I read an article once about a lifehack for balancing your work and procrastination. I've looked high and low for the link to no avail, so sorry for the lack of deeper information. The lifehack outlined a solution for the computer-staring workers - programmers, analysts, and so on - who are faced with a barrage of distractions constantly. Facebook, Twitter, blogs, news, emails from your distant family about the latest virus that will cause a flux in the space-time continuum if you read any emails with the word bacon in the subject line.

Simply stated, there is no reason to try to fight the fact that you're going to procrastinate. So, schedule your procrastination and your work in regularly-scheduled increments. You work for eight minutes, then you do something that's not work for two minutes. Then you repeat, all day long. Sounds trite, but let me continue.

I've contemplated that idea since it's first read and how the idea would be a candidate for an application. I'm pretty sure some other packages exist that mimic this functionality (or that it mimics, I haven't done a whole lot of research). This evening I took some time and wrote such a little application in WPF. I'm offerring it for free via a ClickOnce installer.

The tiny little application, known currently as Eight Then Two, runs as a tray icon. When you're supposed to be working, the icon is a little red thumbs-down icon (nothing against working, of course, the image seemed just cute enough without making me want go AWWWW or worse). When you're supposed to taking a break from your work to do something less work-ish, the icon changes to an even cutesier green thumbs-up icon. When Eight Plus Two changes modes it displays a screen of color in front of your whole monitor. Obviously, the default work color is red, the default rest color is green. 

From a user's perspective, it works like this. You're sitting there working away and Eight Then Two switches to rest mode. A transparent green hue appears in front of everything. This way you can't ignore it but it's not really that loud, either. Your brain, powerless to the suggestive nature of Eight Then Two, goes into rest mode as you open up Twitter.com. You furiously read through your followers' tweets, catching up on all that's going on in the twitterverse while simultaneously updating your Facebook status, noticing that your bes... and then a soft red transparent film appears over everything. Your brain switches back into work mode as you restore PowerPoint and continue working on next Tuesday's presentation. Rinse. Repeat. 

Sure, it sounds stupid. It sounds silly. It might even sound annoying. You might be color-blind, too, so the red and green won't work for you so well. BAH. I've even given you a handy little options window that allows you to set your own colors for work and for rest, as well as a few other goodies. 

I tried Eight Then Two after I wrote it - ate my dog food, if you will - for a few days. Today's day #3, and I can say I've noticed a measurable upturn in my productivity, a decrease in my procastination, and a more scheduled approach to how I budget the time I do take to complete personal tasks during my work day. On the first day, after the beginning of the 2nd hour, Eight Then Two told me to take a break, so I tried to do so and realized I'd already read all of my social networking updates, RSS feeds, emails, and had even sent over the personal fax I'd been dreading going to fudge with the printer to send. I'd become my worst nightmare - so efficient at procrastinating in two-minute increments that I had nothing to procrastinate on. Your mileage may vary, of course, and this isn't intended to be a save-the-cheerleader sort of thing. But if it helps, it's worth it. 

Install Eight Then Two via Click-once