If there is one bad habit I just can't seem to overcome it is what I call productivity porn procrastination. I love to spend time on sites like Lifehacker looking for ways to improve my productivity. Now, this is not a total time waster. I do from time to time come up with tips that save me a lot of time. For example I am writing this blog post using the Most Dangerous Writing App. This is something I found on Lifehacker which is greatly increasing the amount of writing I get done and also improving the quality of my writing and speeding up my typing.
These are very real and very tangible benefits which I am already deriving great pleasure from and which are, I am quite confident, going to put money in my bank account.
The problem is that it only works on my big computers - my desktop and my laptop computers. It just doesn't seem possible to keep up the speed it requires on my iPad. Not a biggie. It would be good to be more productive on my iPad, but it is never going to be possible to type as fast on an iPad as it is on a proper keyboard. So you'd have thought that I would have left it there.
Of course I haven't. I have spent time looking for an alternative that would work. I identified an app called Flowstate that on paper should do the job. I downloaded it and discovered that it is even worse than the Most Dangerous App. It won't let you get past a full stop. I spent ages trying to get it to work. I then did something that I never do. I left an angry negative review on the App store. I then spent far more time than was justified by the small cost of the app getting a refund.
Why did I let myself go down this rabbit hole? I have now turned a positive experience of discovering a new way of working into a negative one of complaining about somebody else's work. There is a good chance that the problem with the app was something I was doing anyway, but even if it wasn't why spend my time correcting it. It isn't as if I have anything to gain from it. I am not going to use the app again whatever happens.
Even more bizarrely , I am now considering downloading the the desktop version to see if it is better than the one I am currently using.
I have a feeling that this is one of my bad habits that I may never conquer, but at least I have to be aware of it.
photo credit: Tarry (lock) via photopin (license)
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