Chip on Your Shoulder

Consider the hack.

To reporters and writers, the term's an insult, a barb aimed at mercenary keyboards-for-hire, those burnt-out cases lacking in talent and scruples.

Not so to computer programmers who use the word to recognize achievement -- ranging from the nefarious break-in to the ingeniously practical coding exploit that makes a piece of software more useful.

It was that last meaning that came to mind last week when Doug LeDuc, a business writer at The News-Sentinel in Fort Wayne, Indiana, e-mailed me to ask, "What are some of the best books out there for improving writing and reporting productivity? Know where I can find them?"

Like many of us, LeDuc was after the journalistic equivalent of "life hacks," those little tricks, shortcuts, gadgets, productivity methods designed for overloaded 21st century computers, minds and lives. Hacking your life, it seems, is beginning to catch on.

The blogging world was buzzing last week about the news that Sony just began shelling out 25K a month to support LifeHacker, a blog edited by clever Gina Trapani, who writes in code, prose and jpeg images; LifeHacker is a member of the Gawker media family of blogs.

Even before corporate underwriting, her Scribbling.net site was offering treats such as an "-ly detector," which helps you weed out those unwanted adverbs on a Web page by highlighting them in yellow. She also garnered media attention with her account of "How to fix Mom's computer."

"The divide between those technically 'in-the-know' and those just tryin' to get their stuff done with the computer widens at alarming rates every day," she told her readers. "Lifehacker's a bridge."

Another site devoted to life hacks is 43 Folders. Merlin Mann, its creator, describes himself as "a big fan of tiny improvements. And cool tricks. And time savers. So, whenever I find a neat little bauble or a sexy new hack, I've tended to barrage my unsuspecting friends and email-list associates with lengthy, structured TMI breakdowns and tutorials."

Like me and James Fallows, Mann is a fan of David Allen, whose book, "Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity" amounts to a lifehacking Bible.

"Getting Things Done," along with Ken Atchity's "A Writer's Time" led my list of suggestions for books and other resources to boost productivity. I also advised checking out 43 Folders and Lifehackers and this search string for a series of previous "Chip on Your Shoulder" columns that focused on time management.

The major key to my productivity of late is Allen's "natural planning approach," a set of five questions that I've found can defeat the most intractable procrastination as well as make unfulfilled dreams a reality.

Here's a worksheet (Making Things Happen) that I devised to implement Allen's ideas in my own life. Based on my own experience and those of journalists and others I've turned on to the idea in the last few years, "natplanning" could be the key to your next writing success. Or it may just help you clean out the garage, and let's face it, for many of us that would represent an achievment of Olympian heights.

At the very least, you can be a hack and still hold your head up high.

Got a writing hack? Share your productivity tips, techniques and theories here.