This is something I need. Big time.

I am a procrastinator. Sitting next to me here at work are rebates for a new hard drive and our DSS receivers because I haven't had time here at work to photocopy them (note that I haven't had time to install the hard drive yet, either (sort of like the new, large hard drive I haven't had time to install in my workstation at work, either)). Not too long after I forget about them, they never get copied so I can fill out the rebates and make almost $250.00. Yes, that much.

The thing is, when I was younger I perfected carrying my to-do list around in my head. Unfortunately, I've optimized for that, and now that it overflows constantly, much of it never gets done. (As some would say about geeks, though, most of the items on the list aren't that interesting, so they never come up or get "swapped in" to be acted upon.)

Now, I feel like I never get anything done. That's not strictly true, of course - I do get things done, but not nearly enough. My geek productivity is so low, and I don't feel like I put anything out or get into certain opportunities because of it. Then there's rants like the one I posted just recently where I talk about needing to get some code done, and you get the idea. Something's got to change.

From what I've read about Danny O'Brien's talk, I could learn something from hyper-productive geeks and do the following things:

• Start a to-do file and keep it in plain text. Apparently, the trick is if it's in another format, you're facing the death of the format because they're deprecated or proprietary. Text is a good common denominator.
• Can I do this quickly? Then do it, don't save it. Too often, I have a list filled with very small action items. Why not go ahead and pursue it now? If it's done, I don't have to do it later.
• If I think of something to do, I need to record it quickly. If you aren't going to act on a thought or idea right now, you need to file it within ten seconds, or you never will. File quickly! (Is it better to file too much? I think so. You can always delete ill-considered ideas later.)
• Don't entirely trust your technology to store this stuff. Keep backups, or better, synchronize so that you have lots of copies of it. (I still need to find a good way to do some synchronizing.)
• On the other hand, let technology do things for you. I get a lot more blog reading done since I started using the excellent Feed on Feeds. It enriches my life and allows me to do more with less time, since it does the heavy lifting. Excellent stuff. I can think of many ways where I could use software to fill in these gaps and make things happen.
• Ideas rot. If I'm not going to use an idea, or at least not use it soon, maybe I should write about it. People find the idea, they do something with it. Maybe I can use their code, maybe I can't. Who knows?

Implementation is the problem. I can't really write at Diaryland for these things - after all, it's like work writing there. Also, I can't trust it 'cause it's not my own space.

I carry a 128 meg memory key around with me, but if I don't have a device that can make use of it everywhere then it's a chunk of plastic and metal. The other problem is, of course, it's easily lost.

I have a private Wiki up, but if you're not web-enabled, then it's not convenient. It is available everywhere web-connected, though, and even better, it's versioned. That makes it suitable - I may have to transcribe items from paper.

I have such a desire to be productive again. Maybe I can make a go of this organization thing?

Side note - Mr. O'Brien has a life hacks website is in the works.

restlessmind