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| Junia, the American-born cat. She now resides in Vienna. |
Getting side-tracked by low-hanging fruit. Instead
of wrecking my brain about the translation of a particularly tricky sentence,
I will sometimes drift off to take care of low-hanging fruit, like answering
a quick e-mail or reading my Twitter stream. It's easier and also more fun.
Having too many browser tabs open. This bad habit of having countless tabs open on my browser used to slow down my previous laptop. My brand-new computer
can handle it just fine, at least for now. Our techie is a strong advocate of
having just a few browser tabs open. I have certainly tried, but I have not had much success. I'll keep on trying.
Excessive multitasking. I am known for having my internet radio on
a French station, trying to listen to the German livestream of an
interpretation of an EU session on my computer while trying to get actual work
done. The obvious result: I don’t remember a thing about what I heard on
the radio or the livestream and the translation takes forever. Not a very good strategy, is it?
Reading my favorite newspaper (the German weekly “ZEIT”) on Thursday
afternoons. Add my Thursday morning Yoga class and that doesn’t leave a lot of time for paid work. J
Letting the cat, Junia, hang out on the desk, which means that I am constantly picking
cat hair out of my keyboard. I try to accomplish this by using my beloved Chilean letter opener with the
cute penguin on the handle. I am a bit obsessed with having a squeaky clean
keyboard, but I have no illusions about actually reaching that goal.
Dear colleagues: what about you? Care to share your bad habits? We'd love to hear about them.
10 comments:
I can relate to the cat-on-desk problem. One of our three cats, Sophie, likes to make a nest among the piles of papers on my chronically untidy desk. She also loves to jump up and watch the printer in action.
@Tom: Thanks for sharing that story! OF COURSE, the printer provides endless entertainment for cats on both sides of the Atlantic. Junia goes crazy over it, too.
I usually have at least 7-8 browser tabs open when I translate. Is it not a good thing? I never thought of it as a bad habit. :)
@Silvia: The memory consumption regardless of browsertype is horrible if one has constantly 20 Tabs or more open in the background. 7-8 Tabs is fine.
Really enjoyed reading your article, I tend to procrastinate on everything, so I have to kick my own backside to get things done, not to get distracted and be productive!
The best way to clean a keyboard is using a vacuum with the upholstery attachment brush. It sucks up everything- cat hair, dust, and so much more. I try to do it when my computer is off, though, to avoid accidentally send an email to a client with ")#&*$@(*#$&".
Erin
@Silvia @Tom: Thanks for the comment, Silvia, and thanks for clarifying, Tom! We are both very, very guilty of having tons of browsers open. OK, we might be able to do 7 or 8.
@Erin: What a great vacuum tip! We totally love it -- great stuff. We must try it for sure! Thanks for sharing.
The rugs, oh gosh the rugs. No matter how much she is told, my cat loves sharpening up her claws on rugs. We have tons of tufts of rug scattered around. She is a wonderful cat and truly loved, but she looks at rugs as the ultimate toys!
I don't have that excessive multitasking problem - I have trouble doing two things at once! It doesn't have to be perfectly quiet, but I prefer quiet "white noise" in the background. I just couldn't listen to a talk show on the radio, say, and translate at the same time.
I like Die Zeit, too. Although I usually prune it down to three or four articles that really interest me. It's just too much otherwise.
@L. Carney: Glad you liked our post, thanks so much for letting us know!
@Pajama: Ah yes, cats and rugs: a dangerous combination indeed!
@Ep: Interesting perspective! Do you use a noise machine that plays, say, ocean sounds when you work? Judy worked in an e-commerce business for many years (open spaces, cubicles, tons of noise), so she can focus anywhere. It is indeed a great problem to have that you are NOT so good at multitasking -- gets things done!
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