As I have been spending more time in the office over the past week, I have had occasion to contemplate my own productivity. I am a productivity/organizational nut. I love figuring out ways to perform my daily tasks more efficiently. Before the arrival of the crackberry I would carry a folded index card in my pocket as my to-do list. Now I am all electronic, but the idea is the same. I love getting things done (GTD).
The thing is: lately I have been so obsessed with streamlining my workflow and decluttering my life that I have actually become less efficient. It’s like I spend an hour brainstorming (or mining the internet) for the best way to do something instead of, you know, actually doing it. Sad. One of these days I will get everything organized “just right”. Then I will be able to get down to business.
Below, you will find two lists – my favorite internet-based time-savers and time-wasters. Welcome to the little OCD world of a public accountant during tax season.
Time-Savers:
1) Remember The Milk. It is my new index card. You can enter tasks, organize them by date or category, set up reminder alerts, and – most importantly – sync them all to your mobile device of choice. Extremely user-friendly, this application makes me feel more productive even if I am not accomplishing anything. Oh – and it’s free!
2) NetVibes / Google Reader. I am on the fence as to which one of these rss/atom feed readers I like the best. Right now I am using NetVibes, but I might go back to Reader – whose interface is a little bare-bones but seems to keep things more up-to-date. With NetVibes you can add all kinds of widgets, not just feeds… but I haven’t found the need for them. Either way, a good reader that puts all the sites I normally visit at my fingertips has become essential. Between my news feeds and my constant NPR softly playing in the background, I can stay mostly on-task and still keep abreast of what is going on in the world (and who is writing on my facebook wall, commenting on my blog, or emailing my personal account).
3) IRS.gov. I am going to let you – my beautiful readers – in on a dirty little secret. When somebody (a client, a friend, anyone) calls me and asks a tax question, I pretty much type my keywords into the Internal Revenue Service’s gnarly little search box. It isn’t the most intuitive index, but if you click around a bit you can pretty much find the answer to any tax code question. For a directory-type interface that ultimately leads to the same places, check out TaxTopics.
4) Lifehacker. The GTD oracle. When searching for new, innovative tips on how to be more productive, this is my jumping-off point. From here, I have discovered such gems as Zen Habits, WebWorkerDaily, and Micro Persuasion.
5) Number five is simply closing the web browser. If the window is open, it is way too tempting to say “I think I’ll just take a few minutes and check out site x.” Better to just block it all out. The best solution would be to turn the computer off altogether, but that’s a bit impractical.
Time-Wasters:
1) StumbleUpon. Oh, come on. This service (especially with the Firefox add-on) was invented to get your ass fired. Clicking the little “stumble” button will take you to a random website based on your likes and dislikes and the recommendations of other StumbleUpon users. Addictive.
2) Curveball! I could play this game for hours. Simple. Calming. Impossible to resist.
3) Bundesdance!!! Look. I can’t explain it, okay? I just can’t stop playing with it.
4) NetVibes / Google Reader. “But, grammaticaster… you listed this as a ‘time-saver’… what gives?!!” You see, theoretically this would be an incredible time saver. Instead of browsing around to different web sites, I can see all updates from in one easily-navigable page. In theory, I should have only those most essential feeds on the front page… but guess what: in practice it has not worked out quite that way. Instead, alongside valuable headlines from Reuters and al.com, I also see live feeds from FailBlog and Paste Magazine. Not productive at all, really.
5) The social internet. Twitter. Facebook. The most recent photos at DeviantART. Friends’ blogs (see sidebar). Plain old e-mail (writing my buddies takes about an hour… I am a finicky self-editor). And last-but-not-least: THIS BLOG RIGHT HERE. It has become an obsession, folks. Thanks for all the encouragement.
