Time, the Bane of Us All
“It’s possible to control the time I have available to me.” We’ve probably all heard this over and over again our whole lives, although sometimes it’s a little hard to fathom.
A few weeks ago, I decided to embark on “a ruthless crusade against wasting time”, and reclaim time as my own once again and you know, get things done (sound familiar?). The goal of course, is to find the best hacks, tips, and tricks, that’ll make things easier, and ultimately, save money by saving time.
At this point, I will acknowledge that I would probably be better off implementing a wildly successful path like GTD (Getting Things Done). My qualms with programs like that is the “shock and awe” approach they introduce where everything that existed previously has to be rebuilt from the ground up. I support change as much as the next guy, but it’s my experience that drastic surges are not sustainable.
I prefer the focused, gradual improvement method, coupled with a good dose of “rinse and repeat” (just replace application with habit). Implementing change on a small section at a time means it’s not the end of the world if one piece of the puzzle messes up, and your whole framework doesn’t have to collapse. It also means that corrections can be made quickly, without affecting very much else.
Moving on…
One of the first applications I came across when I set out on my quixotic quest is RescueTime and this weekend, I’m beginning to think it just might be working. For the last few weeks, I’ve taken a few minutes to tweak my profile and add tags properly, and basically bend it to my will as much as possible (read, “Try to figure it out”) whenever I receive the weekly update email. I’m gradually getting to the point where I’m beginning to see a pattern, and I’m slowly getting better at using it.
It let’s you do nifty things like tag your applications, and even view your Top 10 applications and websites:
….you can even compare 2 tags against the time spent on everything else:
….and you can even compare 2 tags against the time spent on everything else:
They also have a ton other stuff you can mix together so you can hack your life to perfection (like setup goals, and iGoogle integration)..
Apart from the usual suspects like Lifehacker, Wikihow, etc…, what’re your most useful (and favorite) sources of information?
Tags: change, get things done, productive, productivity, time, time management
