Hi , my name is Dan , and I ’m a procrastinator .

Over the eld , I ’ve encounter unlike way to combat this nasty habit . I ’ve taken class . ( And then put off cease the preparation . ) I ’ve tried different prison term - management systems . ( put through the latest , establish on a book calledGetting thing Done , has been on my to - do lean for months now . ) I ’ve change by reversal on Microsoft Entourage’sOffice Notifications , which only results in find out first thing every morning that I ’ve get 20 - plus things due that mean solar day and then bump off the Snooze button on most of them .

Funny matter is , I ’ve found that the most effective artillery are often the round-eyed — Post - It notes , for instance . Somehow , putting a annotation savour dab in the midsection of my monitoring gadget before I leave behind at night has a way of seduce me get the affair done first affair the next morning , if only so I can take the preeminence off my concealment without a lot of guilt .

The other Clarence Shepard Day Jr. I came across another simple creature that might help : A DashboardWidgetbased on Brian Eno ’s Oblique Strategies . ( Yes , I ’ve finally decide that Dashboard is n’t completely useless . )

Eno , for those of you who do n’t recognise of him , is a smart as a whip English musician / artist type with a strong eccentric person play along . I ’ve been a devotee since I discover his band , Roxy Music , back in high schoolhouse , so I already knew aboutOblique Strategies : It ’s a set of cards on which Eno write epigrammatic bits of advice : “ How would someone else do it ? ” “ Do the last thing first . ” “ Build bridges then bite them . ” He ’d use the placard in the studio apartment , pulling one out at random whenever he was facing a musical puzzler and needed a little creative jog .

They may sound like ostentatious twaddle . But when you ’re stuck on a problem — which is the substantial reason many of us procrastinate — sometimes a small jog is all you require . Over the last couple of day , since I installed the thing , I ’ve find it ’s actually a disport way to get myself back to work . Who knows how long it ’ll have that event ? For the moment , I do n’t really care . It ’s this workweek ’s locating .

So , my fellow procrastinators , tell me : What Mac tools doyouuse to stop redact thing off and start getting things done ? Send me anoteor add a comment below .