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I've tried your idea too, that's why i consider that instantboss is fantastic for me. My only problem is that all the work i have to get done is stuff in my computer, which means it is in the exact same place where i get distracted and there's no "phisical" way to escape.
My only solution to this is to use instantboss and make an enormous effort not to do anything other than work and stop working in the defined moments.
But...

after the novelty period has worn off you'll start to avoid the room(s) where the task takes place

Yes, i've stopped using it.

  it's stupid, i feel mad at myself for not doing anything, and still, don't.

hmmm...maybe I should think about putting in some sort of really cool reward for when you finish the full work/break cycle. Something to keep you wanting to use it. I have an idea, but I am not going to say anything about it yet. 

the only thing that strikes me as possibly going wrong with your isolation experiment, is that after the novelty period has worn off you'll start to avoid the room(s) where the task takes place. i'm sure your subconscious will be capable of inventing reasons why you should not go into the room.

basically, i'm just saying, be aware - i feel that the task and the room will become one and the same thing.

That already is the problem...I already avoid those rooms in order to avoid the tasks...which is why I am going to force myself to do this.

I have been avoiding those rooms for years...and it really looks like it too. I'd share pics but it's embarrassing. 

I hate housework with a passion! The only place in the house that looks decent is the space I occupy the most...my desk area...and the bathroom, because dirty bathrooms scare me.

My task this week was to make my kitchen presentable enough to let in the landlord so he could replace a worn out faucet, which was supposed to be done on Saturday, but he had a lot of other work to do in the apartment across the hall and can't get to my sink till Sunday.

[Delphi]

I just tried some things in Delphi to see if I could get it to work where it didn't have a titlebar and could be resizable...and at first I couldn't do it either.

The problem I had is that there is no way to get rid of the titlebar unless I set the form's border style to 'none'...which isn't resizable. Only 'sizable' & 'sizable tool window' can be resized by dragging the edge...and they both have titlebars.

Then I remembered a custom form I was working on awhile back...some really flashy looking thing...and remembered I was able to make it resizable. So I looked at how I did it and was able to create a transparent window with a border that was resizable.

The trick here is in procedure TForm1.CreateParams. It overrides the borderstyle of 'none' to give it a border and it's resizable. 

Anything you may have had in your OnCreate procedure that resembled this, won't be needed...just remove or comment it out:

Formatted for Delphi with the GeSHI Syntax Highlighter [copy or print]
procedure TForm1.FormCreate(Sender: TObject);
begin
  SetWindowLong( Handle, GWL_STYLE, 
    GetWindowLong( Handle, GWL_STYLE ) 
    and not WS_CAPTION ) ;
  ClientHeight := Height; 
end;

form properties & settings:

Form code:

I am not sure if the Delphi code will be any help to you, but I have been told that Delphi & C# are similar enough to be almost considered close cousins.

The full Delphi source and .exe file are attached if you need it or want to try out the form to see how it works.

I seriously hope he finds someone committed to keeping it free. I would hate to see another free program being snatched up and turned into payware or deliberately killed.

I managed to complete the task...and pretty much on time. 

Then I was given an extra day I didn't need...lol.

In the process I have made a discovery about myself and maybe a way to handle a procrastination problem like this in the future.

The idea of spending 5 minutes a day doing what I have to do doesn't seem to work...I still avoid the 5 minutes and the tasks.

The idea of tricking myself sort of works...but not in the same way as "I'll just take this folder out" or "I'll just work for 5 minutes" does.

My problem takes place in various parts of my house that I don't spend much time in...places I avoid spending much time in....places equal to Hell, in my mind.

I have made a plan:

I am going to spend 1 hour in one of those rooms every day...no TV, no radio, no computer, no other people...alone with 'nothing to do'. I will either become bored out of my mind and sit there like an idiot, or get something done. (more likely get something done)

If you want to try this for yourself, create a place where there are no distractions...nothing interesting that you can use to avoid your tasks. Put everything you need to complete your most procrastinated task there, some sort of timer, and nothing more. Set the timer and spend 1 hour there every day till the task is done. You don't have to do the task if you don't want to...just sit there and do nothing, if you prefer. Chances are you will work on your task just to keep from being bored by doing nothing.

