Thursday, July 30, 2009

iGoogle Makes Me Green

There are a lot of things I inherited from my father.  My love of the Chicago White Sox.  My inability to eat a grilled cheese sandwich without ketchup.  The ability to hold a grudge longer than a shark can hold its breath.

The most work-worthy thing though is the obsession with making to-do lists.  For anyone who is a frequent reader of this publication you know how much I love making lists.  But when I am not listing My Favorite Office Supplies or Reasons I Will Not Let You On The Fun Committee I spend my time making actual to-do lists of things I need to do.  I generally make two a day:  one for things to do when I am not at work and one of things to do at work. 

The one at work is the on I generally put a lot of time into.  For the past six months or so I have been getting to work each morning, grabbing a piece of light blue scrap paper, and outlining my day.  It's not so much that I need a list to remember what to do, I just really enjoy the satisfaction of crossing each task out with the only Sharpie marker in the office.

Today though I found a way to keep my lists but ease into the 21st century.  Do you guys know about iGoogle?  It's the main page of Google but for crackheads who really like applications. (i.e. people with iPhones.  Note:  I am not one of those people.  Not until my trusty Razr dies anyway.)  You can customize your main page with tons of useful items like Joke of the Day for when you need a way to end the silence at the lunch table, Pet Turtle because your boss won't let you actually keep a real one at your desk, and Daily Bible Verse for when you feel bad about cursing the Microsoft Outlook for locking up on you.
 
Generally most of the applications on my iGoogle have a practical use like a currency convertor and language translator.  But nothing is more useful than what I added today:

THE iGOOGLE TO DO LIST

I failed at my attempt to get a pic of my iGoogle page posted here so you could see an example if what I am talking about but I am computer illiterate once I leave for the day so there.

But believe me when I tell you amazing.  It is a virtual yellow lined pad where you can add tasks that you need to complete and when you are done, you can delete them off, giving pretty much the same satisfaction as crossing them out without the noxious marker fumes.  Sadly I was so busy doing stuff today that I didn't get to my to-do list so there is still a bunch of stuff on there.  And the only real downfall is that when I go on iGoogle at home there list is there, reminding me of what I have to do tomorrow.

But I am sure I will eventually learn to suppress it much like everything else that deals with work once I clock out.

~ The Office Scribe

5 comments:

God said...

On the list for today:
Learn how to attach screenshots to a Blogger post?


Heee, I couldn't help myself!

David said...

That wouldn't work for me. I get too much pleasure marking things off the list. I've even been known on rare occasion to add something I did to the list just to then mark it off. Sick, I know.

Anonymous said...

Oh, David, you are not the only one who does that. Worse are those who put dumb things on the list:

"Trip to the watercooler"
"Make copy"

You know, stuff that really doesn't need to be on the list, but it adds the satisfaction of a bold DONE line through it.

yes. Many of us out there do it.

David said...

Here my two cents for crossing one item off your list of today:

Whenever you want a screenshot of your computer, press (depending on the keyboard) "Ctrl" + "Prt Sc" or "Function" + "Prt Sc", then open Paint and paste it. After that,you can save it as a jpeg file and place it on your blog.

Remember, posting a picture of your actual computer desktop is like posting your photograph in underwear!

Anonymous said...

iHeart iGoogle (yes, that was corny iKnow... oops! there iGo again. LOL)