Turning downtime into uptime

| productivity

One of the reasons why I wanted a Blackberry or some other portable device was to make better use of those interstitial moments walking from Graduate House to the subway station or taking the train. I had thought of using the time to practice connecting with people, but it's hard to do that when people don't smile or make eye contact. I've also tried reading. I snag a newspaper on my way out and keep a folder of executive summaries from Books24x7 in my backpack. Listening to music? Sure, although I usually find myself looping over one song or album.

After hearing Dan Zen describe his experience with recording a video
blog while driving his car (kids, don't try that at home!), I thought:
hey, why not record on the go? The quality's going to be terrible –
lots of ums and ahs and random traffic noises – but just as blogging
helps me refine my thoughts, talking about things will help me refine
my stories.

It turns out that the digital voice recorder I bought
almost a year ago is surprisingly useful. The low
sensitivity setting on the microphone works perfectly for noisy
settings, and I can pick out my own voice easily. For presentations
and the like, I set it on high sensitivity so that I can record the
presentation clearly even on the iPod screen.

Good stuff!

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