Thing 18

It might seem like I am making all these posts way too quickly, but I’ve been working ahead some and then saving the posts so I can publish them in order.  With the exception of Thing 9, online games – but don’t worry, I won’t forget!

I am obsessed with organizers, planners, schedules, to-do lists, etc., so you would think I would be much more interested in sites covered by Thing 18.  I guess it’s because I already have a pretty involved personal system of organization, I don’t want to introduce anything else to the mix. 

I already use iGoogle, as my homepage on my personal computer.  They very recently changed the interface to include tabs, which I hate (it pushes everything about an inch to the right on the screen) but will have to get used to.  My iGoogle page includes my Gmail account, Weather, Google Reader, and both entertainment news and actual news.  I’m not sure if having your email, RSS feeder, etc. so immediately accessible is actually a time-saver or not.  Whenever I return to my homepage, I see automatically if I have new messages or blog posts to read, which can easily distract me from whatever my original purpose was.  It does save time in that you don’t have to log into your email account separately, but I’m still dubious about the overall efficiency.  I would never stop using iGoogle, though – I love having my email and everything else right there when I open up my web browser.

I love the idea of things like Google Calendar and Remember the Milk, but it concerns me to have my schedule and to-do list only accessible online.  What if your internet goes out?  I’d much rather have these things saved on my computer, but I like the idea of backing them up in a more accessible\portable format.  My new solution is to sync everything onto my iPod Touch so I can take it with me wherever I go, no internet required.  I use iCal for my schedule and a new Mac program (still in beta) called Things for my to-dos.  If you are a Mac user, I highly suggest checking out Things – it is by far the best task management software I’ve ever used. 

Some of these online services (Google Calendar and Backpack especially) have great applications for group work, since you can share them publicly.  That’s not something I have a lot of use for at present, but I’m glad to know more about these tools so I can consider them in the future.

I think the key with productivity tools, electronic or otherwise, is to ask yourself if they are really making you more productive or just giving you one more thing to deal with.  For example, I have been guilty on countless occasions of spending more time meticulously entering tasks into my to-do list than it would actually take to just do them.  I’m not likely to change, since I think organization is the fun part, but it is something worth considering.  I think technology in general has made us more productive, but it’s also just given us a lot more to do.