February 12, 2008
digital bedouin, tools
1 Comment
Locked-down computers, like those at work or in Internet cafes, are a necessary computer-security evil. While their high security helps prevent them from becoming part of a spam-spewing zombie horde, you can’t do much on them. It’s frustrating to need a program but when you try to install it, you get the ‘Administrator access needed’ window thrown in your face.
PortableApps.com gets around that problem. They make versions of open source programs that don’t need to be installed on a computer to run. Load them onto your USB drive and you can use them anywhere, even if you just have lowly guest access. I particularly rely on their Open Office portable, GIMP portable, VLC portable and Notepad++ portable.
Not sure what you’ll need? Then just grab their suite of nearly everything.
Now if they just had a TrueCrypt portable…
[Click here for portable apps]
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Header photograph by wrestlingentropy
January 31, 2008
london nomad, digital bedouin
4 Comments
Working at home is a near-impossible task. The desire to clean my room — that evergreen procrastination standby — is omnipresent. My room also contains distracting things: my books, my movies, the Internet. In addition, my wife also shares the tiny room. If I’m not distracting myself, The Wife will be watching Star Trek. ‘Just one episode…’ I tell myself, ‘then I’ll get back to work.’
The small room my wife and I share is used for everything: sleeping, eating, watching DVDs, talking, arguing, and, err, thinking of England. It’s difficult to focus on one kind of task in a room with so many functions.
If I’m serious about getting things done, I need to get out of the flat. Luckily for me, living in a big city there are an abundance of places to go and work. Libraries, museums and cafes abound.
One of the benefits of working somewhere other than your home is that you can build, single, focused, positive associations with that place. If you always associate a location with getting things done — and nothing else — you will be more encouraged to work when you arrive.
Another source of motivation comes from is not wanting to waste the travel time to get to your work spot. If it takes twenty minutes to ‘commute’ to the library, don’t just sit there daydreaming. If you do then you’re doubly wasting time: once for the actual time and once for the commute time. Similarly, if Starbucks is a place of work, it would be a waste of the coffee money to just stare out the window. Increased guilt about not getting things done will increase the pressure to actually cross off some to-do items.
Through experiment, I’ve found that my optimal efficiency is to switch locations every sixty to ninety minutes. This way I get in two or three solid units of work but leave before I get bored or weary of what I’m working on. Then I’ll spend ten to thirty minutes walking to the next location. This downtime allows my brain to reboot and start whatever I’m working on anew when I get to the next spot.
Go outside, get away from distractions, and get things done!
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Photograph by artandscience
