It was five years ago today that I started my adventure as an independent lawyer. It’s hard to believe this milestone is already here because, in so many ways, it feels like I was packing up my old office was just yesterday. Nevertheless, here I am.

I have learned a lot over the last five years and my life these days is entirely different than it was when I started this journey.

During these five years, my legal income has gone down as I’ve scaled back trial work in favor of helping clients with transactional work. The work I do now feels like I’m accomplishing more for clients, but I make less money. I often tell clients that going to trial is like setting a bonfire of $100 bills. They think I’m kidding, but I’m not. Despite the financial hit, I feel better about being a lawyer now than I have in a long time. I could continue doing this for the duration.

On the MacSparky side, these five years have let me grow the Field Guides into something so much better. They also make me more money now, so that balances a bit of the pain on the legal side. I also have had time to keep up production values on the Mac Power Users and add two new podcasts, Automators and Focused.

On the personal side, I’ve been able to be there for my family so much more now. I have many great memories with my wife and kids since going independent. Overall, the leap, for me, was worth it.

I think the most significant change in my life over this time is the fundamental difference in my heart’s desire. In the years leading up to my big move, I knew I needed to change my life, even though I wasn’t exactly sure how that would work. Almost immediately after making all these changes, I realized that the struggle was no longer to get to the next thing but instead keep the current thing going. Somehow, through a combination of hard work, good fortune, supportive friends and family, and dumb luck, I feel like I’ve landed exactly where I belong. This struck home recently when I was filling in security questions while signing a new online account, and it asked, “What is your dream job?” The answer that immediately occurred to me was, “My current one.”

Thank you to all the readers, listeners, and Field Guide customers that have stuck with me and supported my family and me on this journey.

Ming-Chi Kuo, who is an excellent source on future Apple hardware,believes Apple will release ARM-based Macs in 2021. There are so many smoke-signals from Cupertino indicating that it is only a question of time before we ARM Macs. Just a few:

1. Apple seems to have permanently dropped the “We Love Intel” segment from its Keynotes.

2. The ARM-based chips are increasingly powerful. They benchmark against the MacBook Pro with comparable results. (Although that doesn’t mean they can drive the MacBook Pro.

3. It just seems so un-Apple for them to buy chips from Intel when they make their own.

If we do get ARM Macs in the future, I’ll be super curious to see how it plays out? Will it just be a MacBook Air thing, or will it be across the line? Will they give developers plenty of notice, as they’ve done with past chip transitions, or will it just show up one day? If I had to bet on it, I’d say they will give advance notice (but not as much as in years past) and it will start just on the MacBook Air (or a new ultralight laptop). While it may not be a machine to do heavy work on, I imagine an ARM Mac would have crazy good battery life.z

That’s all you get. Every week you have 168 hours to spend. It’s like currency, but much more valuable and you can’t put it in the bank. We all get the same allotment, whether we are rich or poor, and every week we start over again, with another 168 hours.

I recently received a cranky email from a reader about my practice of hyper-scheduling (1) (2) (3). I understand that scheduling appointments for myself to work on my priority work can be odd. Still, the reason I continue to do it almost every day is all about the intentional use of those precious 168 hours. When I hyper-schedule, I use those hours intentionally. When I don’t hyper-schedule, I use that time un-intentionally. This is the one factor that changes my happiness and stress levels the most. This is how I move the needle. When I fall off the wagon, I feel it. This week I’ve blocked time for Field Guide production, writing, podcasting, and client work. I’ve also blocked time for family, friends, and watching the new Clone Wars episode on Friday. I’ve even blocked time for a puppy. The point is, I’ve planned out my 168 hours intentionally. Once you’ve done that, other distractions and time-sucks are so much less tempting. We all get just 168 hours a week. Use them wisely.

This week, in addition to having TextExpander as a sponsor, I’m doing a free seminar on TextExpander. There is still some space so if you’re interested go sign up. The seminar will be Thursday at 10 AM Pacific and I’ll talk about some of my favorite power tips for TextExpander. See you there.

Microsoft is now getting into the anti-virus business for the Mac. While I’ve run virus software on Windows PCs in the past, I’ve never run it on the Mac. Every time this question comes up, I get emails asking for advice. Notably, Windows switchers often feel like they are doing something wrong if they don’t have virus software, so I can see why Microsoft could see former Windows users wanting to bring familiar virus software to their Macs.

Everyone has to make their own decisions, but I can tell you that when I was running anti-virus software on a Windows PC, it was maddening. It almost felt like the virus software became a sort-of virus all on its own. Everyone has to make their own decisions on this, but I don’t see myself installing Microsoft anti-virus software on my Mac any time soon.