(1) If you don’t have a Gravatar account yet… GEEEEZ! Go get one already.

(2) I keep my [massive and complex] to do lists in a mindmap at mindomo.com (which ROCKS, btw) but I’m not always at my computer to add things to it. I often remember to do items while I am out walking Snickers or walking to work. I’ve tried just sending myself email reminders, but then I’m bothered by them being in my inbox when I’m not ready to deal with doing, moving, or listing them. Today I fixed all that. Now I send an email to a special address at nycgadgetgirl.com with the reminder in the subject line, that address if filtered in gmail so that it skips my inbox and is labeled “to do.” When I’m ready catch up on odds and ends, I view the to do label in gmail, take care of all the little things and add everything else to my mind map!

I never get any work done when she’s home sick from school. Yesterday, ~T~ (who’s now known as "Miss ~T~" btw) stayed home from school with some sort of stomach thing. She was miserable all day, which meant I pretty much didn’t hear anything from her. Today is a different story. She’s on the mend and she’s IM’ing me CONSTANTLY. A certain blog friend is home from work today and IM’ing me also. My productivity is at an all time low at the moment. On the other hand, I had these gems to LOL at so far this morning:

[12:51] Miss ~T~: I’m so hungery
[12:51] me: so go eat
[12:51] me: hungry not hungery
[12:52] Miss ~T~: ~T~ is cooking
[12:53] Miss ~T~: Should I leave water in instead of pouring out??
[12:53] me: ?
[12:53] me: you should do it however you usually do it
[12:53] Miss ~T~: These are the questions that haunt me
[12:53] me: LOLOLOL

AND

[12:57] Miss ~T~: Seek is licking Snick again
[12:57] Miss ~T~: She stopped
[12:57] me: I love being able to see when there is someone on my blog. it is very cool.
[12:58] Miss ~T~: I see blog people
[12:58] Miss ~T~: Ahhhhh
[12:58] me: LOL
[12:59] Miss ~T~: He he
[12:59] me: when did you grow up and get so funny?

I’ve been using Google Spreadsheets for a long while and I’ve been using Writely for a short while and now they’ve finally combined them into Google Doc and I LOOOOOVVVVVE them for it (among other things).

It really is happening you know… computing is all moving online. I’m almost to the point where I have everything I need, no matter where I am. I carry Portable Firefox, Portable FileZilla, and a handful of necessary files around on my USB stick. I use GMail, Google Calendar, Google Notebook, and Google Docs religiously. When I’m away from GMail, I have my email in my pocket through my Hiptop (T-Mobile Sidekick). My backups are all on Amazon S3. I have to get all my photos stored online, including scanning all the non-digital ones and then my laptop will almost be just a simple workstation!

I love the 21st Century.

• I’m porting the blog to WordPress and redesigning the templates sometime in the next couple months. Fun fun.
• I received some photos last week from a high school reunion that was held this summer. (I’ve never made it home for one.) I’m sad to say I only managed to recognize 4 people out of about 40.
• WATER, IT DOES THE BODY GOOD!
• Snickers is scheduled to take his AKC Canine Good Citizen test on October 24. We have some work to do between now and then.
• Did someone shorten the days to less than 1,440 minutes each and not tell me about it? Lately, I can’t seem to keep up with everything that has to get done in one day.
• A neighborhood friend gave Benedict some dog food for Kaos a couple days ago.
• Why do tourists insist on trying to flag down cabs that are occupied???
• ~T~ is getting a Sidekick. She’s paying for it herself from savings. WOW!

I think I’m about to take another self-imposed hiatus from the blogworld… at least for a few days. I haven’t been able to keep up with reading my favorite blogs, which drives me crazy.

So… I’m going to spend the next few days trying to catch up on my client work (again) and my apartment cleaning (again) and then maybe I’ll be readin’ and writin’ again.

I know, I know. I teased you by telling you I got a new toy and then I never posted about it! Sorry. I’ve been a WEE BIT BUSY this month (as in so busy I think my head may explode)!!! If I survive through mid-January, I’m going to need a vacation.

So. Anyway.

I bought a Palm TX. I considered the Life Drive, but settled on the TX because (1) it was cheaper and I’m poor, and (2) it is smaller and lighter.

I wanted something that would

• have Wi-Fi and Bluetooth built in,
• get email
• not be a phone
• not have a camera
• be small and light
• work with Life Balance
• sync my contacts from Thunderbird Address Book and my calendar for Sunbird
• have a nice size/resolution screen
• edit excel spreadsheets

Although, I’d like for the email to be always on, my other requirements eliminated blackberries (hate ‘em anyway) and Treos (which are way too bulky for my tastes). I decided I only needed email to be on-demand. I also - briefly - considered Windows-based handhelds but couldn’t stand the idea of all the unwanted applications that come bundled into them.

