Andy Chase

Sites about improving personal organization and productivity have been hovering on the del.icio.us popular list for weeks now. 43 Folders, Getting Things Done, 50 Strategies for Making Yourself Work, Life Hacks and so on.

If other people use del.icio.us anything like I do, they read about these sites at BoingBoing, MetaFilter, Slashdot, or the del.icio.us popular list itself, think to themselves, “Great! Somebody else has figured out why I keep putting stuff off. I need to read this but I’ve got too much stuff to catch up on right now,” bookmark the site, and then go off on their merry way.

When I do go back to these sites and start reading, I glaze over after about three paragraphs. I’m a terrible procrastinator, and although these sites, books and essays contain a wealth of tips and strategies, when you boil them all down the Big Secret, the One Thing they’re all getting at, is that the best way to get a task done is to stop hemming and hawing about it, and actually DO it.

It’s like listening to sportscasters vamp during a time-out, talking about how the game is going to come down to which team scores more points than the other.