"Bookmarking" all the time

Bookmarking isn't just for web browsers or paper books. With a child in our life, I've come to realize it is important to know where I left off with any task because my available time is often chopped into little pieces. I've come to see it valuable for work as well when there are many projects or tasks at hand and interruptions from emails, coworkers, meetings, etc.

The way I keep track of where I was last varies but I try to keep it digital, resorting to yellow stickies when a digital note is not feasible (e.g. Sorting through paper). With digital notes, it may be a README file at the root of a folder structure, an electronic calendar entry, or a spreadsheet stating what I did for a particular day and what I have planned for the next day or week. The key is that the digital note is somewhere you know you will look in the future or else it is easy to find with some digital search capability.

How podcasts saved my sanity

Audio podcasts diffuse the monotony of many household tasks like washing the dishes, cutting up a whole chicken, hanging laundry, etc.  They are ideal for tasks where you have to pay attention to the task visually but you can still expand your mind via your ear.  I want to experiment listening to podcasts while shoveling snow and vacuuming (i.e. with a more enclosing set of headphones) and determining if I can still follow the words being spoken. 

There are many podcasts out there but the best are the ones produced by people with a professional background in broadcasting.  Many other podcasts have lousy, difficult-to-hear audio, as if everyone was calling in on VIOP via a 14.4K modem.  My favorite sources of podcasts are TWiT and CBC because the topics are interesting AND the quality in production and information is second-to-none.