I'll give you an update next weekend and let you know how it works for me.

I think this was how I got all my homework done when I was a kid...sitting in our hallway after school for 2 hours every day waiting for one of my parents to get home, with nothing to do...except my homework. I think if I had a key to let myself in, none of that horrible homework would ever have been finished.

Without having anything to compare it to for when he is 'normal' I can't really comment on this except to say he reminds me of some of the teachers I have had that went out of their way to try to make boring subjects interesting.

Yes, I have had teachers just like this guy...only they weren't high. Some of them were my favorite teachers.

I don't know about teaching business in a university, but this guy would sure make a great high school history teacher.

That short clip I found seems a whole lot different after watching the full 35 minutes from the one noth(a)nk.you posted. 

I couldn't figure out how to work around that so I ended up using a form border. A bit lame, but it works.

I like the form border...a lot. Keep it in there. It's like having an extra set of guide lines. Can you make resizing possible by dragging the border?

Is there any way you can have normal controls on the titlebar? I'd like to be able to use FileBox Extender's extra buttons when needed, but without the min-max/restore-close on the titlebar I don't think I can. I can't access a menu when right clicking the taskbar button either, for toggling FileBox Extender's always on top or roll up options.

It would still be nice if it were 2 forms, one for the rulers, and one for the settings...that way you can move the settings panel out of your way and work in the upper portion of the screen if you need to. Right now you can't without entering negative numbers into the Y pos, which has the potential to cause the undesired effect of not being able to get the settings panel back without ending task on the program and restarting it. Having 2 separate forms would solve that problem. And the extra form for the settings doesn't even need to be always on top like the rulers.

The more I play with this, the more I can see this easily becoming a favorite tool. 

You can get one year of Panda's full Platinum Internet Security for free at:

http://www.pandasecurity.com/promotions/itathome/register.aspx

It's intended for IT people, but if you count your kids, dogs, and cats as employees (it certainly costs enough to feed them), I imagine qualifying isn't too hard.

The promotion isn't for business owners..it's for anyone that works in the IT profession. They are hoping by giving you a free copy that if there comes an opportunity where you can influence the antivirus decisions at work, that your positive experiences with their product will allow you to be free advertising for them.

I wonder if the work we do here on this site would qualify most of us legitimately for that free copy of Panda without the need to count our pets as employees.

ooooh...I like this!
Like it very much!  

I paid for this proggie a long time ago and little by little replaced everything I use it for with other software that does it better. Your floating ruler replaces just one more part of it.

[attachthumb=1]
Screen Loupe 2000

For those with the darker looking desktops, I figured I'd contribute a little fan art of a different style.

I'll be doing a screensaver that will go with this one & nudone's wallpapers, providing someone can get a few coins away from Cody and pass them my way in the form of a .psp, .tub, or .tif (with black background)

[attachthumb=1]

Ooorrrr, you can go to AOL as well, but get their much better and lighter Kaspersky-based antivirus app: http://www.activevirusshi...ntivirus/freeav/index.adp

- Oshyan

Wow...I didn't know about that one. I only knew about the free McAfee they have been giving away for the last 2+ years.

Says at that link that you don't need AOL to get it for free. Might be the thing to go for instead of the AOL McAfee.

The horizon one...that sun could actually be a giant coin.  

and the beach one reminds me of Cody's great-great-great grandfather before he decided to bake himself in the Florida sun.(and before the gators got him)

almost finished! 

http://proj.chbs.dk/

great link!

ooooh...I like that pedometer & 10,000 steps idea.   

