And a Happy New Year!

2012

Whittaker wishes all 'his' followers a happy, healthy and productive New Year.  And may we all be solvent if not wealthy.  May the Whittaker Library be a buzzing hive of activity, with patrons aided and assisted by your enthusiastic Library & IT staff.

Extra-murally, 2012 is going to be the Year of the Deadline.  'Whittaker' has a contract to deliver a book by 30th April 2012.  All solicitous enquiries, encouragements and otherwise supportive comments will be very welcome indeed. 

But enough of this pseudonym stuff - to get myself in the right frame of mind for the task ahead - no, this is not procrastination! - I'm looking for a new mug to add to the collection.  I like, 'When I'm writing, I know I'm doing the thing I was born to do.'  But it's big, which in Cafepress terms is huge.  I want a Cafepress small (everyone else's medium) mug.

'Working on a bestseller' is a good slogan, but - oh, I'm so fussy - I don't like the art-work.  And 'Writers hate deadlines' is another apt one, but it's not positive enough!

The winner is: 'Writer's block is when your imaginary friends refuse to talk to you'.  Very nice.  (As regular visitors will have realised, there are a number of Victorian Scottish song-collectors who are very real to me. I know far more people in 19th century Edinburgh than I do today!   Alexander Campbell, R. A. Smith, George Farquhar Graham and Finlay Dun are like close friends; In London, William Chappell and his successors are a source of endless interest; and in the Hebrides, the Maclean-Clephane sisters were fascinating women.  So, too, was Marjorie Kennedy-Fraser.)

But deadlines are about more than mugs.  Here are David Seah's Productivity Tools, as recommended by The Thesis Whisperer.

Meanwhile, my own all-time favourites are Diigo, Mendeley, and Evernote, with Copac always in the wings to back up my evidence.  Where would I be without them?

What are your most useful productivity/ time management aids?

Wish me luck!