I was reading about the Pomodoro Technique this morning. It sent chills down my spine.

For those unfamiliar with the PT it is a time management system. You can download a PDF of the book for free. It is supposed to take the stress out of the process of getting things done and evidently the system works extremely well.

The technique is quite simple:

1. Choose a task to be accomplished
2. Set the Pomodoro to 25 minutes (the Pomodoro is the timer)
3. Work on the task until the Pomodoro rings, then put a check on your sheet of paper
4. Take a short break (5 minutes is OK)
5. Every 4 Pomodoros take a longer break

If you don’t have one of their cute Pomodoro (tomato) timers handy you can head over to FocusBoosterApp.com and either download a digital timer (conveniently set to 25 minutes) or use their online version. And of course there is an app for the iPhone.

So why the chills? Anyone with a touch of ADHD blood in them knows. Forced discipline is a terrifying concept. It makes me want to flee to Twitter, Facebook and my email account all at the same time. It’s not that I don’t work straight through on my tasks. It is, well, it’s that dang clock. That being said, I think I’ll give it a try.

Do you have a time management system you use? If it’s working for you (or it’s not) share.

Tuesday gets concerned about noises coming from the floor.

Here are mine:

1. NPR – I’m a loyal listener to the end (even through fund raiser week.)
2. Plants – the more the merrier.
3. Socks – for years, like my children, I was a barefooter. Then one day (I think it was the day of the birth of my aforementioned first born,) socks = security. They don’t have to be fancy or cute socks, just plain old white crews. Happy feet!
4. Cargo pants – the epicenter of geeky organization.
5. A car – I know a lot of folks who don’t have one and they seem quite content but to me automobile = independence.
6. Books – Confession, I haven’t read all the books I own. I’m looking for that magic device that will allow the contents of each unread book in my library to instantly drain into my brain upon contact with the top of my head.
7. The Black Hills – It matters not the time of year, the Black Hills have an undeniable magnetism not just for me but for many.
8. A mini arsenal of tech toys (not to be confused with the gargantuan collection of ‘glee’ in Dylan’s possession.)
9. Laughter – wit and humor is very close in value to the ability to breathe.
10. Football – I watched SuperBowl I with my dad, need I say more?

How about you? What’s on your ‘must have’ list?

I have to admit that I am a true devotee and student of the English language. As a consequence, when I go off on an exploratory research adventure for no particular reason, it often has to do with the pursuit of some lexicographic whim or another. It was the chasing down of the  blogging term, ‘Doppelblogger’s origin that set me plunk in the middle of the web page Giant Blogging Terms Glossary: Need a Blog Dictionary?

My favorites come from the Blogging Habits section:

• Metablogging - writing articles about blogging
• Blogstipation - writer’s block for bloggers. Cant think of what to blog about?
• Blogathy - I do not want to post today and I do not care about it
• Blogopotamus - A long long blog post
• Blogorrhea - unusually high output of articles
• Bleg - To use one’s blog to beg for assistance etc.
• Hitnosis - Refreshing your browser repeatedly to see if your hit counter or comments have increased
• GAD - Google Adsense Disorder. Repeatedly checking your adsense earnings. more
• Blego - Blog+Ego. Measuring blogger worth
• Blog hopping – jumping from one blog to another
• Blogroach - A commenter who rudely disagrees with posted content
• Blogoholic - addicted to blogging
• Blogorific = blogtastic – something which a blogger says is terrific
• Blogsit - maintaining a blog while the primary blogger is on leave
• Blogvertising - Also called blogvert. Advertising on a blog.
• Blurker - a blog reader not posting comments, just lurking around quietly.
• Blogathon - update your website every 30 minutes for 24 hours straight. Maybe collect sponsorships. more
• Blogiversary - your blog birthday
• Blog Carnival – Links to other articles covering a specific topic.
• Multiblog - running multiple blogs
• Blog Tipping – Compliment 3 blogs on day 1 of every month. more
• Blogger bash - a blogger party
• Commenter - someone who leaves remarks / comments
• Reciprocal Links - called link love. You link to my blog, I link to yours. To improve search engine rankings.
• Linkbaiting - a habit of writing good content with the sole purpose of getting it linked from multiple sites.
• Blogstorm – a large amount of blogosphere activity due to particular controversy. Also called Blog Swarm.
• Blogsnob – refusing to respond to blog comments from “not-friends”.
• Doppelblogger – plagiarize the content of another blogger. To Doppelblog.
• Blogophobia – Fear of blogs and blogging.
• Bloggerel – the same opinion posted repeatedly on a blog

If you want to sally down the Blog Talk path a bit further head over to WhatIs.com’s bloglossary. Words are such fun.

Day One
Let there B-lite. OMG! Or shld I say Oh Me! It’s so much easier 2-C now. WTF was I thinking B4? Spent the rest of the day dividing lite from drkness. It is good.

Day Two
Made a firmament (sort of a dome thing) to divide the waters under firmament from the waters above. Assigned firmament the file name <heaven>.  +<:-)

Day Three
Gathered waters and let dry land appear. Dry land tagged <earth>, waters tagged <seas>. Uploaded grass and herb-yielding seed into <earth> folder. GR8!

