2014May 8, 2017 by Jack Flacco

Love is helping the elderly carry groceries to their car. Love is holding the door open for those behind you. Love is making hot soup for someone sick in bed with a bad cold. Love is forgoing our needs in order for others not to need.

Allow me the liberty of this Freedom Friday post to share my deepest desire with you. That desire is to see others help those less fortunate through genuine acts of kindness motivated by love expecting nothing in return. To give in love so as others do not lack. Perhaps one day they, too, will love in the very same way, helping those who need it most.

Therefore, love is giving of our time to a cause even if it seems silly at the time. Love is filling the bowl for the homeless at the local soup kitchen. Love is returning money to the shop owner who gave you too much in change. Love is giving up your seat to the pregnant woman on the bus. Love is saying please and thank you to the waiter who treats you poorly at the restaurant.

Love is picking up the neighbor’s mail when they are on vacation. Love is buying groceries for the family down the street whose father lost his job when his company made his position redundant. Love is waking up five every morning to give the folks next door a ride to the train station because they can’t afford a car.

Love is cleaning the home of a friend stricken with illness because they can’t do it for themselves. Love is driving a friend home from an activity knowing how far they live and doing so would be out of your way. Love is helping a friend pick up furniture from a secondhand shop, lug it two flights of stairs to his apartment while hoping the good deed won’t irritate an already bad back.

Love is giving a warm smile to the individual who hates you, just as you would show warmth to your own family. Love is uttering uplifting words to that spiteful person who badmouthed you behind your back. Love is not allowing bitterness to enter your heart in spite of what others do to you.

Love is hugging. Love is kissing. Love is crying for loved ones who have achieved their dream.

I’m sure you can find other ways to love. The list is endless. It may simply be a matter of listening to that still small voice gently leading the way. Whatever we come up with, nothing compares to the joy we feel when seeing happiness in the eyes of the recipients to our selfless act of kindness.

RANGER MARTIN AND THE ALIEN INVASION, on sale October 21.

How else can we help? What more can we do to show our love for others?

Freedom Friday, Other Things

Sweet Moments

Posted on May 9, 2014May 10, 2017 by Jack Flacco

That moment during a hot summer day when the clouds above you churn and you know it’s coming. The smell of burning wood on a cold winter night and all those memories flood your mind of how it used to be when you were a kid. How sitting on the park bench while the wind chills you reminds you of what a hot chocolate will taste like when you get back indoors.

They’re there. We just have to see them. Those beautiful junctures that make life all the more wonderful to live. Allow me to take a sliver of time from Freedom Friday to tell you about my sweet moments.

How the grass smells when I first cut it. How the house looks when it’s clean. How the garden looks when de-weeded. How I feel when I have a good movie I want to watch and have been waiting all week to watch it. How the sound of an ice cream truck brings me back to when I was a boy playing hockey with my friends in the street. How a sunset makes all the sense in the world, even when things at the time don’t make sense.

When the first snowfall hits, and my excitement builds knowing Christmas is right around the corner. When the leaves change, and I have my camera with me to take incredible shots of the colorful foliage. When the birds return after having spent those dark months away, and they sing their wonderful spring melodies at five in the morning.

The way my tongue dances after I bite into the most delicious dinner ever made in the history of culinary excellence. The silence I hear when I’m reading a good book. The joy I feel when a plan works as expected. The smell of an electronics store when I first walk in and all I want is the latest film release, but it tempts me with more. The sight of a dog chasing its tail and not knowing anything more complicated than that.

There’s more. Like those times I walk in on my wife, grab her in my arms, and tell her how lucky I am to have her. When I look into the eyes of my children and find myself staring back. That moment spending time with the extended family and someone tells a joke that everyone laughs. How the smile on someone’s face can make all the difference in the world when having a tough day. And how I try to see the good in others even when they’re terrible to me.

You see, I have many sweet moments in my life, and I’m sure you have them, too. If you look closely, you can see them. They’re there. They’re waiting for you to discover. When you do, it will amaze you by how it makes you feel knowing you’ve found one. Not everyone knows about them, but that’s okay. One day they will.

RANGER MARTIN AND THE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE, now on sale.

What are you sweet moments? What special place do you have that you can call your own?

Freedom Friday

A Law of Success

Posted on April 4, 2014April 7, 2014 by Jack Flacco

I’m a firm believer in being lazy. Now, now, before you go off thinking I’m a sluggard of a man, hear me out. I’m also a firm believer in working smarter, not harder. If it takes three days to accomplish a task, I want to know how I can cut that time to one day. Like I said, I’m lazy and any time saved is time earned to do other things of interest.

