Organized people keep lists: to-do lists, shopping lists, lists of books they want to read, movies they want to watch, restaurants they want to try. Sometimes, the lists become a way of taking care of the people in our lives, like gift ideas or reminders for a spouse or co-worker. I keep lots of lists, and depending on what I’m working on at the time, I might have a dozen or so sitting around to keep track of things.

On the whole, lists are a good thing. I certainly feel better when I write things down. But a certain kind of list, that long-running, chock-full wish list of stuff you want to try or buy, can do more psychic harm than good. They’re a great way to keep track of all the cool stuff you hear about, but there’s the rub. How often do you actually pick something off your wish list? And how often do you look at your wish list and feel bad because you’ll probably never get to any of it?  read more »

Ask Chicagoist: Help Me Wake Up!

The always useful Ask Chicagoist addresses a recent obsession of mine, making yourself get out of bed in the morning. I used to be a morning person. When I faced a 30-mile reverse commute to get work by 8:00 a.m., I had to. And for a few months last year, I was possessed by a spirit that made me get out of bed at 5 every day so I could squeeze in some work before the toys started flying.  read more »

It has now been two months since I sold my laptop and started working with just a Mac Mini in my office and an iPhone, and I’ve more or less survived. I never expected it to be permanent, but unless my life changes drastically and I have to start traveling full-time, I could probably go on like this indefinitely. My real work hasn’t suffered, because I was doing all of that on the desktop anyway, and with Google Reader’s killer mobile version, I’ve been able to satisfy any web surfing urges away from the computer.  read more »

Tired of trying to fit exercise into your busy work schedule? Sure you are. Lucky for you there’s the TreadDesk, which lets you walk while you work! Not convinced? Then you’re just too lazy to click through. Here, tubby:

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Pushing Paper Out the Door - New York Times

Is it just me, or is the Times tossing softballs for organizational nerds on purpose? Today’s story on the ways people are purging paper from their lives gives lots of ink (digital, of course) to our friend, the Fujitsu ScanSnap, and comes with the kind of grand statements that no trend piece should be without:  read more »

[M]any families may be closer to entering a paperless world than they realize. Paper-reducing technologies have crept into homes and offices, perhaps more for efficiency than for environmentalism; few people will dispute the convenience of online bill-paying and airline e-tickets.

It snowed almost a foot here in Chicago last night, and looking at all that white stuff made me think about junior high, when my school was out an entire week for snow. I built most of the eastern seaboard in SimCity 2000 that week, on a 33 MHz PC no less. I was a nerd. It was awesome.

I thought about how fun that sounded today after I finished shoveling, and considered digging around for an updated copy of SimCity online. Then I reminded myself that the last thing I need is another hobby involving the computer. I use a computer for work. When I’m finished working, I screw around on the internet. When I’m tired of that, I read books, which isn’t a whole lot different, if a little easier on the eyes and attention span.

Pardon me while I get out the nostalgia hankie, but I miss the days when my hobbies had nothing to do with staring at a glowing screen. When I was a kid, I could sit down in my room over an unopened wax box of Topps baseball cards and completely tune out the outside world until four hours later, when my mom called me to dinner, handed me a napkin, and told me to wipe the drool from chewing 36 sticks of gum off my chin.  read more »

Sort of an add-on to the New York Times piece Merlin linked the other day about Scrivener and its cohort of new writing applications, Jeffrey MacIntyre at Slate coins a new term for programs that eschew the familiar, bloated twiddliness of Microsoft Office for simplicity:

There’s an emerging market for programs that introduce much-needed traffic calming to our massively expanding desktops. The name for this genre of clutter-management software: zenware.

The philosophy behind zenware is to force the desktop back to its Platonic essence. There are several strategies for achieving this, but most rely on suppressing the visual elements you’re used to: windows, icons, and toolbars. The applications themselves eschew pull-down menus or hide off-screen while you work. Even if you consider yourself inured to their presence, the theory goes, you’ll benefit most from their absence.  read more »

Every year, somebody gets me one of those Page-a-Day calendars for Christmas. I never have the heart to tell them that I really don’t want another, and every year I try to stick it out and dutifully tear off a sheet each morning.  read more »

Minor milestone in my household coming soon: my son is starting preschool, meaning I’ll suddenly have more time on my hands. It’s only three mornings a week though; as much as I’d like to hire someone to read to me, it’s not enough time to start anything major. But it is enough that I can’t waste the opportunity. Four hours of quiet, non-Sprout time in the morning is perfect for getting the high-priority stuff out of the way. I need to come up with a game plan so I don’t end up watching SportsCenter and fiddling with iTunes the whole time.

I have my own strategy, of course, but I wanted to ask the wise elders here how I should spend an extra 12 hours a week, and see if we can spot any holes in my plan.  read more »