#Even if it’s something completely trivial and unimportant in the grand scheme of things.

[randomtheidiot]

The thing about how “people get offended too easy these days” is that I’ve been noticing that people DO, in fact, get unreasonably offended and combative over nothing these days and it’s becoming a serious problem, but I can’t voice my concerns because those exact people will conflate me with all the asshole conservatives who throw that same phrase around because they’re butthurt about how they can’t call people slurs and throw them in camps anymore.

[cebwrites]

T4T (Law)

oc x canon, they/them law word count: 0.6k

Law's gender wasn't something they put a whole lot of thought into growing up; too preoccupied with studying for the next final or plotting Doflamingo's miserable, timely demise to worry about something as trivial as primary or secondary sex characteristics.

It didn't take all long for them to figure out they were gay, though. A handful of rejected love letters underneath a drawer somewhere in Wolf's house and their first sordid relationship going way too fast, left behind on Swallow Island can attest to that.

The masculine form, and men by proxy, has always been appealing to them. Still, it's never been a priority.

Too many things going on in their life, too many voices in their head to quiet. They didn't have time to bother with relationships, even if they slept with one or two guys over the course of three years, it was of no importance in the grand scheme of their master plans, let alone their own gender.

Law let people assume because it was easy, because it was one less thing to worry about, even if there was an itch in the back of their mind they couldn't quite reach whenever anyone called them a man. Complimentary or not, it felt... no, Law didn't need to feel anything. Nothing that wasn't absolutely necessary, anyway.

It's not until a man with eyes, gold and tired like theirs but with an unmistakable glint, blows into Law's life completely unexpectedly and shakes everything up.

Kirin's world weary but despite everything still keeps his heart and trans identity on his sleeve, he kicks the proverbial door down to all those feelings an angsty teenage Law tried to shelve away forever as unimportant, not worth exploration. They're enamored by his confidence, that's what they tell themself at least, but eventually Law comes to the conclusion that they're in love with him.

To hold someone in such high regard, to know that he struggles just as much as they do trying to find the right words, the right phrases, how to be the right kind of person.

It's liberating, in a way.

Pain shared is pain halved.

Kirin is loose with definitions of his sexuality; comfortably under the queer umbrella but he's loud and adamant about his transness. He fought his whole life to be seen as a man and by hell or high water he will be recognized as a trans man.

Law, through a little guidance from their partner and by letting the other trans people in their life in, finds a happy medium between masculine presentation and the absence of a "male" gender. Whatever it is they are isn't a man or a woman, they're a nebulous creature inhabiting this body that's been shown so much love, the least can offer themself is being a little kinder to it.

So they do, by allowing people to care for them first, principle of all - the closest ones on their crew, then their ever adoring partner.

It's an uphill battle trying to fit into their own queerness, old Sunday sermons from Flevance and their grandmother's favorite scriptures haunt the spaces between their eyelids every now and again. But it gets easier the more the share their burdens; Bepo, Pen, and Shachi are more than willing to help shoulder them.

Every time they see him, it's a weight off Law's shoulders; although post-timeskip it's a weight into their arms whenever Kirin happily jumps into them, overjoyed to see his partner once more.

The toils of the Grand Line disappear, the stresses of captaining a submarine - inhaling the scent of salty sea and and Kirin's favorite green apple shampoo, Law finds their peace whenever and wherever it manifests at his side.

[ourhero]

Untitled

Editor’s Note: This started as a mid year progress report, and turned into something else. Enjoy.

We’re 223 days into 2017. And I have to say, personally, I’m very pleased with how this year is panning out. Again, let me reiterate that this is based solely on my personal life- the world and America, at large, are a whole other story which I cannot delve into because I just don’t have the time to smash the patriarchy, belittle most Republicans and  re-cap the daily shit show that is occurring in our country.

But, I’m good!

Wow, that sounds so fucking dumb. As if I am totally unaware of how awful things are in the world. Trivial. Entirely surface. Anything I put here now, seems like pure fluff compared to the reality.

