Productivity | Grammaticaster

Chained To The Desk (And Loving It)

by doug | February 26th, 2009 @ 9:51 pm

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.

Resolution #2009

by doug | January 5th, 2009 @ 7:20 pm

The gifts just keep coming. It was back to the office today after a nearly two-week break. And yeah, it always sucks going back to work. But I was greeted by three year-end checks (a Christmas bonus and unused sick leave pay in addition to my normal paycheck) and a brand-spanking new Dell desktop computer, complete with widescreen flat-panel monitor. Goodbye cheerless beige monstrosity from 1995, hello sleek black professional office accessory. I have so much desk space now. I spent all day setting up all my software and configuring everything to my liking. It is so nice. It is so fast. Happy New Year to me.

It is going to be an immense aid in keeping a couple of my work-related New Year’s resolutions, which include such classics as “be more assertive and confident in your own knowledge” and “be more efficient; less procrastinating; Mr. Productivity” and so forth. I have also resolved to be at the office 5 minutes early every day. Living a mere 7 minutes away from work has led to my habit of being right on time, which I would ordinarily trumpet as indicative of my punctuality. But when the rest of the guys are always in the office before I am, it just plain looks bad. Plus, since we all have the door locked behind us at 4:30 every day, I cannot score my points by staying late.

On the personal side of things, the resolutions are all about getting back into shape. I was doing well last year until we faced the Great Pork Chop Poisoning of 2008. I never got back in the exercise routine after that knocked me out of it. Now I’m rocking the love-handles something fierce. This year will be different (I probably said the exact same thing every January prior to this one, of course). I intend to do pushups and crunches in the mornings – every morning – before work, and then run or hit the elliptical machine at the Y every other afternoon. The afternoons off will be reserved for housework.

That ought to carry me through to about 6 PM, since I can usually make it to the house or to the gym by 4:45. An hour’s workout or an hour devoted to keeping stuff organized around here, and then I have the rest of the night to myself. That will be spent reading a lot more books, alternating between posting here or on my photoblog, and canoodling with the wife. Add to that regimen some healthier eating habits (more salads, smaller portions, less gummy bears) and I ought to have an easy-to-stick-to personal and professional success plan for this new year.

I kickstarted the exercising tonight, in fact – by taking a 2-mile jog in the pouring January rain. It is always interesting to see how far I can push myself. Hitting the wall is always exhilarating, and tonight was no different. It was miserable out there. Every street I crossed I was tempted to just say “screw it” and head back to the house. Pushing on past those little shortcuts felt really good, even though I was cold and drenched to the bone. By the time I crested the last hill, I wanted to keep going. It’s really all about making myself start these things. Once I’m in the groove, it isn’t that difficult.

So, here’s to a new set of resolutions. Keep an eye out for my photos in the coming weeks – I took about a thousand while we were out at the lake over the holidays.

Grammaticaster

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Chained To The Desk (And Loving It)

Resolution #2009