Ticking Away

Why is it always that things you think will be simple, end up being the  most difficult?

Case in point: for the past few weeks, I’ve been on the search for a battery powered electric timer. I’m trying to get better at my time management skills (when I’m home and just goofing around on the computer), so borrowing a tactic I picked up from a co-panelist (Mary Robinette Kowal) at PenguiCon last month, I decided to invest in a timer to give me some kind of boundaries.

I’m very much a person that thrives with deadlines, due dates and challenges. So, when I have none of those, my mind wanders. A perfect example of this is National Novel Writing Month. I can write 50,000+ words in 25 days while I’m on deadline, but good luck getting me to finish a manuscript on my own after that. Seriously, I hate it.

So, the idea with the timer is I set it for say 20 minutes and force myself to work on (whatever) for that time, or set it and say “I can goof off on the Internet for this long, after that, back to work.”

A great concept. Well, getting the device itself proved to be quite the task.

I wanted a timer with Hours and Minutes, because I’ll have situations where I have a hour or more of ‘free time’ and need to stay on task (say, before band practice). I had a heck of a time even finding a place that had timers with Hours. At last I found what a thought was one of these, but after I got home I realized it was Minutes and Seconds. D’oh. Returned.

Then, I finally found one that had Hours and Minutes.  Got home, tried it out and the screen was screwed up (which I couldn’t figure out until actually using it). Returned.

I know what you’re thinking, “Why not use your oven timer or set an alarm on your cell phone?” A) the oven time isn’t portable B) I like seeing the countdown and also not having to do the math in regards to what time it is when setting an alarm.

After returning the second timer, I at last found one–and I’m using it right now. I have five minutes to go to get this post up, so I think I’ll end here.