Mindful Ink     Life, Living and Productivity

Since I’ve recovered this website has been a bit of an elephant in the room for me. 

At first, I did plan on regularly posting again and just grinding away as I had before.  Unfortunately, I’ve found that rebuilding my academic, professional and personal life has been using every scrap of energy I can manage and maintaining Mindful Ink was simply not in the cards.  

The problem with blogging, as the NY Times so poignantly pointed out, is it is intensely time consuming - if you want to blog about more than your cat, at least.  It’s work.  And it’s a lot of work.  I’m okay with that, but when you’re doing a solo job it means you have to do ALL the work.  And unfortunately, “all the work,” is simply not possible for me right now.  To do this job to my satisfaction means a certain level of quality and quantity that I simply couldn’t provide and I wasn’t interested in half-measures and hence the lack of any new content for some time.  However, an email I received today has changed my mind.

So, here it is…   I’m looking to make Mindful Ink more of a community (something I always wanted to do anyway.)  I would like to see a team of writers here specializing in education, productivity, and technology - I’d be part of it too.  Think of it as a “Lifehacker” without all the money. :)  So, this is a call out for those of you who want to write a blog, and those of you who do - with a few of us this need not be a lot of work, and the quality of a whole will certainly improve.  Those of you who already write a successful blog, feel free to join up as well if you like - more voices the better.

Mindful Ink does have some traction already, and we certainly have a body of work, and we already have some great friends in other bloggers - so if you want to get a start, this is a good place to do it.

This will be a casual group; I’ll be playing editor (though someone who would be interested and has the skills for copy-editing would be wonderful), and would like one post a week at minimum from anyone involved (preferably 2-3).    I don’t require any pre-requisites or experience, but would like to see a writing sample which you can email or send a link to (please, no attachments.)  This sample should be written as a blog post of some length.  You may email me via the contact page.

Let me be clear on what this sort of work entails.  As I said, split among many people, it isn’t particularly difficult but it still requires some time.

• Reading lots and lots of news and blogs
• Staying in tune with technology and education issues
• Trying out new software
• Maintaining an ethical standard (in Mindful Ink’s case that means no “pay for post” nonsense.  Free samples are acceptable, but that doesn’t buy a good review.)
• Keeping in communication with the rest of the team (I’ll probably create a message board or something if this goes forward.)

This idea, of course, relies on a certain critical mass of people - I’d say about three, at least.  I do have quite a bit of experience running a cooperating team of creative individuals working together and can certainly facilitate your skills.  I hope to hear from you soon.

P.S. - I’ve been having some strange email issues as of late and have heard from many people that they emailed me and were not answered, if that is the case please contact me again and I’m very sorry for any inconvenience.