How do you write when it all seems… meaningless? For the first time in months, I’ve sat down to write because I’ve actually wanted to. Because I felt as if I had something to share- something that people would read, connect with and say “wow, I sure missed Brady’s writing”. But now, as I try to conjure up anything of depth or wit, I’m struck by how much none of it matters in the grand scheme of things at this very moment. And yet, the Word document stays open. And I’m still here, watching a blinking cursor.

Why do I want to write? Why am I so compelled, even when I don’t want to share it? When I was a kid, I was obsessed with these books called ��Dear America”, which were fictional diaries of girls living in some of our country’s (and later in the series, our world’s) most difficult times. From the Revolutionary War to the Holocaust, to the bombing of Pearl Harbor. It also helped that I was a huge history nerd (Thanks, American Girl!) and these fed right into that niche. These books, I now realize, were instrumental in not only teaching me how to read a long book, but how to tell a story, and how important it was to share mine.

I started journaling in the 3rd grade. I had a Winnie the Pooh journal that had a vinyl cover, a flimsy plastic lock, and multi-colored pages. It’s long gone now (thrown out during my childhood move), but I remember what was in it. I listed what I did during the day, how my parent's divorce made me feel, how my friends brought such joy to my life. I wrote down pretty much anything and everything, no matter how unimportant it seemed in the moment, right down to what we had for dinner. I may not have noticed it, but I was striving to make my life be as important as those fictional historical journals I poured and obsessed over.

On a shelf in my bedroom, is every journal (full or not) that I have written in since fifth grade. (Here’s a picture).

I tend to carry a journal with me wherever I go. Just in case I feel the need to write something down. I’ve been known to purchase notebooks if “inspiration” (oh, I use that word very loosely) should strike. And so, I have a handful of drug store notebooks, half filled with thoughts of every kind. Some happy, some sad- but mostly reflective on my life and where I was at.

I have the journal I used when September 11th happened. It’s filled with newspaper cutouts from that day and the following. It’s also full of my fears and anxieties, which would eventually come to a head months later, resulting in my short stint of homeschooling due to overwhelming anxiety and depression.

I have a diary from my days on the cruise ship- lamenting losing my virginity to a man whom later went MIA (and to this day, I believe I am still in a relationship with- since we never officially broke up). It’s full of memories of biking in Alaska, and black sand beaches in Hawaii.

I have a journal that I bought in Italy 7 years ago, and never unwrapped until my return this past January, where I filled it completely- noting every restaurant I ate at and everything I did. It also accompanied me to every bar, where I sat and drank Prosecco and tried to figure out my life. I then returned to shop I bought it at years prior, showed the owner, and bought another.

Writing always meant something to me. It still does, but I think I’m still figuring how to use in the best possible way. I don’t like conflict, so I don’t think I could ever write something where I try to change peoples’ minds about some long-standing issue, however much I believe in it. I don’t like to write fiction- I get bored or overwhelmed and feel that my characters are flat. My plotlines resemble other ones written by authors of little to no acclaim (and hey, that’s okay!).

So I write me, and my life, and the world around me. I write to remember how I felt in an exact moment. I write so I don’t forget the people I meet and the places I go. I write because if I kept all of this up in my head, I think I would be committed.

And if you made it this far in my rambling, you probably get that.

I sat down to write today about… well, anything. And I ended up here. It’s not my most glorious piece of work, but it may answer some questions- why I don’t post regularly and maybe, how we got to this point- this exact moment. With the state of the world, I hesitate; I truly do, about posting something like this. But hey, this is my way of dealing with it.

 Clearly. 

[benfchristie2]

How to Focus: 5 Ways to Overcome Distractions at Work

When I was a sophomore in college, I developed a terrible addiction to Facebook. By the time finals week arrived, I couldn't go 30 minutes without a dose of dog videos.

I was officially distracted. And after a week of all-nighters, I realized my attention span was inferior to a squirrel's.

Checking my RescueTime dashboard confirmed that I could only concentrate on distracting videos and not my books. I had spent 50% of the week on Facebook, which means I could've actually slept before each exam. Why couldn't I focus on my studies during the most critical time of the school year?

