Time, Tools, and Accountability

Lately I have spent a lot of time trying to organize me.

For those who don’t know, I am in Bible College and lately I have been very busy doing research for a Chemistry presentation and paper. Chemistry is not my favorite subject, but I did learn a lot of really cool things that are very relative to life. One of the major things is the fact that we (humans) depend so much on natural law. It’s amazing how many natural laws we depend on for our existence. This is just another Case for a Creator (pun intended) I think is overlooked big time.

So, like I said, Organize.

I’ve been searching the Apple Store for a good—Free!—software to help me organize my University work and keep me accountable to finishing it in a timely manner. What I have learned about myself is that I can delay in my studies nearly all week, and bust out a 5 page paper in one day and pass with—usually—an “A.” The problem is that I’m not really soaking in the material. Plus, it’s just not good habit to wait so long.

So, here are some really cool tools that will help you get your stuff done, AND hold you accountable to it. That is, IF you have a Mac computer. For all you PC users, sorry, none for you today.

• iProcrastinate: This is good for school work (actually, that’s what it’s meant for), but can also be used for your normal day and life projects.
• Schoolhouse 2.2: Fantastic program meant solely for school work. I love it. It keeps track of grades, courses, terms, assignments, professors, and many other features. A must have.
• Slife: This is the accountability software. It’s really neat. You can sign up to their internet accountability program (which costs money) and receive rewards for completing and meeting your goals. I don’t use the online service, I just set my goals, let it run in the background of my Mac, and let it keep tabs on every thing I do. It’s been helpful.
• Apimac Timer: This is simply a clock/timer/stopwatch/alarm. It’s a pretty cool one at that. You can program it to say certain things and have multiple alarms. For instance, one of the alarms I programmed it for was to say, “Must stop writing and get ready for Martial Arts” (I’m teaching a little guy). It has become really useful to me.
• iReadfast: If you do any online reading, electronic reading, this is a must have tool. I want to get faster at reading AND comprehension. Simply copy all the text you want to read, past it in this nifty little gadget, and it flashes each word individually on your screen at what ever pace you want. Check out the video below. After I used it for a little bit, I could tell it had done me some good. Results were noticeable.

Well, that’s what I’ve been up to. I will be posting some more good stuff soon. My next class is “World Views,” so we should have some interesting conversations come out of that!

Hope this other stuff helps you all!



—Jonathan J.