I’ve been using RescueTime for a while now, and while it hasn’t really improved my productivity, that’s mostly because I’m actually really productive already. And I can prove it thanks to RescueTime.
RescueTime is an software application you install on your computer that tracks the active application and logs that information so you can view it in their web app. You then rate the applications on how productive you are when using them. For example, when I’m using my IDE, I’m clearly being productive. Same when I’m using putty. Not so much when I’m using iTunes.
RescueTime gives you nice little graphs (one of which you can see above) on a daily and weekly basis, and you can also view your productivity by category. They also let you compare to the average of everyone who uses RescueTime and give you a rank based on your percentile.
When I first installed it, I was kind of obsessed with checking and categorizing and scoring everything and trying to get my productivity score as high as possible. When I get busy, I can drop to just checking weekly when it sends me a report via email, and I don’t even really notice it running in the background. When I’m not as overwhelmed, it’s a fun little game to play, and a small little reminder in the system tray to check what application you’re using and how that’s going to affect your productivity score. It’s also a good way to effortlessly track and log your productivity/application usage, which is especially good for people like me who love tracking productivity/output but either spend too much time time tracking stuff in spreadsheets, or go to the other extreme and just give up on tracking completely.
Here is the entire quote, which I had to cut down for Twitter:
Enlightenment is always there. Small enlightenment will bring great enlightenment. If you breathe in and are aware that you are alive – that you can touch the miracle of being alive – then that is a kind of enlightenment. Many people are alive but don’t touch the miracle of being alive.
I’m not being sarcastic when I say that I like how he makes enlightenment attainable for anyone. Small enlightenment, at the least, but as they say, it’s the journey that matters, not the destination.
Another quick block quote:
With mindfulness, you can establish yourself in the present in order to touch the wonders of life that are available in that moment. It is possible to live happily in the here and the now. So many conditions of happiness are available—more than enough for you to be happy right now. You don’t have to run into the future in order to get more.
I first studied Buddhism from a book on Zen which made the difference between Buddhist and non-Buddhist much more stark. I was still a fan of meditation (though I stopped after a short time because I was only about 15 at the time). I have seen other interpretations since which include the more “spectrumized” approach, and I think that’s important because there are certainly aspects of the practice (like those mentioned above) which are useful to anyone – not just those who intend to become full-on Buddhists.
Mindfulness and appreciation for life are simple things that can be achieved no matter what the economy does. While we all have difficult times, there are always simple moments of peacefulness to be found. You just have to pay attention.
Here is a bit more of an explanation by way of an exercise you can try with only a cup of tea:
Suppose you are drinking a cup of tea. When you hold your cup, you may like to breathe in, to bring your mind back to your body, and you become fully present. And when you are truly there, something else is also there—life, represented by the cup of tea. In that moment you are real, and the cup of tea is real. You are not lost in the past, in the future, in your projects, in your worries. You are free from all of these afflictions. And in that state of being free, you enjoy your tea. That is the moment of happiness, and of peace. When you brush your teeth, you may have just two minutes, but according to this practice, it is possible to produce freedom and joy during that time, because you are established in the here and now. If you are capable of brushing your teeth in mindfulness, then you will be able to enjoy the time when you take a shower, cook your breakfast, sip your tea.
Since I’m a big Getting Things Done fan, let’s look at a question Oprah asked and how GTD can help us to be more mindful:
Oprah: What if my bills need to be paid? I’m walking, but I’m thinking about the bills.
Nhat Hanh: There is a time for everything. There is a time when I sit down, I concentrate myself on the problem of my bills, but I would not worry before that. One thing at a time. We practice mindful walking in order to heal ourselves, because walking like that really relieves our worries, the pressure, the tension in our body and in our mind.
GTD steps in here to help you out because you put “Pay Bills” on one of your action lists (perhaps @Desk or @Bills – or if you do everything online like you should to conserve paper: @Computer or @Online). When you have it on an action list, you don’t need to think about it any more. This allows you to think about something else instead. Of course, that something could be work, family, or an infinite number of other things, but theoretically, when you’ve got everything down, your mind should be completely clear, allowing you to only think about walking and being in the moment of walking.