Welcome to my Freedom Friday post where I open my mind and allow my brains to fall out. Today I would like to place you at a vantage point into my thinking regarding work vs. rest. Don’t worry I’m not introducing anything radical you haven’t heard before. Perhaps, I’ll even learn something myself.

I’ve written about this subject in my posts Sleep and A Day Off. Not to be redundant, but in those posts I had mention how sleep is my secret weapon against creative slumps. I’m trying hard not to make it sound like I’m bragging. I’m relating information that works for me that may also work for others. Anyway, back to the subject at hand. My secret weapon against a creative slump, brain fog, and mind block is sleep. On the weekend, I sleep an inordinate amount of hours because during the week I keep a strict seven-hour sleep schedule, depending on the night and if I have to wake up early the next morning (eg. 4:30 AM—yeah, I’m on farmer’s hours).

Did I ever tell you I suffered from insomnia for a long, long time? I think I had mentioned it. Well, of course I did. I wrote about it in my Insomnia post. For a number of years I averaged two hours of sleep. Yes, you read that right—a number a years, two hours of sleep. I learned a thing or two.

Let’s get to the meat of this post.

Newton’s First Law of Motion states: An object at rest stays at rest and an object in motion stays in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force.

You might ask, “Jack, what are you doing talking about the laws of physics?” Well, let’s take Newton’s First Law of Motion and analyze it further. There may actually be a lesson there for all of us.

The first part of the law states that an object at rest stays at rest. I learned some time ago that rest replenishes my creative flow by allowing my mind to mull over problems during my sleep cycle. My evidence? Without fail, every morning I wake up with a truckload of ideas I can’t wait to get down on paper. Many of my blog posts come from my early morning shaves soon after a good night’s sleep. I’m so used to it, I can’t wait to fall asleep knowing the next morning I’ll have some other ideas that will catch my fancy.

The second part of the law states that an object in motion stays in motion with the same speed and in the same direction. In my opinion, this is the ideal situation. Wouldn’t it be a grand thing to experience life in a constant predictable cycle? It can be. It means eliminating the distractions and carrying forward without anyone or anything getting in the way. It also means a heightened sense of concentration achieved by allowing you the rest needed to complete a task. Sounds counterproductive, but it does work.

Now, did you catch the fact I didn’t mention the last portion of the law? I left it last to make a point. It simply states that an object at rest stays at rest and an object in motion stays in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force.

We all have those unbalanced forces in our lives that seem to suck the energy from our productivity. That’s the negative part of the equation. We’re going on our merry way, doing what we set out to do, carrying on with our daily lives when suddenly something happens and we’re stuck in the middle of a battlefield picking up the pieces. Whether it’s a death in the family, job loss, an accident or a real bad day, this happens to everyone and we can’t avoid it.

The other side of the equation involves those same unbalanced forces setting our lives on fire by spectacular means, giving us a new perspective on things and leading us to change. I’m talking about the sudden proposal of marriage, finding out you’re going to have a baby, getting a promotion, deciding to buy a new house, and yes, even winning the lottery. Good things do happen to good people.

The trick to Newton’s law of motion is to keep life at an even keel. Too little rest, we procrastinate. Too much unbalanced force, we stress out. Steady as she goes, and we’re just right. Success comes when we gain that perfect balance. Once we attain that, nothing will stop us from achieving our dreams.

RANGER MARTIN AND THE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE, now on sale.

What other laws of physics can we utilize as a metaphor for success?

Freedom Friday

Posted on February 28, 2014March 3, 2014 by Jack Flacco

I write about zombies. There, I said it. I write about the atrocities zombies commit on humans during an apocalypse that should never have happened. I write about the horrors of being undead. I write about death and how it’s not the end but an unpleasant beginning for those chosen to die a second death filled with agony and despair.

Although, it’s not all I write about.

I enjoy the touching moments between humans when they make that one connection in their lives they wouldn’t have known otherwise had they not taken a chance to explore an alternate universe. I’m talking about love.

Yes, I write about love and I write about death.

This is one of those strange Freedom Friday posts I could not have written hadn’t I lived through it myself without taking notes to understand what I had experienced. Don’t worry I haven’t lost my mind nor have I taken anything to help things make sense. Think of it as a philosophical autobiography of sorts that may ring true for you—or not. In either case, life is about experiences shared with others to reveal one’s true self.

Years and years ago when working in the printing industry, I had a task to supervise printing of decals that went on the side of courier trucks. These decals had to be perfect. Not a spot. Not a smudge. If the colors were off, even by a hair, the company who placed the order would reject the whole load.

