Quicksilver: Less application, more way of life

An Ode to Quicksilver:

“Love in the world of ones and nots”

Open with or open

append, get location

install another plug-in

hotkey after hotkey

all gets me

productivity

Fin

Before you depart, allow me to put my obsession in context. Here’s my desktop upon startup:

Yes, that is a document entitled, “these are things.” There are things in it.

I’ll end with a note from Merlin Mann:

Quicksilver knows I mean “System Preferences” when I type “Control Panel.” Because we’re an insane elderly couple that still holds hands.

That’s deep.

I’m working to remove distractions

It’s a common scenario for anyone that works on/with computers, or anyone that just wants to focus when they find him or her self sitting in front of one: there are so many distractions. Facebook, Twitter, and other social media sites, instant messaging, email, RSS feeds, and calendars are your typical culprits.

Personally, I can focus, but I want to do better. But before I start, I want to at least rule out one option for getting there: I won’t use any service that blocks a website or application for an allotted period of time. Example: You set it to not let you on Facebook from 9 to 5. Simple.

Not only do I like to think I have more self control than that, but I really don’t think that the sites or applications simply being available is any real problem – at least not for me. I think it’s all those damn, pesky pop-up notifications and other reminders found on your screen. Or at least on my screen.

So here’s what I’m going to do. For a week, maybe two, I’m going to cut back on that stuff by:

• Setting my browser home page to a blank screen instead of Google Reader
• Removing the Bookmarks Toolbar from my browser
• Employing the Think application to keep me focused on one application at a time
• Disabling the GMail Notifier for my personal email (I cannot leave an email marked as unread even for 5 minutes)
• Auto-hiding my Apple Dock so that bouncing applications and notifications don’t suck my attention away (and it has basically been rendered useless by Quicksilver anyways)
• And even enduring the pangs associated with disabling Growl

This little experiment of mine really isn’t scientific (as if you couldn’t tell) and I won’t actually be collecting any data about how much of my time was unfocused. But hey, if I come out of this feeling better about how I use my time then that’s all that matters.

Experiment commence.