Today I tried a new productivity plan. I know I've been wasting too much time on the Internet and since I don't have a helpful employer tracking my keystrokes or blocking access to non-work-related sites, I have to build the block within.
I allowed myself to check email and Bloglines no more than hourly. I did it, but it was harder than you might think. I found my fingers reaching for the key sequence to boot up my browser constantly. Pretty much every time I got bored with the patent I was translating, which was depressingly often. (Yes, I'm good at this translation gig, but it's just not doing it for me anymore.except financially. Note to self: Start looking for an engineering job again.)
Success was mine in the end. I finished the patent at a reasonable hour and then read a magazine. Yes, catching up on print publications, what a concept! In the days before engineering school, I carried a lot of magazine subscriptions, but as the life was slowly sucked out of me by the neverending barrage of homework, I stopped reading them and let most of the subscriptions expire. I still read lots of mysteries, YA novels, and seventeenth century history, but not much of the current science and arts reading that I used to do. Time to get back in the habit, no?
228 words | May 3, 2006 09:56 PM | Wired