How to Get Nothing Done

First step, forget to set your alarm for an early morning start after a boozy weekday night before. That way you will wake nice and late and be ready to face the world of snoozing for another half an hour waiting for someone to bring you a strong coffee in bed.

Next, realize that no one is going to bring you that strong black coffee, so slowly ease yourself out of bed, take a quick bathroom break and head for the kitchen. Decide that freshly ground, and nothing else will do, in fact if we are going to make it work really well, freshly roasted and then freshly ground beans will work best for our purposes.

While the coffee is brewing, take a refreshing shower. No time like the present and it will clear your head just in time for that first coffee.

Oh, paper has arrived, better delve into the day’s news (although of course, it’s yesterday’s news by default) but at least you will be almost on the ball when it comes to settling down for a hard day’s work.

Paper and coffee finished, quick time check, 10:15am. Perfect time, well after the rush hour traffic has gone to take some exercise. Joggers on, and we’re off, ah wait, almost forgot the dog, back to the house, feed the dog, joggers back on, out the door again and we’re off. Couple of miles ought to do it…

Back home. Dog dried off after stinky dip in local waterway. A second shower. Finally, you’re heading for that desk.

Booting up. Uhoh, forgot to do the weekly backup last night, better set that going, which usually takes half and hour and winds up the CPU so tight that there really is no point even trying to check emails while it’s going on. Time for a second coffee and maybe some post-jog breakfast.

Right. Back to the desk. Damn, backup stalled, must be a virus. Check out antivirus reviews then run the old out of date freebie that arrived on a DVD-ROM with Computer Abuser magazine months ago regardless. Seems to be nothing awry. So, set the backup in motion again. Check on the dog.

Finally, back at the desk 11:52am, almost time for lunch. Once again, it’s not worth starting anything too heavy at this point. Try checking emails and scan Digg’s Top Story plugin Google sidebar. Downloading slowly today, poor connection, might be worth trying OpenDNS again and see if it works properly this time to speed up your connection a bit. Logged into the router, added the settings. Router has to be rebooted, as does the PC, twice.

OpenDNS still not working and worse still the computer’s dropped its internet connection too, not OpenDNS fault, looks like the network card settings are also wrong. Wife returns home from active, busy, and fulfilling morning. Runs to check email on her machine, discovers cannot download at all. Delegates repairs to you.

Eventually get wife’s email to download, but she’s already been and gone. Hunger pangs pounce, realize it’s well after 2pm and still not had any lunch, back to the kitchen, rustle up a quick sandwich. Quick training session with the dog and then back to the desk.

Connection working now, OpenDNS seems to have speeded up that connection very well, type in domain.cmo by mistake automatically fixes it to .com, neat. Okay, downloading dozens of emails, scan spam folder (132 messages) just in case there is one that is not about appendage enlargement from a compromised, overweight banker in Nigeria. Nope nothing there but garbage.

But, there is one email from a blog fan asking how to become a blogger. Better take a few moments to reply in detail you never know when the up and coming blogger could be your next commissioning editor. Double check email, spell check, send. Uh-oh, forgot to add promised attachment. Re-open message, add attachment, re-send. Attachment too big, bounces back. Open original file editor and attempt to compress, got attachment down to just half a megabyte, send it again with apology to up and coming commissioning editor (who is still at college you realize after re-reading their email).

Absolutely worn out from all this effort, need a break. Twitter about what you’ve been up to, just to chill out, and check on that Digg sidebar again, oh and wait a minute haven’t hit Stumble toolbar for a while, hey what an amazing panorama of the lakeside skyline.

Oh, better check the old blog comment queue, just in case there is some activity. Nope, just one single comment awaiting moderation: “really am lining your website, mor e and better thanks NDgfggff,” it says. Hmmm. Spam anyway, mark it as spam then check Akismet folder for the rest of the comment spam. 148! Bah! Quickly scan them page after page, find no false positives, “Delete All”.

Of course, all this comment spam, must be due to increased traffic, so take a look at web stats, login to control panel with old password, have to delete cache and refresh browser twice to get back to the login screen, finally open stats, click update. Wow! 10 more readers today above the same time yesterday.

Wonder if any of them subscribed to the RSS feed. Login to Feedburner, go to My Feeds. Find answer… Nope. If anything, Feedburner subscribers have fallen significantly. Must have been that awful post yesterday, too obscure, boring, what? Maybe not, maybe Google Reader was offline. Quick scan of other blogs with that keyphrase reveals Google Read was indeed offline. Phew. Make a note to double check Feedburner stats same time tomorrow, just to make sure.

Time?

5:15pm. Jeeeeez. Where does the time go? Realize writing deadline from commissioning editor (no, not that one) to meet, but wife and kids returning home. Memo to self: Must spend more quality time with family. Run downstairs to meet and greet. Discover domestic strife already in progress, anger mounts, a row is brewing, quick escape back to the home office and re-check those Feedburner stats, just in case.

Memo to self: discuss notion of great procrastinators of the world unite…maybe do that next week.

Meanwhile, Skype voicemail just in from friend who has managed to get tickets for local band playing at nearby venue. It would be rude not to, but nearby turns out to be a two-hour drive, and the gig starts at 9pm, you’ll have to abandon the domestic environment if there is going to be any chance of a few pre-gig beers to help you relax after a hard day.

Great gig. Late night return, forget to set your alarm for an early morning start after a boozy weekday night before…