Distractions can infest any place of work. They might seem tiny in the grand scheme of things, but when compounded together, they can ravage your productivity. In fact, entire companies lose 31 hours per week to attention-sucking activities. That's like losing the contributions of a whole employee.

Fortunately, I've researched some science-backed tips for maintaining focus, interviewed HubSpot employees about their concentration habits, and fleshed out the deepest insights in this blog post. So take a look at these five productivity hacks to effectively overcome distractions and stay laser-focused at work.

How to Focus at Work: 5 Productivity Hacks

1) Plan the work day around one main project.

Do you "eat the frog" first thing in the morning? Or do you just plop it on your desk and let it fester, reminding you that the worst part of the day is still yet to come?

Prioritizing your main project ahead of lesser tasks on your to-do list is crucial for productivity. Humans possess a cognitive bias towards completing as many tasks as possible -- because regardless of magnitude, finishing something always feels amazing.

This is why we tend to work on a lot of easy, short tasks first, while putting our main project on the back burner.

Crossing things off your list is addicting. But don't give into the temptation of completing the simple tasks first. Since they're short and quick, you can easily finish them at the end of the day. Your major tasks have much more pressing deadlines and require a lot of time and effort. So do the big tasks first to avoid scrambling through them last minute.

Jami Oetting, who manages HubSpot's content strategy team, plans her week out so she can eat the frog every morning.

I start the week listing off all my priorities prior to my team's weekly stand-up meeting on Monday. This is my time to consider all the projects the team is working on, what needs to get done by the end of the week, and how I could be most effective, she says. Then, I map out the tasks that need more focus or larger chunks of time to accomplish. After prioritizing this list, I'll block off time on my calendar to accomplish one 'big' project each morning.

Your brain's peak performance period starts two hours after you wake up, and lasts until lunch time. So why waste these optimal morning hours on things you could do in your sleep?

The end of the day is also the worst time for doing meaningful work. You've already exhausted your daily energy on an assortment of trivial tasks. So when it's time to chip away at your main project, you'll either drown in complacency completing it or put if off until the next day, repeating a vicious cycle of procrastination.

2) Block the obvious distractions for greater focus.

Your phone buzzes. A new like on Instagram! Did the picture get as many likes on Facebook? You click to open a new tab. The funniest Chevy ad spoof is the first post on your newsfeed. This is must-see content.

20 minutes later, you're reading an article about Mark Zuckerberg running for president when your manager walks by your desk. Which reminds you your blog post is due tomorrow. And all you've written is the meta description.

Does this sound familiar? Well, you're not alone because it happens to everyone. It's also the reason why it takes 23 minutes for people to refocus on their original task after an interruption. Distractions breed more distractions.

So right when you walk into the office, throw your phone in your desk drawer and keep it there all day. Lock it up if you can. And download a site blocker likeBlock Site or StayFocusd to restrict access from all the websites that veer you off the path of productivity.

Even email, which is supposed to streamline the day, sidetracks you. In fact, we spend 20.5 hours of our work week reading and answering emails. That's half of our work week! So if an uptick in unread emails always seems to lure you away from your current task, don't open your Gmail tab in the morning.

Remember, unless it's an absolute emergency, you can respond to anyone's email within a few hours. So designate time blocks for internal communication. This way, you can channel your undivided attention on a major project and slash the time wasted switching from one task to another.

Sophia Bernazzani, a staff writer for HubSpot's Marketing Blog, blocks off time for both email and Slack to maintain her concentration throughout the day.

It's impossible to focus if I have too many incoming notifications. So I commit to only answering emails at the beginning and end of my day, she says. I also set myself as offline on Slack and snooze my notifications to minimize distractions when I'm working and save them for when I'm taking a break between tasks.

3) Take short breaks.

Do you pride yourself on lunch being your only break? Do you believe allocating the rest of your attention on work is the only way to achieve optimal productivity?

Well, according to researchers at the University of Illinois, constantly working without a break actually hampers concentration over time. Taking short breaks throughout the day is what sustains your focus.

