As a writer, I’ve always concerned myself with different methods of writing, in the hopes of coaxing out enough words to fill an empty page. And as a writer, I’ve also learned to utilise somewhat irrelevant analogies to drive my points home.

Today, I’ve gathered two such irrelevant theories that I wish to explore further with you: Murphy’s Law and the Affordance Theory. The former states that whatever can go wrong, will go wrong. The latter describes how a certain environment or form factor can shape an individual’s actions.

In my mind, they’re both intertwined, because think about it—if you’re currently reading this post when you should actually be working (nice choice of reading material, by the way), then you should blame your laptop or phone because their designs invite procrastination. And if we’re expected to work on said devices, doesn’t Murphy’s Law simply dictate that we’ll never get any work done?

This is the exact reason why I’ve given every writing device a go. Because it was never my fault that I’ve never stuck to deadlines. It was the darned devices. To write is to create, and you can’t create when you’re trying to consume, right?

I’ve written on laptops, desktops, paper, and even on a Blackberry. I took to using Vim because George R.R. Martin wrote on an equally old word processor, and I found it romantic. I bought an iPad just because I thought it would help me mono-task better. Spoiler alert: none of them improved my writing output.

It may seem like a silly pursuit, to buy useless gear just so I could write more. But one cannot deny the effectiveness of affordance. Because just like how a chair invites sitting, and a how ‘Do Not Litter’ (in Malaysia) invites littering, so too will a specialist device invite more of what it was meant to do.

I guess that is the reason why the analogue movement and the use of single-use items have gained traction in recent years. Because a dedicated MP3 player would give you the luxury of just sitting down and listening to music, without the temptation to scroll in between tracks. After all, how long has it been since you did the task you were supposed to do, without juggling a phone in the background? When was the last time you could watch a movie without being blasted in the face by someone else's phone backlight?

Anyway, this is my roundabout way of telling you that I had the clarity to write this piece only because I left my laptop at the office. And perhaps, just like how George R.R. Martin wrote best on his ancient desktop, we too can learn to build the exact affordances we need to be the best person we can be.