A critique of John Cow 7-ways-to-optimize-your-workspace
Today I will critique yet another mind numbing article from Johncow.com. The title of the article is 7 Ways to Optimize Your Workplace (http://www.johncow.com/7-ways-to-optimize-your-workspace/) The advice in this article is so painfully obvious and useless that I had to resist the urge to gouge my eyes while writing this critique.
Why do I write these critiques? Because I judge a blog only by its content, and the best content is inspirational and thought provoking as opposed to content that insults your intelligance. Ninetyfive percent of John Cow’s posts fall into the later category. Also due to its large readership, John Cow makes an easy target since most people are already familar with it.
As a disclaimer, I am not responsible for any involuntary tremors, eye rolling, hand slapping, drolling, convultions, or seizures induced by reading this article. Proceed at your own risk.
My commentary is in the red font.
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7 Ways to Optimize Your WorkspaceHaving an optimized workspace is important to anyone that works on their computer a lot, whether it be on or off-line, an optimized workspace will save you a lot of time, and time is mooney! We’ve had a look at the things we’ve changed around since we started spending more hours behind our iMac to provide the world with bovine inspiration and entertainment. Here’s a list of seven things we came up with that help us in our daily quest for on-line fame and glory. Not all points will be applicable to everyone’s environment, but we’re sure our readers are smart enough to fit these tips into their own workspace:
I’m tingling with excitment. The suspense is killing me. My workplace is hopelessly unoptimized. Pleeeaaase help me John Cow.
1. Make sure everything is in reach - This means not just your mouse, keyboard and coffee, you will also need a pen and paper at times so save yourself the time and energy you’ll need looking for them, just make sure they’re not stuffed away under a pile of books on your desk. If you have business cards, have them in a pile underneath your screen for example. There’s nothing more annoying than to having to look for someone’s details when you suddenly need to contact them - if you’re clever, they’re already stored digitally on your machine anyway! Other things that should be in reach for example are your phone and something cheap to throw against the wall if your Windows PC bluescreens again 
Keep everything in reach? Dammit now you tell me. I got the stapler on one end of the room, and a stack of papers on the other. The hole puncher in the basement and the printer is in the attic. No wonder I can’t get anything done! Thank you so much John Cow.
2. Be prepared - If you’re using a wireless mouse that has no charger, have an extra pack of batteries in your desk draws. A pen can run out of ink - have two. Even though you shouldn’t, loads of us eat and drink at our desks. Having tissues around can be a lifesaver sometimes…to clean up spillage from your coffee and crumbs from your sandwich! Pizza is a different story - just don’t eat pizza at your desk. (blasphemy!)
Two pens? Extra batteries? Whoa now we’re stretching the budget. Speaking of tissues, this article almost makes me want to cry. I have empathy for any reader who endured the same agony and torture reading this article as I have been subjected to. May god have mercy on all the unfortunate souls.
Do myspace friends count? If not, having read this article I have now developed schizophrenia so maybe the voices in my head could suffice as friends. Thanks John Cow for forever altering my sanity. Speaking of plants, John Cow maybe you should hire one as a guest writter. The plant can’t possibly be any more insipid than you.
4. Be plugged in - If you have the opportunity to utilize all your USB ports, make sure thy are fitted with cables you use daily. We for example have our iPod cable plugged in at all times and a usb cable that fits into our Canon Ixus 65 camera and also into our 2,5? 60GB portable harddrive. Besides the cables, we often have our USB stick ready to go.The last time I checked, and I could be wrong, USB devices tend to work best when plugged into a USB port. But you’re the expert.
5. Get comfortable - Your chair is probably the most important thing of your work environment since your ass is parked in there for the best part of the day. Make sure you find a chair that fits you well. Obviously recommended is a chair that can adjust in height, rotates and has arm rests. We’ve taken it a step further and ‘installed’ a electric back. (it’s really just some sort of pillow that goes over the back of your chair) Besides the iMac, this must be one of the best buys we’ve made in 2007. If you’re back feels tense and strained from sitting in that chair the whole day, 20 minutes of massage makes such a difference!
So does that mean I have to return my medieval torture chair? I would buy an Aeon chair, but I think I blew the budget on an exta pen and pack of batteries.
6. Create space - Its great to have two LCD screens to work with, not only can we improve the digital work flow because we don’t have to switch the active windows all the time, it also declutters the entire desk. The old VGA screens just take up way to much space. The space we’ve won with this is now being utilized by the stuff we mentioned in point 1.
Let me get this strait…I need space to work?
7. Create barriers - We’re talking physical barriers. If you’re working, you don’t want to get distracted by everything and everyone. Since our house isn’t that big (ridiculous housing prices here in Dublin!) we’re forced to make our bedroom double as ‘the office’. One of the things we do to shut out the outside world is simply to close the door. We turn our favorite music on at a volume that will drown out any noises that come from outside the office. Once you’ve created an ‘isolated sphere’ most of you will find that these are the times that you really can get into the zone and reach your productivity peak.
Um ever hear of something called headphones? Too bad you can’t create an isolated sphere to house your fatuous ideas and advice John Cow where they can’t do any harm to the public.
Another thing we left out of our office on purpose is am wall clock. Those things are just too distracting for us. Years of work in real offices has made that clock a beacon of hope - we’re all waiting for the mighty 5 o’clock to strike so we can go home! Since we’re not employed by the man anymore, we don’t have to answer to anyone. (Besides the landlord and credit card company once a month
After reading this final tidbit I was beginning to wonder if perhaps John Cow wasn’t serious and was trying to be satrical, to give him the benefit of the doubt. However, John Cow has a histroy of publishing these contentless, trite articles and his readers take him seriously.
Some readers attest that johncow.com is intended to be a parody of the more popular Johnchow.com, but John Cow comes accross as being dead serious in this article. I didn’t detect any satire or parody whatsoever. This was a lazy, indolent effort by JOhn Cow to thow a bone at his readers by offering ‘useful’ advice, but his effort came across as half-assed and asinine.
More critiques:
John Cow: You Have Nothing To Loose
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3 Responses to “A critique of John Cow 7-ways-to-optimize-your-workspace”
Comment from SlightlyShadySEO
Time December 12, 2007 at 4:01 am
I loathe John Chow apparently as much as you.
And I love that this post entered existance.
The one point I’d like to add though, is that I doubt those tissue were using for mopping up *food* spills…
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Pingback from Best Jokes For You! » A critique of John Cow 7-ways-to-optimize-your-workspace
Time December 10, 2007 at 9:45 pm
[...] Administrator placed an interesting blog post on A critique of John Cow 7-ways-to-optimize-your-workspaceHere’s a brief overviewObviously you can’t have a ‘real’ friend in there because you’d probably end up wasting time with fun and jokes. We’ve bought a nice plant that sits on the desk. It might not talk and tell jokes, but it is a living thing and for some … [...]