New Old Toy

I forget if I’ve talked about wanting one of those PDA/fold-out keyboard combos, something to use as an ultraportable word processor to write on the fly a la Warren Ellis, et. al. Others have opted for something like this here device, the AlphaSmart 3000.

It’s a sturdy one-piece word processor. That’s it. No wireless or Bluetooth capability, not even Tetris–at least, not the lower-end model and certainly not on the discontinued models. And, having been loaned one for the past two days with an option to buy, it’s taken me exactly that long to fall in love with it. It’s an older, dinosaur model and not as small as a PDA, but it gives me exactly what I need!

It’s solid and light (less than two pounds). The battery life is ridiculously long. It dumps content onto my computer, into whatever program I can type into (Word, Notepad, whatever), and even works as a keyboard emulator, to boot. I typed out most of this entry (aside from some minor edits) in a coffee shop a few hours ago, and I’m right now watching it dump right into a Blogger entry box.

The implications for my writing productivity blow my mind. Plus, all the potential ways I could “lifehack” this thing–hell, it’s a listmaker and calculator, what more could a GTD geek ask for?

Of course, once I own this puppy, I have no excuse whatsoever for writing something–a “plug-in,” some flash fiction, the occasional brainstorm, some edits–every single day. Not that I’ll be using this every time, just for the times when I feel I just have to type as opposed to handwrite stuff for whatever reason.

Gone will be the days when I go, “Eh, I need to type this out; I’ll just wait until I get home.” Gone will be the days I lug around my laptop almost every damn day only to get a little bit done because I’ve dicked around on teh Intarwebs. Nope, no more excuses that don’t have to do directly with my willpower or lack thereof.