I would be very content to sit around all day talking, thinking, and writing about ideas... that is, with a good amount of eating, physical activity, and media immersion thrown in for fuel. I am still working out how to best set myself up to do more of that key intellectual activity. I find that doing something any particular thing on a regular basis begets more doing of that thing as a habit, so long as the behavior isn't unpleasant... which this shouldn't be for me. So, instead of focusing on the particular medium of creation (essays, short stories, novels, presentations, lyrics) or the long term outlook for my projects, I'm searching for a intermediate mechanism to break work into consistent little parts.

I don't want to be productive for the sake of productivity. I want that good feeling at the end of the day that I get from knowing that I have been – rest in righteousness. Getting there requires self discipline and to my means to that end is transparency – making what I have done known to others - people I respect and want to be esteemed by. I need to find ways to use the tech tools available today to help hold myself accountable for getting things done every day. This is in effect “lifelogging”, but it doesn't necessitate cameras or a specific piece of pricey software. I have found a way to incorporate it inside my own website using some key (but free) web services.

The goal is to be able to display my daily activities more fully online. Sure, I could just start posting daily blogs with a list of things I've done in free text, but that isn't very pretty or manageable. Moreover, I want to keep my website structure mostly the same. Shoot, I want to keep my life structure mostly the same, even if I am more settled these days. Anyhow, I still can't think of a better way to go about an unstructured life than setting small daily goals for myself. I have approximately 16 waking hours in my day in which I should be able to get at least the following done:

Exercise
Revise an Essay
Think of One New Good Idea (and start an essay about it)
Write Something Substantial for my dissertation
Either Talk to A New Interesting Person or a schedule a time to talk with them
Write Some Lyrics
Call A Friend
Read One Academic Article
Find One Piece of Truly Interesting Media – article, show, movie, website
Listen New Musician
Eat Something Different

A task list like this something I've been pursuing for years. When someone asks me what I've done today, a quick look at this could offer some concise answers. I want people to at least threaten to ask me such things on a regular basis... that's my motivation. Sure, this is its own sort of repeat New Years resolution, but I think I can make myself accountable to it. It's all about me – no community service... very little here is contingent on others. Moreover, I think I might actually entertain some people enough with this daily production listing... to encourage them to keep following my activities on a somewhat regular basis – to “subscribe” to me if you will.

However, finding a tech solution way to make this happen wasn't as easy as I thought. I knew what tools were suitable, but I had to bring them together... so I did. What I worked out was a quasi-hack using the Google Calender, Remember the Milk, Twitter, and my website. I started by embedding my calender into my site and then adding in RTM's task listing functionality and hooking Twitter. The last service, if you haven't heard of it by now, is the leading microblogging solution, which allows me at any time to type a little message (SMS length) into my phone, email, or IM client and instantly post it online. One service feeds into another and another... all together at least four levels of data organizing. Thank goodness for the proliferation and of these innovative, free, and third-party friendly web tools. This was a tough problem turned easy... something straight out of a LifeHacker productivity playbook I never read. Now, the next step is to be able to export my days happenings back into Twitter for an unadulterated microblog read.

To see the end result, click on the Calender button above my faces.