My life used to be a mess. I had accumulated a seemingly limitless assortment of toys, books, inoperative gadgets and of course, faded newspapers. With each move I managed to collect more and more boxes, like debris caught in a gravitational field of pointlessness…that is, until I discovered the organizational trick known as “Trashing.” Trashing is a process by which you take things that are in your house and place them somewhere else, where you have no responsibility for them anymore. The cornerstones of The Trashing Technique are government sponsored bins that are somehow emptied of their contents on a weekly basis. No one knows for sure exactly how it works, they just knows it works.

After years of personal research on hoarding, it turns out that old magazines serve no observable purpose; the information retrieval process on a stack of magazines is sucktarded at best, and uneven weight distribution makes them less than ideal for in-home fort-building. I could give them to my neighbor but, he’s a stuck up jerk. You know who has no taste boundaries? The Department of Sanitation. They’ll take anything I can cram in their cans (that sounds weird, but go with it).

So the next time you think about putting those extra unusable dock adapters that came with your new cell phone into a drawer simply because, “You never know,” you do know. You’ll never use them. And the novelty bobble head Bin Laden that someone gave you for your birthday is only fun the first second you see it. After that, it’s another miniature roommate to deal with. Just because you have space doesn’t mean you have to fill it. You don’t
jam old pennies and phone cords into your mouth and nose just because
they’ll fit there, do you? Well, do you??? ANSWER ME.

So stop being a filthy gypsy. Take all the stuff you don’t normally use and Trash It. You will feel lighter and more in control. Think of it as “filing it into forever” or at least “wiping the excess poo off your brain’s bum.”

Trashing uses the latest in landfill technology to streamline your home or workplace.

If the 90s ushered in "The Information Age" then I believe the period in which we currently reside is "The Managing The Information Age." Now that our lives are woven together by a tapestry of multiple devices, the real currency of information lies in our ability to have it up-to-date wherever we need it. The following list is my personal arsenal of sync sorcery:

MobileMe – For social & work data – Truthfully, I haven’t had any problems with it (except with 3rd party software that piggybacks the sync, but I’ll get to that). In fact, before iPhone 2.0 I had been complaining that there should be a wireless syncing feature. Whenever I change a date or contact on my phone it changes on all my machines. Most people don’t like the $99 price tag, but I always like to look at cost vs. utility, and I use this multiple times a day every day—it’s worth it to me. I have to say, though…something about "me.com" is irritating as a moniker. Dot mac had a nice flow to it.

MacJournal – For notes & non-script writing -Used to sync beautifully through .mac but has since turned on me (as referenced above)
. Fortunately, I just installed version 5.1 which is supposed to address this issue.

1Password – I just don’t know what kind of existence I led before this application. 1Password from Agile Web Solutions syncs your passwords across multiple browsers on the same computer (you have to do a little drag-and-replace file action to get your passwords across multiple machines, though) and the iPhone app is super mega kick-ass. It not only stores your passwords but also will generate them if you want something more secure than "12345abcde" and has an amazing autofill feature for every username/password field. If you really, really trust it, you can enter credit card numbers and personal info so you can autofill those fields as well.

Foxmarks – Tired of that web-based del.icio.us business? I don’t know why you would be, but if you want to keep your bookmarks local then you’ve hit the honey hole with Foxmarks! Originally, this was an add-on for Firefox but they apparently have an IE version now. Not sure if they cover Chrome yet. I’m guessing not. And I’m a good guesser.

Chronosync – Just your basic backup file sync program. Yes, I use Time Machine but I also have a small 250g travel drive as an extra backup for the most essential files. I’m a compulsive backerupper and I admit it.

Busysync – This luscious pile of hotness syncs all of your calendars from your iCal to your Gcal. It also syncs Bonjour across a network, but that doesn’t affect me and this is my blog so just forget I mentioned it.

OmniFocus _ Productivity Titans OmniGroup offer this terrific program that is based on David Allen’s GTD religion. The sync part comes in with the nifty iPhone app that seamlessly poops all of your todo and active project information back and forth between your phone and computer. A Jott to OmniFocus hack has also been created to free up your tired fingers. OF’s support guys are also super nice and on the ball, which are features I enjoy in a software company. Other features I enjoy in a software company: mustaches.

Now go! Share your data with yourself!

It’s the middle of the week and you’re stuck at work. You’re very close to branding your wrist with a hot paper clip just to break up the monotony. Why not make keylists on your iTunes?–"What the hell’s that?" A keylist is what I call a keyword-based playlist. "But why not just throw it on shuffle?" You’re interrupting again. It’s impolite to interrupt. The reason is that the convenient automation of

deprives you of the type of time-wasting distraction that you so desperately need, and you’ll be forced to go back to GTD. Simply type in any string of letters into the search bar and hit play. The distraction comes from those, "…interesting…" moments you’ll have when you see which tracks are word-related, listening to that handful of songs and then coming up with more. The periodic keywording will help break up your day by measuring it into spoonfuls of time, thereby tricking your brain. Aha! Take that, brain! Also, being able to quickly spot-check the list and revise it will help prevent those times when iTunes inevitably goes on a bad shuffle run when left to its own algorithms. Aha! Take that, randomness! Finally, because it doesn’t waste too much continuous time (like hand-picking a playlist), you  can actually get some work done. Aha! Take that, David Allen!

I put up a screen shot from a list I got with the word, "can’t," as in, "I can’t believe I love Hall & Oates un-ironically." As you can see, it’s quite a disparate grouping of music. Perfect for a distracting keylist!

This is something I’m sure we’ve all done at one time or another but perhaps you just hadn’t thought of it as "a thing." Or you had and I’m a jerk.

Whether you’ve recently been plucked out of your 19th century timestream and are trying to adapt to our technology’s sterile aesthetic or you’re just a busybody with a lot of free time and brass, the Steampunk Movement may be just the thing you’re looking for to replace those annoying friends of yours that keep bugging you to get out of the house. Originally, this piece was supposed to air on WIRED Science but was cut for time. Now it airs exclusively anywhere you can imbed flash video.