John August

Random Advice

Backpacking through Africa

Africa, Random Advice

questionmarkMy wife and I are about to embark on a year-long backpacking trip around the world. If time and money allow, we’d love to explore parts of Africa. Unfortunately, mostly due to our own ignorance, we’re trying to overcome a healthy dose of fear and trepidation.

You’ve been to some parts of Africa, haven’t you? Is there anywhere you’d suggest that’s easy and safe for independent tourists?

-A.

random adviceI’ve only been to South Africa and Malawi.

The South African leg of the trip was a safari. It was incredible, but it’s very much a tourist thing. It should be part of your visit to the continent, but it wouldn’t be reflective of most of your time in Africa.

In Malawi, I was working with a charity called [FOMO](http://www.fomo.co.uk), which serves 5,000 orphans in one of the poorest places on Earth. It was probably the most intense experience of my life. I’ve written about it a [few](http://johnaugust.com/archives/2007/home-from-africa) [times](http://www.advocate.com/Arts_and_Entertainment/People/Out_of_Africa/), but 30 seconds can give you some taste of it:

I wasn’t backpacking, but I met Americans and Europeans who were. Track down some books and blogs and follow their advice on where to go and what to avoid. Nothing is “easy,” but much of it is very safe.

A few hints I can offer:

* Read up, but try not to form expectations. Let it be what it is.
* Start getting your shots early. Many of them need weeks to take effect.
* Everyone has different experiences with anti-malaria medication. Most visitors take it, most natives don’t. You’ll be okay either way.
* Bring a first aid kit. It can be hard to find a Band-Aid, much less 911.
* A small inflatable globe can help show where you’re from.
* If your cell phone works in Europe, it will work most places in Africa.
* Hooking up with a charity (like FOMO) is a good way to meet people beyond normal tourist avenues.

Most importantly, don’t let fear of the unknown stop you from visiting. It’s not Mars. A billion people live there, and you owe it to yourself to see what it’s like.

Should she take anxiety medication?

Psych 101, Random Advice

questionmarkI was recently prescribed an anti-anxiety medication, but it’s just sitting there on my desk, untouched. My concern is that it will affect my ability to work — I am a writer, in a Graduate program, coming to the end of the second semester of my second year (of three). Now is absolutely not the time to be inhibited in any way.

On the other hand, I was prescribed it for a reason, advised to take it on an “as-needed, it’s-up-to-you” basis. But I was also advised that the medication could cause drowsiness, an inability to focus, etc. So what would you do?

Say you had to have a second draft of a new screenplay, a first draft of an original TV pilot, a spec script for another TV show, 2 short scripts and a 20-page essay due for… an entertainment magazine (yes, this is an accurate reflection of what I need to finish in the next… 20 days or so), would you take a chance and pop a pill? Or power through and hope the stress does not overwhelm you?

— Jenny
New York

random adviceFollow the directions on the label: take it when you need it.

I’m not a doctor or pharmacist, but unless they told you otherwise, you don’t need to take it prophylactically, the way you take medication for depression or other conditions. If at this very moment you are spinning with anxiety that needs to be shot down, take the pill. Maybe it will help. Maybe it won’t.

My only experience with anxiety medication is Xanax. I take it so I can sleep on international plane flights. ((Yes, for sleeping on planes there are other medications I could take that are strictly sleep-related. But Xanax works and doesn’t make me freak out, binge eat or forget the past few hours. So I’m sticking with it.)) A writer/producer I worked with years ago took it much more casually, half a Xanax with a glass of wine at lunch.

It made him calm, which made my life less stressful. But his productivity was functionally nil.

Anxiety medication isn’t going to help you write. It may help keep you from running full speed off a cliff of panic.

More than any pill, you need some serious work intervention. There is no way you’re going to write all of those projects, so you’re better off dropping a few now rather than waiting for missed deadlines to drop them for you.

Aim for smaller victories to avoid bigger defeats.

Write the thing for which you’re being paid. If that’s the magazine piece, buckle down and get it done way ahead of schedule. Then take half a day, see a movie, and get started on the next most important project.

In a graduate school writing program, your grades don’t matter at all. So disabuse yourself of all valedictorian fantasies, or the desire to make your professors happy. You’re much better off leaving with two great scripts than eight decent ones. Don’t waste time writing things you don’t believe in.

Play this smart, and you may never need to open that bottle. But if you do, don’t beat yourself up over it.

Our brains are wired for a completely different existence, one with lions and bears trying to eat us. Your neurochemistry treats a spec pilot like a predator. It may need some help sorting itself out.

What’s the big deal with fonts?

Random Advice

questionmarkWhenever “you people” go off about fonts, I feel like someone’s AM-radio-loving grandpa trying to read SPIN magazine.

Can you tell me why some fonts are considered beautiful, others ugly? By what standards are they typically judged? Why do people hate Comic Sans and Arial?

— Mike
Toronto, Canada?

random adviceEasy answers first. Arial is widely condemned as a [bastardization of Helvetica](http://www.flickr.com/photos/ajkandy/2554128047/), a typeface so beloved you can watch a [whole movie about it](http://www.netflix.com/Movie/Helvetica/70076125).

Comic Sans, like Zapf Chancery before it, enabled ordinary people to make extraordinarily ugly signs and newsletters by using it inappropriately. That’s why designers hate it. ((To be fair, if you read the backstory of Comic Sans, you’ll see it was created for a specific purpose, then went viral.))

Typefaces are a lot like clothing.

You need clothes to protect you from the sun and cold, and to keep people from staring at genitalia all day long. You need typefaces so people can read written works and signage.

There are important functional aspects to designing and choosing type, and good arguments to be made for why certain faces are appropriate in certain circumstances. You wouldn’t want to read a novel in Highway Gothic. You wouldn’t want street signs painted in New Century Schoolbook.

But beyond the extreme cases, typography is largely fashion. And you’re always welcome to not care about fashion.

Getting things done

Random Advice

questionmarkHow do you handle task management? I feel like every six weeks I try a new system and none of them seem to stick. Email reminders, iCal To Dos, “Things” for iPhone/iPad. I even tried index cards on a spare bulletin board.

Do you have a system you like and have stuck with?

— Jack
Atlanta

random adviceI use [Things](http://culturedcode.com/things/) for the Mac, iPhone and iPad.

I like it, but I share everyone’s standard complaint about it: your various devices should sync through the cloud, not just on local wi-fi.

Before Things, I was using a pretty standard [GTD/Moleskine](http://patrickrhone.com/2008/05/07/dashplus-in-action/) dash-plus setup. It worked reasonably well for me, but I didn’t like carrying around the extra notebook when I already had my iPhone. Plus, I’m at my desktop computer 80% of the time, so the ability to generate linked items with a quick keystoke pushed me over to Things.

Any system is only as good as the person using it. Task management thrives on small, quickly accomplished items. Learning how to break big jobs into little ones is a pretty crucial skill.

While I don’t go to nearly the OCD levels of many of his followers, I think David Allen’s Getting Things Done is a good primer for anyone.