WoW and productivity

So I am getting back into World of Warcraft. I am leveling a Dranai Hunter named Haanah, who is currently at level 27. I am about to start the Darkshire quests, which is one of my favorite zones. My two professions are Mining and Herbalism and I am also leveling fishing and first aid as I go. Both Mining and Herbalism are at 100 and my fishing is at 125, so I just learned Expert. :) My goal is to be exalted with Stormwind by 40 so I can get a Horse as my epic ground mount. I am currently 5% through revered, so it could happen. I'll probably have to go back and do any quests I missed in Goldshire and Redridge Mountains. The repeatable cloth turn in quest isn't doable till 50. :)

I also started a Blood Elf Warlock, named Vycki, so that I can experience the Horde content. I plan to take this one character through all of the starting zones for Horde. So that's my current alt. I probably won't take her past 40 though, since after that, I've seen most of the content with Tosharii.

In my real life, I have a bunch of stuff to do this weekend. I want to:

• Do iphone homework
• Learn about Micro-niches
• Do 3 hours of Work-work
• Clean my house and wash clothes

And then play more WoW. :)

Procrastination

I woke up this morning with this grand plan. I was going to spend the day being super productive and just bang my way though my to do list, which today consisted of mainly the gun book. Sounds good, right? Well, right. I ended up starting by working through a Gimp tutorial (Gimp is the linux version of photoshop, for those who don't know). Then I did a bit of the gun book. I worked well for maybe 15 minutes then I got side tracked by looking at linux to-do apps. I found a command line one, which is interesting, but then decided to install Tracks.

Well, you see, productivity is this illusive thing. Some people use paper, others the web, other spend countless hours and gigabytes downloading software. But why?

The dream is that app that will do our work for us. That takes all of the effort and stress out of our lives. That will turn us into little widget cranking robots. Because, you see, the less we think, the more we can do. But this takes the human out of it, doesn't it? Can we have an app that thinks for us? That takes away the fears associated with our work? The boredom?

I'll admit that I also strive for this. I get flustered really easily when I have too much to do. Really flustered. So I try to take the stress away by letting the computers think. But computers don't think, they process. There is a big difference and in the end, I am left unsatisfied.

Saija is my attempt at creating the most think-like task organizer I can, but I can really completely succeed. Even Saija can't do it all.

So where does all this leave me? What philosophy do I try to follow? All I know is that I'm getting more and more unhappy with the state of my projects... I spend all of my time at work. Don't get me wrong, I love my job. I work with awesome people and do flow-enabling work. But here I am, solving other peoples problems. These sites are not mine. They don't solve my problems. I want to solve my problems.

That leaves the weekends and after work. And that means productivity. For a while I was thinking about trying to focus on only one thing, and that seems like a good plan, but I tend to project jump so much. I never really finish anything. I like to work on things that grab me. But that doesn't lead to goals..

This is the challenge of life. The challenge I have always struggled with all my life. But now I don't have a block. I don't have school. I have free time and free money. I have lots of freedom. And I have spent the last 3 months only working. My life is now....

-------

So I guess I need goals, thats what all of the gurus say. But I always come up with corny goals that I look back on later and laugh at. Those are not real goals. So what are real goals?

Well for one, I need to make money online. I need a residual income. I won't be at Web Services forever, so while I have the extra money, I need to learn to make money. I guess that is why I am back online... why I am writing this. The money is leading me home. So more doing, less reading. Here I come.

I also want to fill in my knowledge in relation to websites. I need to learn graphic design and finish djite. I am a programmer... I'll always be programming. I guess that is kinda goal number 2.

I'll stop there for now... I also have health goals... Like getting in shape. but the details can wait for now.

I have a gun book to finish, once and for all.

Ubuntu Remix

Well, I am on a roll, I might as well continue....

I am currently typing on a Dell Mini 9 running Ubuntu Remix. It is so cute and so easy to use and so controllable. I just love it. I never ever thought I'd say that, but I love a Dell. It is true. The mac community can shoot me now.

Mac is still better for graphics. Aperture kicks butt and so do programs like Coda (the IDE), but for development, especially in Python, Linux is really winning me over.

For one, I like the customization. I just customized the look of my windows and picked out exactly what I wanted. They are blackish orange with a similar color desktop. Then I edited the graphic files for the Remix Launcher so the background was see-through. It looks super cool now. :) Yeah for customization.

Another plus is that apps are programmable in Python. I need to learn to use the GTK bindings for python, but it is doable and so I could be programming my own linux apps soon. ( There are cocoa bindings for python too. I guess I need to look at those).

But anywho, I have a big laptop and a tiny one, and I like them both. :) I guess the real moral of this story is that I am a nerd!!

Life Hacking?