One day, while operating the printing press—a monster of a press having a fifteen-foot printing arm affixed to a thousand-pound frame that would drop on an aluminum base covered with the material for printing—I had to get under the frame to clean the screen where the ink would pass in order to make the imprint on the material. Now, I didn’t worry the frame would fall on me because all around the machine emergency arms surrounded it that would prop the frame back to its upright position.

What’s Murphy’s Law again? Oh, yes—anything that can go wrong will go wrong.

I had to crawl deep into the press to remove the dirt on the screen above, but that also meant I didn’t have access to the emergency arm. One foot taller, I would have had full access to the switch.

Sure enough, the frame began to drop on me. Now, at this point, I don’t know how to explain it. I phased out? I really have no memory of the experience other than crawling back out and one of my coworkers asking me if I was okay. To give you an idea, had the frame fully dropped on me it would have crushed me whole. I’m assuming he saw the frame falling on me and pressed the emergency arm. He didn’t. He said it popped back into its upright position on its own. For a long time, I didn’t believe him. Of course, when you’re in shock, anything and everything anyone says is somewhat a blur.

That’s one.

During the summer after eighth grade, I wanted to take swimming lessons. The very first thing the instructor asked us to do was to dive into the deep end to find out how much we knew. I didn’t know when I registered for the course that I’d registered for the intermediate class. What did I know? While everyone else swam gracefully through the water, I slowly sank to the bottom of the pool. I’ll never forget a time I’d held my breath for what seemed as if history had stopped. A few seconds more and I’d have been dead, I’m sure of it.

I felt hands grasping my waist, pushing me to the surface. By the time I sat on the edge of the pool with my feet dangling in the water, I coughed so much I thought I had already died.

I don’t know who pulled me to safety. I’m assuming the instructor did. Again, no one really admitted anything and even though I felt grateful, to this day I question what actually went down that morning.

That’s two.

How can I describe what I felt when these near-death situations occurred? I wish I could say it’s easy to utter a few words that can capture the meaning these experiences convey to me. In some respect, I long for simplicity in the matter. Yet, sometimes, we don’t know why things happen the way they do. They just do. That’s life. While I can’t say I’d like to go through another one of these, I’m grateful for having had my life spared twice.

Someone once said these things happen in three’s. Let’s hope they’re wrong.

RANGER MARTIN AND THE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE, now on sale.

Have you gone through something similar, where you can’t explain what happened, but you’re thankful for having survived it, nonetheless?

Freedom Friday

Blue

Posted on January 17, 2014January 20, 2014 by Jack Flacco

The color blue is everywhere in my life. It’s in my jeans. It’s on my desktop. It’s even in my dreams. But I’ll tell ya, it’s not my favorite color. Not by a long shot.

The color blue

This is my Freedom Friday post about the color blue.

As I was saying, blue is everywhere in my life. I search for it when I’m online, when I’m walking to the Main Street coffee shop, and when I’m browsing at the mall. Blue is everywhere.

I really can’t help it. When Avatar came out, I basked in the glory of blue. The movie had segments filmed in nothing but blue. The floating things made me feel warm and fuzzy all over for the things that bring me happiness.

Blue excites me while I drive my family home from visiting my parents late at night. A building stands tall and erect that resembles the final act of Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back. I always say to the kids, as we pass by it on the highway, “Look, it’s the Star Wars building!” They gawk, ponder and wow as we continue on our merry way. The glow of the roof’s cerulean lighting is enough to keep me entertained for the rest of the journey.

The color blue, too

My desktop has nothing but blue. I search for blue wallpapers. I search for blue themes. I search for blue mouse pointers. When I find them, they quickly hit my computer without a question. I don’t know what it is about the color blue. It brings out the best of my creativity. It replenishes my soul. It gives me the feeling of nostalgia that I can’t get anywhere else.

Then there’s the feeling of blue. You know, feeling blue? I don’t feel it that often. I know it’s there. I know people feel it. I know it affects people in different ways. I just don’t feel it often. I don’t wish I could feel it either in order to relate to some folks. I suppose something unpleasant would have to happen for the feeling to come. For now, I’m thankful I can only go with what others have told me. Feeling blue is awful.

You know what? It’s never too late to see another color. Like I said, blue is not my favorite color. If you know me well enough you’ll probably figure out what my favorite color is. The fact of the matter is how can we enjoy our favorite color and enjoy the color blue without feeling we’ve betrayed our soul?

[Author’s note: I wrote this post more as a compositional challenge to prove that anyone can write about anything and still have fun doing it. Although I wrote about the color blue, I had the surprising revelation that certain shades of blue unlocked memories I’d forgotten I had. In other words, I even surprised myself.]

RANGER MARTIN AND THE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE, now on sale.

Do you have a color that dominates your world? If so, where do you see it?

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