Can't waste time!

I'm an efficiency geek. This is a hobby that I indulge my constantly tweaking my time management skills. Since I discovered Lifehacker, I've found people and suggestions that could really up my game. Last year I installed some time-tracking software, Rescue Time, which tracks all the time you spend on the computer and categorizes it by application. This is pretty helpful if you spend most of your time on a computer (and it was easy to manually enter activities such as meetings, phone calls, or reading, because of periodic prompts). In the end, I felt like I couldn't really tell how efficient I was, because time used for web searchers (say for articles, or to plan conference trips) looked exactly the same as goofing-off time.

Last week I started using something new, called the Pomodoro technique, which I like in part just because it's named after a pasta sauce. It's also straightforward - 25 minutes of work, followed by 5 minutes of break (play). I've been super productive so far, and while I know that part of that is just because I'm paying attention to my time more, I'm still pretty happy.

And if you think all of this focus on productivity is overrated, you can just sing along to the "Hurry Up" song from the Pajama Game. That's another two minutes happily wasted.