"Constant stimulation is registered by our brains as unimportant, to the point that the brain erases it from our awareness," says Alejandro Lieras, the experiment's leader. And if sustained attention to a sensation makes that sensation vanish from our awareness, sustained attention to a thought should also lead to that thought's disappearance from our mind!"

Lieras describes a psychological tendency called habituation. An example of this is putting your shirt on in the morning and noticing the feeling of smooth cloth touching your skin. But after some time, your brain acclimates to the shirt and you won't sense its softness anymore.

The same thing happens with work. Applying nonstop tunnel vision to a project actually withers your attention to it over time.

The brain is wired to recognize and react to change. So take mental breaks to let your brain distance itself from your work. When you return, you'll perceive your current task with a fresher lens and engage more deeply with it.

Alicia Collins, a multimedia content strategist at HubSpot, considers mental rest a pivotal part of the creative process.

Taking short breaks throughout the day is a great way to sort out your priorities and boost your focus. Whenever I'm feeling overwhelmed or stuck on a particular issue, I take some time to eat lunch away from my desk or go for a walk around the block, she says. These simple activities help clear my head and enable me to tackle problems from a new, creative angle.

There are several productivity techniques that leverage short mental breaks, like the pomodoro technique, where you work for 25 minutes and then rest for 5 minutes. A study by the Draugiem Group also discovered that the employees with the highest productivity spent 52 minutes working, followed by 17 minutes of rest.

You can test each method and stick to the one that enhances your focus and productivity the most.

4) Don't stuff yourself at lunch.

I have a love-hate relationship with the food coma. By noon everyday, I'm so starved that I gobble up the most filling meal I can find. It tastes incredible. And after devouring my plate, I love placing my hands on my bloated belly, admiring the fact that I'm full and satisfied.

When it's time to get back to work, though, you'll find me slumped in my chair. My brain feels like it's in a fog. So I just sit there and barely even attempt the easy tasks on my to-do list.

Eating rich meals fulfills your hunger, but it also dulls your mental acuity. Your digestive system expends so much energy digesting all the fat and carbs that it chokes the circulation of oxygen to your brain. This devastates your ability to focus.

One way to resist a daily indulgence is to snack on light, healthy foods throughout the morning. This stabilizes your blood sugar and combats growling-stomach hunger. You'll notice you'll eat less and select healthier options for lunch, allowing you to stay sharp for the rest of the day.

Karla Cook, a HubSpot Marketing Blog editor, usually eats a salad with whole grains and vegan protein for lunch, and avoids anything processed. Her motivation? To be productive in the afternoon, she needs to feel good.

When you eat bad things, you feel bad. It's pretty much instant retribution, she says. Eating a solid, healthy lunch is a super simple way to set the course of your afternoon.

5) Limit Auditory Distractions.

Background noise in the office -- like colleague chatter or the clacking of a keyboard -- can shatter concentration. According to several studies, ambient noise causes stress, which triggers a release of cortisol into your body.

Cortisol is designed to ease that initial stress, so your body can return to homeostasis. But too much cortisol disrupts your prefrontal cortex -- the part of the brain that regulates your ability to plan, reason, and remember things.

These subtle, but potent noises will fracture your focus, so invest in a pair of noise-cancelling headphones or find a quiet space to work.

Aja Frost, a staff writer for HubSpot's Sales Blog, likes to explore every nook and crannie of HubSpot's Cambridge office to find her own quiet spaces.

I look for places that are slightly tucked away, like a booth or a small table. These places are always really quiet -- and free from distraction, she says. When I'm ready for a more social atmosphere, I'll go back to my desk or an area of the office that gets more people randomly walking by.

How do you maintain your focus? Teach us your productivity hacks in the comments below!

[jasonmkemp4]

How to Focus: 5 Ways to Overcome Distractions at Work

When I was a sophomore in college, I developed a terrible addiction to Facebook. By the time finals week arrived, I couldn't go 30 minutes without a dose of dog videos.

