Clearly, not Getting anyThing Done

Last day of classes for my third fucking whole semester of college! I have a ten page paper, a 5 page paper, and two major exams. And yet, I am not working on those. I am not cleaning my filthy, filthy room. I am blogging! Woot!

Today's topic is: productivity. (ha!)

I am an avid reader of lifehacker, for no particular reason. It's not that useful to me--a lot of DYI stuff I can't use, a lot of windows stuff I can't use, a lot of grown-up stuff I can't use. But clearly, it has taugt me a lot. Under the tutelage of this website I occasionally read, I have implemented a whole mess of tools that admittedly make my life easier, though I use that ease for less-than-productive means. Here are some things that changed my life:

• Quicksilver: This mofo is so useful that I keep a copy on a flash drive and install it on every single lab computer I visit, which is a lot, as I work in the labs and try to procrastinate less by going to the labs. I don't even know why I love it so much. I just... I mean, google it. there's some eloquent lovefests out there.OS X only, suckas


• Google Calendar: Look, everyone on the planet could use a calendar system, because it's useful to see chunks of time laid out like that, and it's a place to write down things like "review session" and "doctor's appointment" and "class." Google's is the prettiest. Also: synced with Quicksilver. God, computers are cool.


• Firefox: The thing has extensions! You can basically customize it to your every whim! I mean, what more do you need in teh internets?
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• Ta-da Lists: Free online todolists in the hizzy. Here is example of my current todo list. Also, I have been using the associated Dashboard Widget. That part is OS X Only, suckas, but the rest is internetz.


• The concept of "Getting Things Done": So, GTD is one of those guru-esque self-help books that spawns a marketing empire, but the concept is simple and easy to find on free websites like 43 Folders: Categorize stuff. Make folders for your e-mail, one for things to work on soon, one for things you'll need way in the future, and one for things to work on somewhere between those times (and then, anything immediate, you do and then delete). Break up tasks into lots of smaller tasks, and then treat the next tiny task as a "next action" and do it, well, next. Keep a physical "inbox" of papers to which you need to see. It all makes a lot of sense. The internet has like five bug-gillion tools and AppleScripts and freeware and shareware and tips and tricks and egg-timers, but each person can sort of implement their own system. Which, I guess, is what I'm doing.

That's probably not the only things I use, but that encompasses pretty much everything I've used today (including the egg-timer). Now, I can totally check off "blog this list," and then I think I'll do a time-based dash and clean as much of my floor as I can before 9:00. Maybe I'll even find my missing glove!