It was the summer of 2014, my wife was very pregnant with our second child, and I was toast. My career as a freelance consultant felt like it was going nowhere, my one-man software startup had failed, and I was suffering from significant burnout. I needed a more predictable pace of work and perhaps even some time off. So I bid farewell to my dreams and joined a local consulting firm as—gasp!—a salaried employee.

Funny story: they let me go after six months. Not because I wasn’t doing a good job or because of any ruffled feathers, but rather because the company had shifted direction and I was the only person working on a technology stack they no longer supported. I’m grateful there were no hard feelings, but this meant that suddenly I wound up back in the world of freelancing with only one client to my name. I essentially had to start over from scratch.

Which—nearly three years later—turns out to be one of the best things that ever happened to me. I run my own company again (Whitefusion), have more work than I can handle, and get to collaborate with the best clients I’ve had since I first started freelancing in the late 90s.

The moral of the story is: sometimes it’s OK not to follow your dreams. Sometimes it’s OK to settle for “boring” and “responsible” and give your ambitions a rest. You just might find that your dreams have a funny way of sneaking up on you when you least expect it.

Apple CEO Tim Cook recently commented on the lack of updates to the Mac mini by responding to a customer email, stating that “while it is not time to share any details, we do plan for Mac mini to be an important part of our product line going forward.” Jason Snell’s take on the matter:

Apple could survive without the Mac mini in its product line, but it would make a lot of Mac users sad. I’d argue that the Mac mini is great not because it fills a niche, but because it fills a thousand of them. That’s great for Mac users because if you need a Mac in a particular place (where a laptop would be inappropriate and an iMac won’t fit), it’ll do the job. And it’s great for Apple because the Mac mini can act as a release valve of a sort—it can do all the jobs for which other Macs with more focused designs simply aren’t suited.

Read the full article at Six Colors. Like Jason, I too am hopeful about the future of this product, and I’m glad to hear an update—albeit an extremely vague one—from Apple.

Fun fact: back in 2013, my out-of-warranty MacBook Pro bit the dust, and as I didn’t have a lot of spare change at the time and I do a lot of heavy-duty graphics and programming work, I decided to buy a Mac mini. I actually schlepped that thing back and forth between my house and my office, so in a sense it was a portable computer. I lived without a laptop for about two years. No joke!

Like many of you, I’ve been following the news of Harvey Weinstein and his disturbing pattern of sexual abuse that spans decades. I’m heartbroken over what women have to go through in institutional cultures where sexism and harassment are tolerated and even covered up.

Weinstein was a powerful player in Hollywood and helped launch the career of many actors and actresses. If his crimes hadn’t come to light, his legacy would be secure. But because he had this nasty habit of, oh y’know, assaulting and harassing women, his legacy will now be that of a despised, dirty old man.

Bad Habits Break Legacies.

What bad habits do you need to eliminate in your life? I certainly hope none of us are committing crimes or abusing others, but even “minor” bad habits can still cause train wrecks over time in our careers and callings. Do you have a habit of ending freelance projects on a sour note with your clients? (I was guilty of that for a time.) Do you have a habit of staying so focused on your day-to-day tasks that you’re not spending time to plan your business’ future? (Been there, done that!) Do you have a habit of saying Yes! to any opportunity that comes your way, instead of determining which opportunities align with your overall vision and life goals? (Oops!)

It’s so easy to point the finger at a “bad guy” and say “Gosh, I’m sure glad I don’t act like that creep!” But one way or another, each one of us is our own worst enemy. On a good day, we make choices that benefit others and build a strong foundation for our future. On a bad day, we make selfish or myopic choices that only have the potential to sabotage our reputation and future success.

Good Habits Foster Strong Legacies.

What’s one bad habit you can transform into a good habit today?

One of my favorite comedy in-jokes is on the show Portlandia. The first season opens with a very amusing song called “The Dream of the 90s is Alive in Portland” — all about how Portland is this magical place where indie punk rock is still cool and everyone has tattoos and piercings, and, well, you get the idea.

Then on the second season, Fred and Carrie spoof their own spoof for a second song: “The Dream of the 1890s is Alive in Portland”. Now we get guys in vests brewing their own beer and wearing straw hats. It’s hilarious.

All that to say…our family recently packed our bags and moved from California to Portland. Yes, we’re those people. And I’m freaking loving it.

One other important change: I’m back on track here at Pygmy Nuthatch and ramping up my blogging schedule to M-F every week. Yay! See you tomorrow!

I watched The Founder on Netflix (last year’s biopic on Ray Kroc of McDonald’s starring Michael Keaton), and one of the key themes of the story is the importance of persistence. That singular quality, to keep going no matter what happens, no matter what the odds, will often prove to be a more valuable contributor to success than all other factors.

This summer has been unusual for me in that I’ve had a lot of travel and plenty of both family and client commitments. These are not bad things, and I’m not about to complain. However, it does mean that I’ve had less available time for writing and working on other creative side projects. And with less free time and a busier schedule comes what I call the “funk”—that icky feeling I get when my internal happiness tank is running too low because of the lack of consistency in attention to my creative pursuits.

Enter Streaks. It’s a simple but beautifully designed app for iOS that lets you set up a few tasks you wish to complete on a regular basis, and then you can keep track of when you complete these tasks and be reminded based on a schedule you set. For example, I created a “Blog for Pygmy Nuthatch” task which runs on certain days of the week. If I miss a day, it’s not a huge deal, but it does mean I’ll break my streak. With all the available graphs and stats, it makes it that much more rewarding to complete the tasks on your schedule and maintain your streaks.

I’m basically using Streaks to hack persistence. For example, this blog post is a direct result of using the app. I’m writing late in the evening when I’m tired and would be perfectly happy just browsing Twitter or playing with my kids. But because Streaks reminded me I needed to write a blog post (and in fact I had already missed several days), I decided to charge ahead and get’er done. And now I’m very glad I did.

What tools or techniques do you use to keep persisting in your side projects, hobbies, or creative pursuits? Do you use an app like Streaks? Old-school sticky notes? Calendars? Send me a tweet: I’d love to know!