Lifehack - We live in interesting times. In the last decade, there have been phenomenal advances in computer technology. Tiny computers — netbooks and even smartphones — let us carry power to rival the best desktops of a decade ago, allowing us to work just about anywhere. Web 2.0 applications ranging from simple to-do lists to full-featured word processors, spreadsheets, and even graphics editors let us create, store, access, and share data, documents, and other material easily, and often for free. Easy-to-use software keeps track of our task lists, our project plans, even our passing thoughts — and we can use text, touch, even our voices to enter data.
Unless, of course, your battery dies. Which, with all the computing power we’re squeezing out of it, it does pretty quickly. And, of course, our PCs, laptops,netbooks, and smartphones are pretty fragile — a drop on the sidewalk or into the toilet, a power surge or spilled coffee, and the teething of puppies (ask me what happened to my old cell phone…) can take us offline and out of service pretty quick, leaving us… HELPLESS!
Getting Things Done, Old School
Of course, we didn’t always have all these amazing gadgets at our disposal, and yet somehow things got done. The Hoover Dam, Golden Gate Bridge, Mt. Rushmore, Eiffel Tower, Pyramids of Egypt, Great Wall of China, and Washington Monument were all “got done” with nary a microprocessor. Ford Motor Co., Edison Electric, US Steel, and Union Pacific Railroad were built without using a single Web 2.0 app. And the empires of Britain, Rome, Persia, China, and the Soviet Union were conquered without a single Twitter, text message, email, or push-to-talk phone.
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