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Try Out 10 Free Productivity Apps at Donation Coder
Posted by Kevin Purdy at 1:30 AM on December 7, 2007
Windows only: Free software site Donation Coder challenged its code-savvy users in November to write small, simple programs that help users better manage their time and tasks. The results are in, they're free, and some of them look really darn useful. Evaluweight, for instance, helps make decisions by providing a customizable grid with weighted factors. AnotherOneDone is a tiny window that simply keeps track of how much of anything you have to do, how much you've done, and how many remain, while Interruptron helps you track when and why you get distracted from your work. All of the programs are free downloads for Windows 98 and later, and each requests that you consider throwing a few bucks the author's way.
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LethAL
Posted 1:40 PM 6/12/07
@ticklemeozmo: The nag screens you speak of are only ever seen if you don't put in a free registration key, which expires after something like a year.
I've been using FARR v2 for ages; as it doesn't take an unreasonable amount of memory, like Launchy (~8MB compared to 18MB), and seems to search just as quickly without indexing.
LethAL
ticklemeozmo
Posted 1:32 PM 6/12/07
OR, you can use a free site like SourceForge.net where you can actually help others with their coding knowledge by releasing the source and not having a nag screen in all your applications bothering users to donate to the website YOU contributed to thinking you were going to get some dividends.
Rather than hope you are going to make some pittance from users of your software and having some website profit off your hard work; release it open source, and become a hero to the newbie who was just looking for a way to something nifty and new in some programming language.
ticklemeozmo
mc_spanky_mcgee
Posted 1:11 PM 6/12/07
Donation Coder is an awesome site. If you have an idea for a small program that could help you, head over to their forum and pitch your idea. Then send em a couple bucks.
I think Lifehacker and the DC guys should get together and rule the online galaxy...
mc_spanky_mcgee
Jim
Posted 10:21 AM 6/12/07
Donation Coder also makes the great Find And Run Robot (FARR!) Couldn't live without that one!
Jim
lina_zav
Posted 2:22 PM 7/12/07
Ticklemeozmo: what lethal said. And note that many of the applications and scripts on donationcoder come without any "nag screen", do supply the source and you can easily give feedback and get responses from the coders through their forum.
lina_zav
urlwolf
Posted 11:43 AM 6/12/07
I fotgot:
You may be interested in a 4-part blog post series on attention economy that inspired (partly) the interruptron, and (mostly) a future tool we are buiding to make you read and write faster, called EyeCue.
You can find the posts here:
[workingcogs.com]
urlwolf
urlwolf
Posted 11:41 AM 6/12/07
Disclaimer: I'm the author of the interruptron.
I've been using it for about 2 months now and I can say that the results are measurable. Having a clear idea of how many hours a day you get away with after removing interruptions (and you can set it up so visiting a browser or a mp3 player is considered one) is very valuable.
Simply having a shortcut to start and stop it makes you painfully aware of how many interruptions you get.
After using it for a while, I found which hours are the ones I'm interrupted the most, and have set up strategies to either avoid those hours or the source of the interruptions.
The task report at the end of the month makes it easy to do the monthly review (GTD). It's also conforting in that you see how many hours you spent on each task. Particularly boring tasks have more interruptions... why would that be? :)
It also forced me to rest when I should.
I don't have logged data to use as a control condition, but I'd say those two last months have been incredibly productive.
urlwolf