I was officially distracted. And after a week of all-nighters, I realized my attention span was inferior to a squirrel's.

Checking my RescueTime dashboard confirmed that I could only concentrate on distracting videos and not my books. I had spent 50% of the week on Facebook, which means I could've actually slept before each exam. Why couldn't I focus on my studies during the most critical time of the school year?

Distractions can infest any place of work. They might seem tiny in the grand scheme of things, but when compounded together, they can ravage your productivity. In fact, entire companies lose 31 hours per week to attention-sucking activities. That's like losing the contributions of a whole employee.

Fortunately, I've researched some science-backed tips for maintaining focus, interviewed HubSpot employees about their concentration habits, and fleshed out the deepest insights in this blog post. So take a look at these five productivity hacks to effectively overcome distractions and stay laser-focused at work.

How to Focus at Work: 5 Productivity Hacks

1) Plan the work day around one main project.

Do you "eat the frog" first thing in the morning? Or do you just plop it on your desk and let it fester, reminding you that the worst part of the day is still yet to come?

Prioritizing your main project ahead of lesser tasks on your to-do list is crucial for productivity. Humans possess a cognitive bias towards completing as many tasks as possible -- because regardless of magnitude, finishing something always feels amazing.

This is why we tend to work on a lot of easy, short tasks first, while putting our main project on the back burner.

Crossing things off your list is addicting. But don't give into the temptation of completing the simple tasks first. Since they're short and quick, you can easily finish them at the end of the day. Your major tasks have much more pressing deadlines and require a lot of time and effort. So do the big tasks first to avoid scrambling through them last minute.

Jami Oetting, who manages HubSpot's content strategy team, plans her week out so she can eat the frog every morning.

I start the week listing off all my priorities prior to my team's weekly stand-up meeting on Monday. This is my time to consider all the projects the team is working on, what needs to get done by the end of the week, and how I could be most effective, she says. Then, I map out the tasks that need more focus or larger chunks of time to accomplish. After prioritizing this list, I'll block off time on my calendar to accomplish one 'big' project each morning.

Your brain's peak performance period starts two hours after you wake up, and lasts until lunch time. So why waste these optimal morning hours on things you could do in your sleep?

The end of the day is also the worst time for doing meaningful work. You've already exhausted your daily energy on an assortment of trivial tasks. So when it's time to chip away at your main project, you'll either drown in complacency completing it or put if off until the next day, repeating a vicious cycle of procrastination.

2) Block the obvious distractions for greater focus.

Your phone buzzes. A new like on Instagram! Did the picture get as many likes on Facebook? You click to open a new tab. The funniest Chevy ad spoof is the first post on your newsfeed. This is must-see content.

20 minutes later, you're reading an article about Mark Zuckerberg running for president when your manager walks by your desk. Which reminds you your blog post is due tomorrow. And all you've written is the meta description.

Does this sound familiar? Well, you're not alone because it happens to everyone. It's also the reason why it takes 23 minutes for people to refocus on their original task after an interruption. Distractions breed more distractions.

So right when you walk into the office, throw your phone in your desk drawer and keep it there all day. Lock it up if you can. And download a site blocker likeBlock Site or StayFocusd to restrict access from all the websites that veer you off the path of productivity.

Even email, which is supposed to streamline the day, sidetracks you. In fact, we spend 20.5 hours of our work week reading and answering emails. That's half of our work week! So if an uptick in unread emails always seems to lure you away from your current task, don't open your Gmail tab in the morning.

Remember, unless it's an absolute emergency, you can respond to anyone's email within a few hours. So designate time blocks for internal communication. This way, you can channel your undivided attention on a major project and slash the time wasted switching from one task to another.

Sophia Bernazzani, a staff writer for HubSpot's Marketing Blog, blocks off time for both email and Slack to maintain her concentration throughout the day.

It's impossible to focus if I have too many incoming notifications. So I commit to only answering emails at the beginning and end of my day, she says. I also set myself as offline on Slack and snooze my notifications to minimize distractions when I'm working and save them for when I'm taking a break between tasks.

