Sisyphus and the Firehose
Friday, August 24th, 2007Introduction
I have a love/hate relationship with my computer. I truly enjoy working on it…my Macbook is a wonderful piece of technology, and doing anything from writing code to developing fiction on it is a dream. In this way, it’s a fantastic, comfortable tool.
On the other hand, it’s also my ball and chain, or my accurately , my boulder and firehose. From the moment I log in, I’m rolling the huge boulder of my commitments uphill while being blasted with information from the firehose that is the Interweb. My computer lurks there, waiting to vomit up the next round of emails that need my attention, the to-do list that never seems to get any shorter, the endless list of RSS feeds and podcasts that I need to listen to. I feel perpetually behind and pummeled, and because of that, I’m reluctant to sit down in front of the damnable machine.
I’m not the only one, judging by the sheer number of lifehack/productivity blogs out there. Well…I’m trying to get control of things, so I thought I’d write about it in case something I’m doing might help someone out there.
The goal: To streamline my infolife to a point where it is not only manageable, but progress can be made. I want to be able to sit down at my computer and work on things without feeling pulled in so many different directions. It’s not the computer’s fault, after all. It’s my state of mind. At the end of the day, what I’m really managing is myself…not the computer.
