Paper is overwhelming me, sources of input never stop, and free time has vanished. Ultimately, tips and strategies that do not take one outside the “normal” life we live nowadays can only do so much. I think it will take more radical steps, such as getting rid of the home computer and TV, and the answering machine, to calm life down again.

I remember life before answering machines, and it’s an illustration of what exponentially increasing connectivity has done to us. If someone called and we were out, they had to call again. Yes, they wasted some time, but when we got home, nothing was waiting there to nag us to do something. And eventually they would call again, frequently if it was urgent, and get us. Now, we have computer work waiting for us when we get home, if it isn’t traveling with us on a PDA, and we have computer work waiting for us when we go to work, unless we work in an email-free environment.

It’s exhausting. Productivity was promised as the way to give us more leisure time, as a direct result of technology. It has yet to be proven that technology has made us more productive, and we have less free time than ever. Yet those who try to do something about that are ridiculed as Luddites. In the workplace, sauntering along humming a tune means you’re not being “productive” enough, even when you’re demonstrating that you’re in the ideal mindframe for creativity and productivity.

For me, the best productivity and/or lifehacks are those that give us ways to escape the constant nagging of the technology — such as having only one email address and checking it only at specified times.

http://blog.tsheets.com/2008/tips-tricks/workout-tracking-with-tsheets.html