3) Take short breaks.

Do you pride yourself on lunch being your only break? Do you believe allocating the rest of your attention on work is the only way to achieve optimal productivity?

Well, according to researchers at the University of Illinois, constantly working without a break actually hampers concentration over time. Taking short breaks throughout the day is what sustains your focus.

"Constant stimulation is registered by our brains as unimportant, to the point that the brain erases it from our awareness," says Alejandro Lieras, the experiment's leader. And if sustained attention to a sensation makes that sensation vanish from our awareness, sustained attention to a thought should also lead to that thought's disappearance from our mind!"

Lieras describes a psychological tendency called habituation. An example of this is putting your shirt on in the morning and noticing the feeling of smooth cloth touching your skin. But after some time, your brain acclimates to the shirt and you won't sense its softness anymore.

The same thing happens with work. Applying nonstop tunnel vision to a project actually withers your attention to it over time.

The brain is wired to recognize and react to change. So take mental breaks to let your brain distance itself from your work. When you return, you'll perceive your current task with a fresher lens and engage more deeply with it.

Alicia Collins, a multimedia content strategist at HubSpot, considers mental rest a pivotal part of the creative process.

Taking short breaks throughout the day is a great way to sort out your priorities and boost your focus. Whenever I'm feeling overwhelmed or stuck on a particular issue, I take some time to eat lunch away from my desk or go for a walk around the block, she says. These simple activities help clear my head and enable me to tackle problems from a new, creative angle.

There are several productivity techniques that leverage short mental breaks, like the pomodoro technique, where you work for 25 minutes and then rest for 5 minutes. A study by the Draugiem Group also discovered that the employees with the highest productivity spent 52 minutes working, followed by 17 minutes of rest.

You can test each method and stick to the one that enhances your focus and productivity the most.

4) Don't stuff yourself at lunch.

I have a love-hate relationship with the food coma. By noon everyday, I'm so starved that I gobble up the most filling meal I can find. It tastes incredible. And after devouring my plate, I love placing my hands on my bloated belly, admiring the fact that I'm full and satisfied.

When it's time to get back to work, though, you'll find me slumped in my chair. My brain feels like it's in a fog. So I just sit there and barely even attempt the easy tasks on my to-do list.

Eating rich meals fulfills your hunger, but it also dulls your mental acuity. Your digestive system expends so much energy digesting all the fat and carbs that it chokes the circulation of oxygen to your brain. This devastates your ability to focus.

One way to resist a daily indulgence is to snack on light, healthy foods throughout the morning. This stabilizes your blood sugar and combats growling-stomach hunger. You'll notice you'll eat less and select healthier options for lunch, allowing you to stay sharp for the rest of the day.

Karla Cook, a HubSpot Marketing Blog editor, usually eats a salad with whole grains and vegan protein for lunch, and avoids anything processed. Her motivation? To be productive in the afternoon, she needs to feel good.

When you eat bad things, you feel bad. It's pretty much instant retribution, she says. Eating a solid, healthy lunch is a super simple way to set the course of your afternoon.

5) Limit Auditory Distractions.

Background noise in the office -- like colleague chatter or the clacking of a keyboard -- can shatter concentration. According to several studies, ambient noise causes stress, which triggers a release of cortisol into your body.

Cortisol is designed to ease that initial stress, so your body can return to homeostasis. But too much cortisol disrupts your prefrontal cortex -- the part of the brain that regulates your ability to plan, reason, and remember things.

These subtle, but potent noises will fracture your focus, so invest in a pair of noise-cancelling headphones or find a quiet space to work.

Aja Frost, a staff writer for HubSpot's Sales Blog, likes to explore every nook and crannie of HubSpot's Cambridge office to find her own quiet spaces.

I look for places that are slightly tucked away, like a booth or a small table. These places are always really quiet -- and free from distraction, she says. When I'm ready for a more social atmosphere, I'll go back to my desk or an area of the office that gets more people randomly walking by.

How do you maintain your focus? Teach us your productivity hacks in the comments below!