What Happened to 43Folders.com? | Ask Metafilter

MeFi user, Gerard Sorme, asked a good question over on Ask Metafilter:

Merlin Mann has been a prolific blogger, and one of the better productivity bloggers, at 43folders.com. Yet, he’s disappeared! 43Folders last post was on September 25th. This is an eternity for this blog - and for Merlin. He had some other projects, but I can’t find a record of his presence anywhere online since late September.

Heh. I don’t think I’m that hard to find online, but I was happy to respond to Gerard as to why I haven’t posted anything new here in a while:

I’m still here. All’s well. Just figuring out where I want to go with the site as I also work on lots of other stuff and do a bunch of speaking and consulting work.

Definitely interested in the direction I’d been talking about, but I’m taking my time to decide what that might look like over time — deliberately avoiding the impulse to “post something” just to — y’know — post something.

Probably coming back soon, slow at first, and I’ll be looking less at the productivity meta-process stuff the site’s (in)famous for, trying to focus more on the demonstrated practical habits that help pathologically creative people become capable of doing what they do on a year-after-year basis. That’s the idea anyhow. We’ll see.

Sorry to cause concern, and I very much appreciate knowing somebody cares. Still here, just quiet on that front for now.

If you’ve been wondering where the new posts are, that’s the whole story, right there. I’m still here, but I’m just not here quite yet. But, I expect to be. Soon, probably. (Maybe next week or so?)

The recovering blogger part of me gets antsy when I see how long it’s been since I’ve written something new for this space, but, candidly, that’s one of the many reasons I hope folks will join me in starting to see 43 Folders as something other than “a blog,” in the typical sense of the word. (I suppose that’s easy enough if it’s never updated, amirite? High five!)

Thing is, in addition to my doing lots of speaking work, this has turned into something of a rebuilding quarter for me. So, I’m doing a lot of things in other parts of my life that wouldn’t be appropriate for the front page of this site.

Putting ducks in rows. Reading. Setting up my first office. Helping family and friends. Signing lots of forms. Writing large checks. Learning how adults run an actual business. Reading some more. Staring and thinking. Watching my daughter learn to walk while talking to a saltine. And, one of my favorite new skills: learning to evaluate (then mostly ignore) any impulse that presses me to publish something here before my brain’s done thinking about it. In my opinion, that’s a luxury I must figure out how to afford for the rest of my life.

Anyhow. I’ll be back very soon. But, in the mean time, there’s always:

• Kung Fu Grippe
  • Where 43f fans should enjoy yesterday’s Twyla Tharp video
• You Look Nice Today
  • Which, if I may say, has been burning lately.
• the Twitter
  • Yeah, I caved. I’m back.

I know there are lots of words that you can read out there every morning, so, on those future mornings when I have a few new words to share with you, I hope you’ll find them worthy of the wait. No promises. But, in any case, thanks for asking. And thanks, as ever, for the time and attention. See you sooner than later.