RescueTime: Time sink or savior
Posted by Jered | Filed under Choice, Craphack
I stumbled upon Rescue Time, an app that lives on your computer and continually monitors what you do. This monitoring is sent back to a Web site where you can see how much time you spent on a given task, say, filling out that TPS report or surfing Wikipedia.
Rescue Time allows you to rate each activity you do on a scale from -2 to +2, setting how productive each task is. Surfing wikipedia is a -2 in my book, checking my email (as little as I might) is a +2. Rescue Time records only the “active” application, meaning if you have multiple applications open, it will not add time for each application open, only the one you are working on.
This productivity tallying is shown off in pretty charts and graphs allow you to see over time what you are spending wasting time on. But this comes with a price.
Having Rescue Time installed at work and at home really makes giving each Web site I visit a score difficult. The scores are needed in order to show your Efficiency and Productivity quotients. But the time it takes to classify, tag and score each Web site I visit, could be enormous.
So does Rescue Time define the term craphack?
Yes and no, if you plan on living and dying by Rescue Time, you are most certainly going to become tied up in the management, but if you use it as a background tool, checking in occasionally, noticing how much time you have spent on digg or wikipedia, it may be a refresh to get back to work.
Tags: Craphack, measure, measurement, rescue time, time, tracking
Lifehack.org: Are You Lifehacking Too Much?
Posted by Michael | Filed under Craphack, GTD
Interesting article over on Lifehack today linking to Nick Cernis’s of Put Things Off blog. Here we ask ourselves: Is productivity, or at least the concept if not the practice, really and truly “dead”? Is calling it dead a bit drastic? Or are we simply moving into another way of thinking about what it means to be “productive”? Or, are we realizing that the pursuit of productivity really is something we fool ourselves into believing — as a cult-like pursuit of salvation — that being more productive should be the end all, be all of our existence? Are we perhaps missing out on something larger, those of us with a myopic focus on achieving productivity Zen?
“[lifehack.org] He said that “our obsession with ‘productivity’ is getting in the way of our lives.” Nick started out by saying that the productivity industry is out of control, and that it’s making us less efficient, not more. I agree with Nick, and I can tell you why the productivity industry is like that: it’s about making money. more…
[putthingsoff.com] At the end of 2007, I stopped almost all the beeps in my life. I sold the PDA that had been bipping away at me, dutifully organising my days. Instead, I picked up a pencil and paper. So far, 2008 has been my most productive year ever. I went further too. I’ve given up on GTD and trying to bend my life to fit a complex blueprint. I stopped actively seeking online offerings titled 13 Even More Productive Ways to Wash Your Socks That Will Blow Your Mind. I realised far too late that the productivity industry has become a techno-spiritualist movement. People are now using productivity ’systems’, software and small beeping devices just because almost everybody else is. more…
Your thoughts?
Tags: GTD, Lifehack, productivity
Lifehacker: How to Ditch Dedicated GTD Apps
Posted by Michael | Filed under Craphack, GTD
As Jered and I talked about in our first podcast episode, many of us tend to look for new and “better” ways to make our lives simpler. Unfortunately, by doing so we only add yet-another layer of management to our work, thus defeating the point. We called these “craphacks.”
I came across this post over on Lifehacker that brought our point home.
[Lifehacker.com] Mac user Dennis Best says that using David Allen’s Getting Things Done productivity system on your Mac doesn’t mean you need to find the ultimate GTD application—that the tools you already have in Mail.app, iCal and Finder get the job done fine….Not to be all finger-waggy, but ultimately it’s up to you, not your software, to work the system. [more...]
Read Dennis Best’s extensive original posting on his blog here:
Getting things done (simply) in Leopard: The best Mac GTD app might be right under your nose
Although Best’s post addresses apps on Mac OS X, the same principle applies for any OS, or any technology that promises to increase your productivity.
[dennisbest.org] GTD’ers like myself are jumping from app to app looking for the right fit. (How productive is that?) The fact that none of them fit probably says more about my shortcomings than the talents of the developers. Fact is, I’m lazy when it comes to using this stuff and fall off the wagon quickly. [more...]
Best makes an excellent point that following the GTD habit (and other methods for that matter) tempts us to be on constant watch for the next best thing, which really goes against the whole idea of GTD as it is outlined by David Allen. Also, we can’t blame the developers; we only have our mistake of not doing the deep self-reflection necessary in order to adopt the right productivity tools for us as individuals, not the newest that “everyone” is talking about (or selling).
Finally, no tool will ever prevent us from being Human. Sometimes we do fall back on old habits, and we have to be okay with that every now and then. Truly following GTD (or another good method) provides the means to get back on track. Nevertheless, those of us who are “productivity tool addicts” tend to look for the next perfect tool to help get us back onto the proverbial wagon. I’ll go so far as to liken it to allowing an drug addict to relapse, then allowing him/her to try out some new drugs off the street before getting back into rehab. It just doesn’t make sense, but we still do it anyway.
Tags: GTD, Lifehacker, productivity, workflow
Craphacks and the paradox of choice
Posted by Michael | Filed under Choice, Craphack
On the looooong drive to work this morning I was contemplating ways to filter out the craphacks” or the lifehacks that make grand promises of greater efficiency and productivity, but in the end are (sometimes exceedingly complex) practices that add yet another layer of management into our already complicated lives.
Unfortunately, this process of filtering isn’t easy. I contend that, in part, we are asking ourselves the wrong question. Most of us begin our search for simplicity by asking ourselves “Which lifehacks are right for me?” and quickly find ourselves drowning in the flood that quickly ensues.
Enter Barry Schwartz’s idea of “the paradox of choice
While growing up, I was troubled by the question of what I wanted to do with my life. Along the way, my Parents told me that it’s often easier to decide what I DON”T want to do, and in so doing, to narrow the field of options to something more manageable. This process also requires a deep understanding about myself, something that I am still figuring out.
In turn, couldn’t this same practice apply to filtering truly useful lifehacks from the sea of craphacks? What simple techniques and questions can we ask ourselves to systematically narrow the field of lifehack options based on what we know about ourselves?