Personal experience from being a McAfee Virus Scan user from versions 4 thru 7 and a McAfee Office 2000 user:

I had a lot of problems with stability on 9x. First with 98se and later on with WinME. Lots of programs locking up, blue screens, general freaky things happening like my taskbar locking up, PC freezing if a .rar file's icon was showing on my screen, random frequent low resource warnings, screen freezes that forced me to hit the reset button, etc. My average uptime on 98se was about 2 hours, uptime on WinME was about 4 hours.

Then one day I decided I wasn't going to pay for upgrading McAfee again. (I was really broke at the time and could hardly afford food, nevermind software).

rkarman told me to install the free AVG and it was the best thing I ever did. I am so glad I listened to him. All the weird problems went away and my WinME computer became one of the most stable 9x PC's I have ever seen, with uptimes in excess of 3 months, if I can keep my daughter away from it and I don't have a power failure.

Before I switched I thought McAfee was the best antivirus you could get. But experience has taught me otherwise.

But if you still like Mcafee and want a free copy and can't get it from the links given above, another way to do it would be to set up a free AOL account, even if you don't live in the US, and get the McAfee antivirus, firewall, and antispyware they provide for free. Then you can ditch the AOL software. (keep the account though...the 7 free IMAP email accounts are pretty good and their webmail kicks butt...rivaling Gmail in my opinion, or you can access them with any email client that can handle IMAP)

Now that I have this great font manager I just realized something...

12,485 fonts are not enough! 

[attach=1]

Maybe Carol, Ken, Allen, thunder7, and wraith808 can help me out? 

(Is there a Font Addicts Anonymous?)

wikiHow is a collaborative writing project to build the world's largest how-to manual. With your contributions, we can create a free resource that helps people by offering clear, concise solutions to the problems of everyday life. wikiHow currently contains 12,111 articles written, edited, and maintained primarily by volunteers. Please join us by writing a new page, or editing a page that someone else has started.

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bah, not flash game of the day material !

I think mouser's score was low. 

Massachusetts School of Law at Andover presents a show on Time Management

[attach=1]
http://video.google.com/v...ocid=-4242235120852630319

Length: about 54 minutes

[attach=1]
http://video.google.com/v...650168135760932&hl=en

Peter Turla, author of Time Management Made Easy.

Length: about 11 minutes

His site: http://www.timeman.com

found a youtube link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8zuEse64k4

Move the hand and slap that monkey.

[attach=1]
http://www.amishdonkey.com/monkey-spank.php

My daughter's high score was 713 mph as of this post.

I can't get over 315. 

From a high level, Google's process probably does look like chaos to someone from a more traditional software development company. As a newcomer, some of the things that leap out at you include:

- there are managers, sort of, but most of them code at least half-time, making them more like tech leads.

- developers can switch teams and/or projects any time they want, no questions asked; just say the word and the movers will show up the next day to put you in your new office with your new team.

- Google has a philosophy of not ever telling developers what to work on, and they take it pretty seriously.

- developers are strongly encouraged to spend 20% of their time (and I mean their M-F, 8-5 time, not weekends or personal time) working on whatever they want, as long as it's not their main project.

- there aren't very many meetings. I'd say an average developer attends perhaps 3 meetings a week, including their 1:1 with their lead.

- it's quiet. Engineers are quietly focused on their work, as individuals or sometimes in little groups or 2 to 5.

- there aren't Gantt charts or date-task-owner spreadsheets or any other visible project-management artifacts in evidence, not that I've ever seen.

- even during the relatively rare crunch periods, people still go get lunch and dinner, which are (famously) always free and tasty, and they don't work insane hours unless they want to.

These are generalizations, sure. Old-timers will no doubt have a slightly different view, just as my view of Amazon is slightly biased by having been there in 1998 when it was a pretty crazy place. But I think most Googlers would agree that my generalizations here are pretty accurate.

How could this ever work?

[attach=1]
http://steve-yegge.blogsp...d-agile-bad-agile_27.html

I actually filed memepool and everything2 under 'general blogs'.