Knowing when to stop

It was an interesting journey for rechord in 2004. Seems a whole century ago now.

Severe illness and a wedding all got in the way of some good habits. Despite these extremes of sadness and happiness, calm reigned, and things that were peripheral to the task at hand got left behind.

Part of this task was knowing when to stop. In other words, refusing to let your health or your creativity be sacrificed to the gods of money or vanity.

Here are some advice nuggets discovered on the emotional pilgrimage.

• Beware the temptation to get glued to your monitor.
  
  Got an aching back? Shooting pains in your mouse trigger finger? Scary as it may be, these are warning signs of Repetetive Strain Injury. Ignore them and you could cripple yourself. Do something about it now, and the pain trend is reversible. How? The oft ignored advice; take regular breaks. It's only human to forget, or to procrastinate. These two free software programs (Rest Break Reminder for Windows machines, TimeOut! for Macs) will remind you to take those all-important breaks. They have various settings for those with different working styles, from matronly severity (stops you from using your computer at all) to Boo-boo style polite deference (the Ranger's not going to like this, Yogi!)
  
  Those 10 minute breaks can be extraordinarily useful for rescuing oneself from procrastination. And hey! Suddenly all the yucky filing is finished. Not only that, but work problems seem more surmountable after a while away from the screen. And you don't get those weird green sparks and purple floaters interfering with your vision after not blinking for ages.
  
  Rest Break Reminder
  TimeOut!
  
  
  
• Get a priority list AND an impish, sarcastic friend.
  
  OK, so we've already got list fatigue, and all that continual advice to remember our priorities is falling on deaf ears. This is different: sarcastic friend is all important. When we've got our ideals written down, but there's a real world situation which is tempting us to bend the rules a little (I know it'd be nice to see so-and-so, but if I get this thing done by 10pm tonight, I'll be able to come in on Monday with that nice clear desk feeling) just one query from our fork-tongued mate can make us realise that we're being daft as a middle-eastern invasion. Even if it's only because they enjoy being funny.
  
  
  
• Use technology where it really can help, not just where it's cool.
  
  Some gadgets are truly pointless (behold the indoor blimp!) but there are some that, despite their geek-boy pretensions, can truly release us from being bound to a location or a desk.
  Indoor blimp
  
  Here is a small sample of them:
  
  1. A change is as good as a rest, they say. How about being able to get away from where you normally work and check your email in the forest? This can now be done, even without a laptop. Some of the newer mobile phones have just as much power and storage space as the PCs of 8 years ago. In addition to that, they provide a surprisingly usable net connection without wires. Make sure you go for T-Mobile's "Web 'n' Walk" tariff, which lets you have unlimited access for about £8 per month (at the time of writing).
  
  2. Another toy which can boost location-independence is an external hard drive. There are a wonderful range now available, which allow most professionals to store several years' worth of work and carry it from place to place. And they are surprisingly light, too.
  
  3. 3G cards, which are becoming more available across the country, and when plugged into a laptop, enable wireless internet connections at broadband speeds.
  
  4. Great email programs, like Popcorn (sadly PC-only) which can be stored on removable media and do not need to be seperately installed and configured on each computer you want to check your email on. Perfect for going where you wouldn't dare take a laptop.
  Popcorn
  
  Just don't let any machines get between you and your priorities.
  
  

Less geekery next post - promise!