Meeting Ticker -- if this helps shorten even one meeting by one minute, it'll have been worth it.
posted by nthdegx on Jul 17, 2009 - 20 comments

A new university of Melbourne study finds that surfing the web at work can actually boost rather than hurt productivity, even when the content is not work related. Finally I have an excuse for why I am "always looking at that blue site."
posted by Bango Skank on Apr 2, 2009 - 43 comments

Not all of us need, or want, $10,000 worth of Adobe and Microsoft software to be creative. So, here's some alternatives, each available on every major platform:

GIMP, for all your drawing and photo-editing needs. (Windows and OSX.)
Inkscape, for vector graphics creation.
Scribus, for incredibly powerful document creation.
FontForge, if you want to make your own fonts.
OpenOffice, the old standby for word processing, spreadsheets, and all those other office needs. [more inside]
posted by cthuljew on Feb 20, 2009 - 189 comments

When you write, will you pick Gentle, Normal, or Kamakaze mode? - “Write or Die is a web application that encourages writing by punishing the tendency to avoid writing. Start typing in the box. As long as you keep typing, you're fine, but once you stop typing, you have a grace period of a certain number of seconds and then there are consequences.”
posted by buriednexttoyou on Nov 9, 2008 - 28 comments

"Multitasking messes with the brain in several ways. At the most basic level, the mental balancing acts that it requires—the constant switching and pivoting—energize regions of the brain that specialize in visual processing and physical coordination and simultaneously appear to shortchange some of the higher areas related to memory and learning. We concentrate on the act of concentration at the expense of whatever it is that we’re supposed to be concentrating on." [more inside]
posted by jbickers on Aug 21, 2008 - 27 comments

"Wasting time gets a bad rap", says Lisa Belkin in today's NYTimes, who argues that time often considered "unproductive" or "wasted" in today's workaholic culture is actually time well spent- "Over the years I have come to see that the hours away from the writing are the time when the real work gets done." Readers seem to agree.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero on Jun 1, 2007 - 25 comments

Gina Trapani's Invisibility Cloak is a GreaseMonkey script for Firefox that blocks time-wasting websites while you're working. Conveniently, MetaFilter is included by default. Previously: Temptation Blocker.
posted by russilwvong on May 16, 2007 - 13 comments

Language in Common thinks about quitting_[pdf]. Or starting a new job at your old job_[pdf]. Or becoming a better lover_[pdf]. At work. And they notice that others are thinking too.
posted by mendel on Mar 14, 2007 - 2 comments

BumpTop is based on the long standing idea of piles as a desktop use metaphor, this seems to bring it to life at last. Will this sort out your desktop?
posted by marvin on Jun 21, 2006 - 37 comments

In Defense of French Dirigisme.
posted by semmi on Apr 10, 2006 - 60 comments

Miles Davis? Kanye West? The Beatles? Oh... you mean Muzak? Ike played it in the West Wing, NASA used it to soothe astronauts' anxiety. But it's not just your daddy's elevator music anymore.
posted by digaman on Apr 6, 2006 - 44 comments

The Portable Freeware Collection tracks free Windows software that can be launched from a USB flash drive with no installation. It advises on how to prepare and launch the software (usually as simple as saving and double clicking an exe file), and if/where settings are written to the computer. I'm particularly keen to get to grips with the Pimmy email, newsgroup and RSS client; the KM@ web browser (portable versions of Firefox and Opera are also available); and organizational joygasm NeoMem.
posted by nthdegx on Jan 3, 2006 - 23 comments

Merlin Mann's 43 Folders podcast is hilarious.
posted by nthdegx on Oct 26, 2005 - 48 comments

Temptation Blocker So, have a major deadline looming or ripe opportunity closing and just don’t have time to waste playing Half Life 2 or checking Bloglines one last time? Well then, add Half Life 2 and Firefox to the list of programs you want to block in Temptation Blocker, set the timer for how long you want to block them and then hit the “Get Work Done!” button. [Windows freeware]
posted by srboisvert on Aug 3, 2005 - 25 comments

How Powerful Is Productivity? TCS interviews Former Carter Staffer (and Democrat) William Lewis, who makes some interesting remarks about worker productivity: There were many disparaging comments made in the US and maybe even stronger abroad, (and especially in Japan) about how the US labor force was getting what it deserved because it was lazy, uneducated and maybe even dumb. And of course, the Japanese then showed -- the really capable, competent Japanese manufacturing companies -- showed that was wrong by coming here, building their own factories, managing American labor and taking a lot of other local inputs and coming within five percent of reproducing their home country productivity.
posted by Kwantsar on Jun 20, 2005 - 11 comments

The scientific productivity of nations (pdf). An article by the UK's chief scientific advisor, published this week in Nature, quantitating the scientific output of different countries, normalized to per capita GDP, area of study, number of researchers, higher education research spending, and more. A commentary, from a UK perspective.
posted by shoos on Jul 19, 2004 - 6 comments

Could This Be The Renaissance Of The Three-Martini Lunch? Do business and alcohol mix? Do business and pleasure? Must we be all be utterly sober when we do deals? Or work? Is a little lubrication slowly replacing mineral water and political correctness? Surely it's not only writers who gain from the odd whisky and soda or gin and tonic? Have you ever done any worthwhile work while under the influence? Please feel free to choose your drug of choice. Tobacco, amphetamines and benzodiazepines included. [Via eGullet's recent thread, started by Beans.]
posted by MiguelCardoso on Jan 11, 2004 - 32 comments

Web of Distraction. Does the web cause you to lose time, having a hard time stopping browsing, and starting working? I know for me, the sheer inertia of browsing, it's hard to start working.
posted by patrickje on May 9, 2002 - 12 comments

A study from researchers at the University of Alberta concludes that unhappy workers perform their tasks at the same rate as happy workers, but with about half as many errors (more inside).
posted by hazyjane on Jun 15, 2001 - 11 comments

"They appear to have been skilled workers capable of stupendous productivity under harsh circumstances. When they failed, it was not from lack of inventiveness, but because of poor leadership, bad luck or the inherent instability of all-male commercial ventures."

It sounds like the writer is describing the typical failed dot-com. Actually, he's writing about 17th Century commercial colonization of North America. The similarities are quite amusing. Read on...
posted by ratbastard on Nov 23, 2000 - 1 comment