Day Four
More lighting wk. Installed 1 great lite to rule day [<sun>] & lesser lite to rule night [<moon>]. Beta tested them & everything seems to work. It is gd.

Day Five
Bushed from tweaking fish & fowl files. They wouldn’t be fruitful and multiply until I found it’s a simple <duplicate> command. >:-? Thank Me It’s Friday.

Day Six
Created 2 humans, file names <adam> and <eve>. At last – I now have 2 Twitter followers! Tweeting just to myself is sooo Day One. LOL!

Day Seven
[no tweets]

In many ways 2001 seems far, far in the past. We learn, communicate, heal, analyze, travel, even play differently now. We can thank (or curse) technology for many of the sweeping changes.

In order to get a finger on America’s heartbeat concerning 9/11 I did a Twitter search. I followed some links in the unending stream of thousands and thousands of tweets to read posts written by journalist, actors, conspiracy believers and politicians. I wondered what would have happened if Twitter or Facebook or the endless list of other social sites existed on that fateful day.

For those who don’t know, Primal Quest is “an expedition-level adventure race in which endurance athletes from around the world compete with one another and against a 600 mile (965+ KM) wilderness course.”

This year that race is now and the 600 miles are in the Black Hills and the Badlands.

I’ll admit that I am completely hooked on watching the progress of these remarkable young (and in some cases not so young) people.  They are such a contrast to the huge Harley populace that touched each and every sense of each and every one of us less than two weeks ago.

The Sturgis Rally is an odd annual event. One that drives marketers to madness because there are no definitive indicators or metrics allowing an accurate prediction of how many wallets, er bikers will attend. One year there may be half a million, the next a mere 250,000.

Obviously, gas prices weigh in. Last year was perhaps the least attended rally in a long time. A gallon of gas? $3.94. This year we are sitting at around $2.36/gallon (unless you fill up on Mt. Rushmore Road, the rally goers most traveled road – it’s $2.47.)

Other indicators are hotel/motel/campground reservations and to a lesser degree the main rally website traffic stats. I’m sure the police, FBI, CIA and whoever else cares about these things have a keen eye on the incoming traffic counts from all roads north, south, east and west. There are the stats on beer consumed and garbage collected but those come after the event is over.

Point is, there is no real way to count the participants even as they participate. There’s no definitive registration like there is at conventional conventions. Folks hold mini-rallies up and down Interstate 90 from Billings Montana to Cheyenne Wyoming. Many don’t choose to walk the famous Main Street of Sturgis.

Yet year after year they come and they come with money in their pockets and fun on their minds. They are here this year and from the looks of it by Wednesday we may hit yet another attendance record.

Right now Twitter is abuzz with tweets from people who are either on their way or already here. It will be interesting to watch the various live feeds. I’ve already read tweets about one wedding, a couple of deaths and a lot of comments about Steven Tyler and Aerosmith.

Let me preface the rest of this post with the fact that the Black Hills of South Dakota hosts an unpredictable ‘rally’ every year at this time. It is the Sturgis Rally and it is hard to explain. I just say that hundreds of thousands of motorcyclists travel by plane or car (most of their bikes are trucked in separately) to gather, PARTY, with no particular agenda for 2 or 3 or 4 or 5 days. They stay in hotels but most of them camp in campgrounds that spring to life once a year.

It is an event that has a huge impact on our rural population and environment.

Last year was an off year. The numbers varied from 250,000-350,000 attendees. So no one knew what this year would bring. By the looks of the early, usual pre-camp setup days, it didn’t look like the numbers would be much better than last year.

I was of that mind until I went to the store. I don’t quite know how to explain it. There wasn’t a motorcycle in the parking lot, yet there was so much shopping going on that it paled our winter blizzard panic shopping sprees. Most folks had at least 2 carts, there was one couple that had four. The carts were filled to the brim with ice, groceries and booze.

In the parking lot, the provisions were loaded into pickups, vans, cars and RVs. Rally camp setup up has clearly begun. My mode has shifted. This year might just end up being a blockbuster.

Pre Rally Memories 7/30/09 It’s Sturgis Harley Rally time in the Black Hills. It seems like such a marketing wonderland. Outlaws and Demons, the damned rule! – Every year at this time I hear the collective entrepreneurial juices flow – some from successful entrepreneurs but most from folks who have been collecting paychecks for their whole adult lives.

To be fair, it is almost impossible to see this many people flow into the Hills with their loads of cash and not ask the question, “How can I make my fortune? So many others are rolling in dough, why not me?”

I plea ye, wait, think it through and in the end be glad the state collects oodles in sales tax from the experienced and inexperienced vendors alike so you don’t have to personally fill all the pot holes from here to Pierre. That’s the easy way to earn a Rally fortune. All you have to do is stir your tolerance pot a couple extra times.

We have a Rally get-rich story from many, many years ago. But I think it is best left in the to-be-written-later category. Maybe I’ll write it up the next time someone comes to me with a really, really dumb idea. We’ll see.

Do you have any stories of supposedly GREAT ideas gone wrong? Post them here.