Wednesday, October 03, 2007

A lot about nothing...

...that's how I can describe the past few days. After a (really) busy weekend, all I gotta do the entire week is... well, absolutely nothing. This is the one thing about being a consultant: there you are, working as if there's no tomorrow, can't eat, can't sleep, busy, busy, busy, deadlines... rainbow. Or whatever it is that comes after the storm. Three days of obliterating paper clips, ripping music, random news (read slashdot / lifehacker / zone-h / LWN), math, wallpapers and mahjong - lots of mahjong - and I suddenly realized the horrible, horrible truth: with massive procrastination comes the need to manage it.

Yesterday I read a post from a friend of mine about how disturbing it can be when you're interrupted while working, and the comments inevitably came to task and time management. See, there are a lot of techniques to maximize your production while at work, be it through task organization (setting small goals, productivity software, moleskine) or some form of structured procrastination - but there's no such thing as a "How To Slack At The Office And Not Get Bored To Death" guide. Coding without an objective is like declaring war in a desert island (coconuts don't count as spoils), and (at least for me) good books require good wine. I'm going to try and see if something useful comes up, but now I'm curious about how the rest of the world deals with it.