Virtually there - May 2010 |
|
I’m in trouble. Last week was US National Procrastination Week and I was inspired. So inspired, in fact, that I spent the entire week not rising to the challenge of writing this column. The problem is, if one has a tendency to procrastinate, there can be no better way to do it than with a computer. I organised my iTunes play-lists. I updated my passwords. I tidied my desktops, both real and virtual. I cleaned my keyboard. And then I started surfing.
First up, I found Eggwatchers – the egg timer that entertains you. Input your egg size, temperature (fridge or room) and desired squishiness, pop egg in water and set it off. It cleverly selects a random but interesting clip from YouTube that is the exact length of time your egg will take to boil. Unfortunately I was so taken by the excerpt from TornadoVideo.net that I forgot about the egg. And, while searching for the exact tornado, in some mysterious way I found Letters of Note – a repository of “correspondence deserving of a wider audience”. Letters from Mark Twain, Hunter S Thompson and Einstein jostle with one from Iggy Pop to a young fan and a letter from an Australian lad in the 1950s to “a top scientist”. It makes for compulsive reading. Start with the letter written in 1942 from a soldier father to his two-year-old daughter, explaining why Daddy is going to miss her birthday party. If this doesn’t make you cry, shame on you.
In my world, procrastination is inextricably linked with junk food snacking. I am particularly enamoured of cheese-flavoured corn snacks and so it was deeply upsetting to discover from the Daily Needs Calculator at NutritionData that a teeny tiny pack of cheese balls sucks up a whopping 10 per cent of my daily calorific allowance. NutritionData is packed with tools that will let you analyse your own recipes in terms of glycaemic load, fullness factor and nutritional value. Sadly, the cheese balls failed on every front. At least they don’t affect my blood alcohol level. Which brings me to DrinkLogger. Put in your vital statistics, tell it each time you have a drink and it will keep a running log of your blood alcohol level, which, as I’m sure you recall, you have to keep under 0.08. Of course, it isn’t often you sit drinking by the computer (at least I hope not), but luckily there’s a mobile phone-optimised version, so smartphone owners have no excuse. You really should try this – the results are fascinating. Or possibly frightening…
If it’s too frightening, and you want to kick the habit (alcohol, cheese balls, whatever), StickK will help you. StickK doesn’t expect you to rely on will power, however; instead it works with an unbeatable combination of fear of public humiliation and economic punishments. Simply, you declare your goal on the site, set an end date, nominate some referees, tell your friends and decide what the penalty for failure will be. If you fail, the fine gets deducted from your credit card and paid to your nominated charity and your shame is there for all to see. Powerful stuff indeed.
Trouble is, I keep putting off actually signing up. Which brings me full circle back to Procrasdonate.com. If there are certain websites (you know which ones I mean) that distract you from the job at hand, mark them as Procrasdonation sites. Your procrastination meter will show how much time you have spent on them each week, which could turn out to be more upsetting than the cheese ball revelation. What an excellent idea. I’m going to sign up tomorrow.
Illustration: Chris Mousdale
Story: Kim Rutter
| 
|
|
