Work, work, work...

I am still catching up from the trip in February! That's life. My rule of thumb has been that, for every day I'm gone, it takes me three days to catch up. I think that ratio may no longer be true and it may be more like 1:4 or 1:5. I am not sure why this has shifted, frankly. Much of the blame probably relies with me and how I process my tasks.

I have been working on improving my efficiency so I have been reading a lot of management-type books that are focused on streamlining task management and improving one's ability to deal with a "To Do" list. Dave Allen's "Getting Things Done" method is useful and, while I've read the book before, I have a renewed commitment to using his methods to handle my work load more effectively.

A big help in this area has been org-mode for emacs. I've been using emacs for about a decade now and I find it the most sensible way for me to work. I like using plain text for all of my files but I have a difficult time getting collaborators to work with LaTeX/TeX files that I produce and, after using org-mode for a few months, I've moved away from writing straight LaTeX and instead, I'm using org-mode for my note taking and outlines for manuscripts. I haven't yet played with the spreadsheet features in org-mode but I am getting more interested in using webdav to publish my To Do list to my iPod Touch so I have the updated version on hand all of the time.

I use iCal at work on my main desktop computer so I am tied to an Apple product for my calendar needs (at the moment). Org-mode has a nice agenda minor mode that would probably be more sensible for me to switch to since I use various computers throughout the week and they aren't all Mac OS based. So when I'm using Linux or (on very rare occasions) Windoze, I need to have some way to deal with my calendar that is multi-platform. I do have my iCal calendar publish to my Google cloud apps so I have access to it as long as I have web access but it would be more sensible to have it pushed out to a device (either my CrackBerry or the iPod Touch that I carry). I'll keep you posted on how this all goes.

In the mean time, please feel free to send any ideas or comments about work efficiency. I really need to become more productive just to keep up with my work responsibilities. Of course this would help me keep on top of things that I need to get done at home too! :-)