In parallel with developing this new writing methodology, I started to notice new patterns in myself that I did not like. I was becoming much more easily distractable. I found it harder to concentrate on any given task, and it felt like my productivity was going down. I began to have days that would end and I would scratch my head and wonder, what did I do all day?

To reiterate: to gain all the benefits of switching to a Git-based editorial process, my team would have to switch to a plain text format. We were now going right back to where Professor Provine had pointed me.

My blindness to the difference between creating at the keyboard and formatting a document came from all the business writing I was doing. In 1997, I’d made a career change from server administration to software development. I’d begun coding, first on Lotus Notes platforms, and then on Java. By the turn of the century I’d switched jobs and was lead developer at a Fortune 500 company. One of my first assignments was writing an RFP, or Request for Proposal.