I’d had a Palm Vx years ago and loved it, but stopped carrying it when I got in the habit of taking my laptop almost everywhere. Ever since I got Snick though, I’ve been needing new one. (I don’t take my laptop when I walk the dog and sometimes he and I stay out and about for hours.) I decided on the TX and picked one up locally. So far, I’m really happy with it except (1) there’s no way to sync with Sunbird and Address Book - which I knew before I bought it - and (2) it has this annoying habit of rebooting itself when I switch networks and then open the email or browser.

Having email on demand is fabulous. When I’m near free wi-fi (which is about 80% of the time), I can email and surf really quickly. When I’m NOT near free wi-fi, it connects via Bluetooth to my GPRS enabled phone (Samsung D500). I’m a walking PAN*!!! Just waiting for a good utility to sync my Mozilla stuff and I’ll be all set.

So. I won’t be away from my email for a minute while I’m driving to my sister’s for Christmas this year AND I’ll be able to surf Google Maps if we get lost.

Oh, AND I can mo-blog now! (The note that I had a new toy was my first mobile blog entry.)

Life is good.

*personal area network

I’m working on a website for an off-broadway theater in my neighborhood. I was supposed to be finished yesterday, so, of course, I should be rushing, but as I was flipping through CDs full of photos to pick photos for the site, I found a series of the client and her dog goofing off during a photo call. I couldn’t help myself…

Yesterday, I had five (5) cups of coffee and two Diet Cokes. I am on my third coffee today. But something isn’t right. I feel like there is a fog machine running in my head. Is my coffee broken?

Someone told me recently about this thing called sleep. It supposed to be like a reboot for humans - clears your mind, puts your memory back in order, helps you think faster. They say it has been around for a long while and is very well tested. I remain trepidacious though. From what I hear, it is very time consuming. That is billed as a feature, but it sounds like a bug to me.

Has anyone tried this? How does it work?

OK, no one likes to admit when they are wrong. Knowing how difficult it is, I try to be aware of when I need to do it and just DO IT and move on.

So… ahem… with no further ado… I was wrong about Life Balance.

It seems to be working pretty darn well. I’ve even started using the balancing part of it. First, the things I was wrong about:
Read the rest of this entry »

Now I am remembering the things I didn’t like when I tried Life Balance a few months ago. I’m going to try and see it through though and put my whole task list in before I give up.

1. It doesn’t actually have categories. I think I can get around that by making several overall tasks that are actually categories and then making all the tasks sub-tasks and sub-sub-tasks and sub… well, you get the idea.
2. I don’t like the balancing concept at all. I’m telling it every single task is "essential" to my life balance!
3. If I schedule a recurring task (or routine task as LB calls it), the first one shows up as PAST DUE when I put it in. There’s no way to give it a due date. The recurrence rules aren’t very sophisticated either; all you get is every day, week, month, etc… you can’t say every second Wednesday of every month and you can’t set exceptions.

OK, I’m getting pretty frustrated at this point. My favorite software in this whole process so far has really been VIP Organizer. If only it could handle dependencies. Seriously… do I really need to be reminded that Snick’s heartworm pill is past due if I haven’t refilled the Rx yet? NO! I only need to be reminded to call the vet. Without dependencies, there is just too much clutter on my list. I’m confused, overworked, ineffective and unproductive. I need some peace, not more chaos.

Spoke to my sister and she’s been looking for something for TWO YEARS. Read a bunch of blogs on productivity and everyone seems to be happy with Life Balance. Hmmm… maybe I should try it again and set it up differently this time. My sister suggested giving every life goal the same priority. That would help keep it from changing my task priorities around. Maybe I won’t put actual life goals in there. Maybe I should just use those as super categories.

I think I’ll try it. We’ll see how it goes.

I finally decided today that I have to get a handle on my task list or just go hide under a rock somewhere. Since hiding under a rock doesn’t pay well enough to cover T’s tuition (or Snickers’ rawhide addiction), I decided to go with the former.

This evening I took time off from scrambling furiously and ineffectively from task to task to research, download, evaluate, uninstall and delete various task management solutions.

History: I’ve kept my task list in my Palm software for ages. Simple and convenient with a clean interface, but unfortunately not cutting it for me any more. A few weeks ago, I moved my calendar data out of Palm and into Sunbird (Mozilla’s standalone calendar project). This was GREAT because Sunbird is iCal compliant and now I can publish and share a calendar with my daughter. Unfortunately, the task list leaves MUCH to be desired - namely the ability to set up recurring tasks.
Read the rest of this entry »