Troll food
I started to comment to this post at Cranking Widgets, and I got a bit carried away. I guess the discussion touched the same nerve for me as it did for him. Before I hit "submit", I realized, "Hey, that's right! I have a blog, too."
I've only had this blog for four days, and I'm already posting my first rant.
So here's my knee-jerk reaction to feed the troll who wrote a rant (warning: contains profanity) against productivity blogs:
Hmmm. Does the appearance of blog-trolls prove that GTD has proven itself a religion? Animosity like his is usually reserved for religion and politics. It's impressive how quickly trolls sniff out a bit of truth or passion.
Productivity means reading a novel instead of searching for tax documents. Productivity means being not being late for your kid's school performances or too overbooked to attend. Productivity means having time to review what you submit with time to catch major errors before release. Productivity means not feeling the need to speed when driving. Productivity means remembering to bring the coupons with you to the supermarket.
Productivity means making decisions and meeting deadlines.
Everyone trots out the likely deathbed wish for "more time." Productivity junkies are just looking at the expense column of the Time Revenue Equation, aware that nothing can be done about the income side.
People who like to think, think a lot. They don't stop thnking when the clock strikes 5:00 p.m.
On his blog, the troll growled,
"You do not become a programmer, or an engineer, by making more efficient use of your toothpaste tube..."
That toothpaste tube represents lifetimes of innovation and creativity on behalf of its inventors and manufacturers.
I'm a stay-at-home-mom of 5. Every second I save belongs to
I was an electrical engineer before I had kids. I'm also a grandaughter of an engineer, a daughter of an engineer, the wife of an engineer who is the son of an engineer. My sister is an engineer. I assure you that my sister, my father-in-law, my husband, my father, my grandfather and I ALL have passionately held opinions about how best to use the toothpaste.
We like to think about many things, including toothpaste tubes. Social creatures, we share, discuss, and delight in wisdom, however trivial. The "blogosphere" just takes our discussions global.
The giraffe developed a long neck. The porcupine, quills. Humans (and even some trolls) develop websites. If you would like to boycott the World-Wide Wisdom Repository, we won't miss you. You, sir, can just go and...and...Oh, go twiddle your fonts.
[clears throat, wipes spittle from chin, looks around]
Was that aloud?
Um, what I meant to say was, uh, I choose to spend my spare time looking for spare time. So shoot me.
As you were....
14 comments, so far. Add yours now!
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Love the rant. Love it love it love it!
Thank you, gtd wannabe! I really enjoy your blog.
All the best,
CLKL
Thanks for the post, and the links!
Thank you, Matt. I only linked to my favorite productivity blogs in this post, and your Idea Blog is certainly one of them.
All the best,
CLKL
Wow! I'm not sure I have the cerebral capacity to understand your rant, but I appreciate the link from "truth" the Elemental Truths.
Well, Reg, you had the "cerebral capacity" to write the post about dealing with difficult people; I bet you can handle this little screed.
All the best,
CLKL
Sweet. Smart. "Carried away" - heh.
When I grow up I want to be a big time productivity blogger with lots of idiots sniping at me. Because that's when you know that you've made it. Zenhabits has over 9,000 RSS subscribers. Look at these results for "Apodnion".
And it looks like he's a teacher at Riverdale Country School (I'd be surprised to see a student use their "dot edu" email address. But a teacher at a liberal arts high school...absolutely.
Another way you know that Leo of Zen Habits has "made it" (spiritually, in addition to his feed count) is in how he responded to the troll at the troll's own website.
That was a class act.
He clearly walks his talk.
Oops, typo: That's zenhabits.net, not .com Sorry!
Feed the troll!
Hello,
I know this was from a long time ago, but I'd like to just add my two cents. I don't know about the troll or the situation, but this post is helpful regardless of the initial "activating" event.
I appreciate you leaving it up because I think this is a great reminder to everyone about the point of trying to become more organized.
We do these things not because being more productive is inherently good but because we have a limited amount of time and we want to choose how we allocate that time. It's not a relentless quest for perfection and I'm not looking for a Martha Stewart life. I just want to be organized so I can use the most possible time doing things with my family and friends.
Also, thanks very much for your blog. I appreciate it very much!
Top web site, I hadn't come across blog.jugglingfrogs.com previously during my searches!
Continue the great work!
I stumbled across your blog by way of a search for sukkah information, and was delighted to find that you are another mama using GTD for home management purposes!
I notice that you do a lot of linking from your posts, and I'm wondering if you have a "trick" for looking these up (especially old posts of your own). I really should use more links in my posts, but it would take me an hour just to add the links that you readily use in a single post! Surely I'm missing something - right?
Greetings,
This is a message for the webmaster/admin here at blog.jugglingfrogs.com.
May I use some of the information from your blog post above if I give a backlink back to your site?
Thanks,
Daniel
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