So in the past, I have been uber conserned with a thing the interwebs call 'Lifehacking'. If you don't know what I'm talking about, Google it. It is this whole idea of super-productivity. Well, I tend to get so caught up in Lifehacking that I forget to be productive. Lol. I guess its a little ironic that I used to spend so much time reading and writing about Lifehacking that I never really did anything... I don't think that is the point.

Well, I quit that. Good for me. I'm proud of you Hailey. I erased Lifehacker from Google Reader, I unfollowed those people in twitter. I'm not going to do it anymore. I am just using a simple calendar and a moleskin as a journal to keep track of everything. And I'm not changing until those finish. I really love my moleskin. It realy is as nice as everyone says it is.

Anywho, I was just reading some old goals in a previous post on this blog and realised how silly some of them were. lol. I wanted to be a VA. I really don't think thats much different than real work.

I want residual income. Not work. Residual... Like that 4 hour work week thing. (No I don't want to be an ass or spam people, I just want to have freedom). Freedom.. That's what it is all about. That is what I fail to have currently. I want my Freedom.

The trouble is, paradoxically, two things:

1. I have too many ideas.Updates
2. I don't have enough ideas.

Yeah.. Lol.

So I guess I have a new goal... I want to make money online. Yeah.. I am not sure how, but I want to. Ok. I lied, I do know one way how... the question is whether I have the will to do it. But I believe I have the motivation. Or it is growing so, we shall see. But no more lifehacking... I actually need to get to work.

My Life 3.0?

So it has been quite a while since I have even thought about putting my thoughts online. Actually last time I quit because I was so into writing that everything else was being neglected. Well, guess what. Here I am again. Lol. Persueing the blogs once more.

It's kinda ironic that I actually don't like to write. Especially on a schedule (which is one reason topic blogging is hard for me). And I don't write complete sentences and I write 'lol' alot. lol. :)

But the blogs do call and I apparently answered. Hence me sitting here an typing this. Oh, I just got a Mini 9 from Dell. I really like it. Its a real computer that fits in my purse. Just the right size for some blogging, what do ya say?

So a bit of an update. I got a job. At Rice. I'm programming. I am a nerd, so programming is natural for me. I took a programming class a couple years ago and my lab partner predicted that I would be a programmer. I laughed at him then. I'm smiling now. He was so right.

I'm having a bit of a rough time adjusting to work. I am heading up a big effort and it requires lots of communicating. I have writen more emails in the past week then like ever on one topic. Its a bit overwhelming at times, but all in all I like it. I really like the programming part.

I recently learned Django, which is a web framework of the python language. It's a very simple and elegance language and framework. I already have my first pet application started. Its gonna be awesome! (and no, I'm not telling :-P )

I like efficentcy... Yeah, that's funny considering the state of my room.. Anywho, that is the online hint you get on my app. And no, its not a calendar.

Lets see, this is suppose to be an update. So... I quit swing dancing. I got too tired of all of the competitiveness. I'm too heavily effected by that. I started photography. I like it, but no more classes. I don't want my hobby so heavily critiqued when I'm just starting out. (I know, I need it to get better. Well, probably, but let me have fun with it first.)

Pictures are up at: http://web.me.com/lovefaithswing

ok. This enough of an update for now. Hope to post more soon. Remember... the blogs have been calling me home.

Learning and Video

So, I've never had a time in my life when watching videos were so productive. But with the introduction of video casts, it now is. I have hours to watch.



Here is a list of things I need to watch:

- The cocoa casts up to where I am in the textbook. http://ping.fm/Sx9aA (About 2 more hours before the next homework)

- The javascript videos http://ping.fm/wdZtg

(about 2 hours)



And for fun, I am going through the Macgyver series, but that's not considered productive.



I just finished watching Omnifocus's videocasts. When I get the iphone, I will be buying the Omnifocus GTD app. it's only $20. I don't really like thier desktop interface, but the iphone one looks rocking! I'm excited.

World of Warcraft

So I have been under some light pressure to join World of Warcraft (as mentioned in my last post). Well a thought just occurred to me about it. My main reason for not joining is the large amounts of time I will spend not being productive because of this game. I will spend quite a bit of time on it, I'm sure as the game does sound fun. I have a to-do list that is really long. Those things normally don't mix.

But the truth is, I spend most of my time being unproductive anyway doing things like monitoring twitter and plurk, tweaking the blog, watching MacGyver, surfing Facebook, surfing the web and more! There are days when I do very little productive work. So maybe things won't really change if I join WoW. It would probably just replace some surfing.

It could even be good if I make playing it dependent on getting the task of the day done. That may even be enough to combat the surfing tendency... so hey, it may actually be good for me.

So a couple points in favor of WoW. I'm not completely convinced yet. I'm scared to start it and find this analysis to be wrong.