With the arrival of a baby boy, my normally tightly-controlled schedule has been disrupted like New York in the movie King Kong. It’s been awesome.

In addition to the joys of a new child, an additional, unpredicted benefit has surfaced: less sleep, early morning solitude and a one-thumb-friendly text editor has increased my available writing time exponentially.

Sitting in a rocking chair with a newborn in one arm wouldn’t really work with a laptop. With a smartphone however, it works perfectly (especially when I can also play ocean soundtracks on speakerphone that put the little guy asleep faster than Ambien for an insomniac.)

I used to use gap-tasking for email and catching up on RSS feeds. I still do somewhat, but instead, having an in-hand connection to my blogs is turning those 10- and 20-minute work moments into proactive productivity (with more writing) rather than reactive activity (with email).

If you have a blog or another medium that demands regular contributions, I highly recommend getting a smartphone and an editor that ties into your publishing platform. You can eliminate the time-suck of email, and instead, turn those random work moments into tiny building blocks of productivity.

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