So, now stop, and think: You are reading this blog post. How are you seated? Where are your hands? What is taking your mind off of reading this post?
Small enlightenment will bring great enlightenment.
While it wasn’t one of the major factors I talked about in my previous post, the following is a quick and easy example of another reason that webapps kick ass: No Upgrade Cycle
Google launched Buzz 2 days ago, and already their making changes based on user feedback. But the best part is not that they’re making changes and responding so quickly, rather it’s that the update gets automatically pushed to everyone. No download. No install. Just, roll out, and boom, it’s there.
I declare that emphatically because I want it to be so. I’m sure I’m not the only code monkey out there praying that “write once, run anywhere” doesn’t leave us like ###… Even now web developers have to test across at least 3 different browsers,* but at least things are trending towards standardization and it’s becoming easier to create a web app that will behave the same independent of a user’s choice of browser.
Smartphones pose a serious threat to that ubiquity in the same way that the differences between Windows, Mac OS, and Linux made developing desktop apps an elephant-sized pain in the ass. Web developers have long wished and advocated for browsers that run everything the same way. While that is probably never going to happen, the difference between developing for IE, Firefox, Chrome, Safari, and Opera is much (much much) smaller than the difference between developing for Windows, Mac, and Linux.
That reason is Portability. That is: I can run a web app from anywhere on anyone’s computer (or phone) as long as I’ve got internet access. So, while a client like Outlook or Thunderbird offers a slightly faster response time and some extra features, if you use one of those and don’t use a web-app version in addition to the desktop client, you suddenly sound like someone who doesn’t really know how the internet even works (do you really want to be the person who says: “I have to check my email on my home computer”?)
And for the second part of the equation: Usability – the gap between web app and desktop app is getting smaller every day. Web developers continue to push the limits of what web-based applications can do with respect to speed and user interfaces. Sure, web apps (even the good ones) are slow compared to native apps when they’re running on a (relatively) slow phone with a (relatively) slow 3G internet connection. But the speed of the phones and the connections is improving even faster than the speed of the apps themselves.
So, now take the difference in Portability (we’ll say this difference is a fairly large positive in favor of web apps) and add the difference in Usability (we’ll say this is slightly negative with respect to web apps) and then add in the fact that you can write a web app in one language and have it run on every single phone and computer with internet access and see if you don’t come out with a conclusion that says: HTML is the Future.
The first is the key to the door, and it’s easy to insert and unlock: Hustle. Simple as that.
If you want to do something: do something. If want want to make progress towards a goal: do something. If you want to learn something (like Matt Nowack in the post): do something. Just keep doing something (hustling) and you will get things done.
So that pretty much covers that. Except, it also leads into the second post, which is: the reason you have to keep hustling. (more…)
While I agree for the most part with the “Tumblr > Twitter” sentiment, well, that’s kind of obvious. Twitter is definitely good for some things (mostly sharing short fleeting thoughts, but also sometimes for sharing links, and conversing with people who use Twitter as their main form of communication). I did not see “being a blog” in that list, though. And as Commenter #1 points out, you can view Twitter updates on your Tumblr dashboard while posting slightly longer commentaries on Tumblr. Of course, Commenter #1 also makes the fatal mistake of saying that he (or she) wishes they knew HTML. (more…)
On the same day when TechCrunch delivered this piece on the Internet as Robin Hood, I also realized how irrelevant “old media” and/or “the establishment” has become to me personally. What brought me to this realization before I even looked at the TechCrunch article?
Vajazzle
I am going to say with all honesty, that nearly all of the blogs I read via RSS (which is nearly all of the blogs I read) are focused on tech (e.g., TechCrunch) and basketball (e.g., Ball Don’t Lie). And yet, I still found out about Vajazzling only a day after Jennifer Love Hewitt was on George Lopez’s late night show. Thank you, Basketbawful.
You can almost see the sparkling Swarovski crystals.
As someone who has received some of the riches that Robin Interhood has stolen from the big news outlets, I can’t help but champion the power of the Internet. But honestly, I was kind of amazed that I can be plugged into pop culture even when I limit myself to two particular subject areas. And I’m not the only one who’s interested in this kind of thing. Tracking new media, I mean, of course. Not the vajazzling itself.
Nels Wadycki 