Busy Work

It amazes me how people can find the time, energy and wherewithal to maintain more than one Web site. It’s hard enough for me to keep up with just this one, never mind trying to generate enough content for a second. Tonight was one of those nights when I looked at my watch, saw that the little hand was way closer to twelve than I thought it was, and realized that I hadn’t yet posted anything to this site.

Everyone says they’re busy, and if pressed I would characterize my own schedule that way too. But I wonder, am I really being that productive? I suspect that the answer to that would be no, I’m not maximizing productivity, and too much of my time is focused on low-level tasks… but you can decide for yourself by taking a look at this quickly-drafted and unordered to do list:

  • Stop by Staples to buy some ink jet cartridges and paper stock for a marketing project we’re working on at Behavior
  • Write several emails to catch up with old clients and prospects, in order to drum up some new business
  • Finish drafting several articles for a new publication that we’re planning at Behavior
  • Pay a butt-load of company bills that I have stashed away in a file folder in my desk
  • Troubleshoot the SMTP server settings in my email client so I can use our office mail server to send messages from home
  • Catch up on the 30 or so email messages that I receive most weekdays as a member of the TidBITS Talk mailing list
  • Mail a fat payment check to Who’s Walking Who Dog Training in order to enroll Mister President in the next advanced obedience course
  • Finish setting up the new hard drive on my PowerBook, including troubleshooting some malfunctioning USB devices and completing the migration (and cleanup) of all my old files
  • Decide whether or not to commit to the indulgence of a new Amazon.com order full of books, CDs, DVDs and other nonessentials
  • Make sure I finish reading this week’s issue of The New Yorker before the accompanying online articles are removed and archived forever — I hate this arrogant and hostile policy of managing online content, by the way
  • Remember to pick up my rental tuxedo this Friday for my friends’ wedding on Sunday (earlier today I had my act together enough to be able to check off the related item ‘Buy a wedding gift for Nam and Shirley’)
  • Keep checking in with my landlord to make sure he sends me the leasing papers for the new apartment that, with luck, I’ll be moving into at the end of July
  • Watch the DVD of “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” that I bought today for the cheap price of US$10.
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