Productivity Block

"What do you mean you don't have dry erase boards?" I bark at the elderly woman sitting behind the Customer Service counter at Home Depot. "I can buy a cement mixer, hot dogs and a heart-shaped toilet seat but piece of fiber board covered in glossy plastic is beyond the scope of Home Depot? I mean the building only covers the same ground area as an international airport. In fact, between the plants and the fountains, this place probably functions as its own eco-system, but where on Planet Depot would you find room to fit something practical?"

I am answered with the empty stare of bewilderment. This poor woman after 80 years of bare knuckle boxing her way through life, two world wars, The Great Depression, disco, Pearl Harbor the event and Pearl Harbor the movie, has now resigned herself to a bright orange smock and a name tag because she needs the health insurance to cover her litany of chronic illnesses trying to prevent her from the satisfaction of seeing the end of the world. And now she has me to contend with, badgering her about an item no one really needs unless they're giving a lecture on wave function relativity…or using it as a prop in a movie about someone giving a lecture on wave function relativity. 

I am searching for a dry erase board because I have Productivity Block. You know, like writer’s block only extending to any and every endeavor in life. And through the flawless prism of logic that I have constructed, a dry erase board will obviously assist me in fabricating efficiency. How, you ask? Because I can pace around my apartment wearing a button down shirt with the sleeves rolled up, squeakily scribbling down have-done’s and to-do’s in various colors of marker, depending on each items level of importance, circling some, underlining others. (I write the have-done’s so that I can have something to check off, thus providing the illusion of accomplishment. If I could do those things there’s no reason why I can’t do these things, right?). I can then place the preferably oversized whiteboard in an overwhelmingly obvious place on the wall, where I can see it no matter where I am in the room.

Okay, let’s be realistic. I don’t have Productivity Block. I could be productive if I wanted to. I have Productivity distraction. And the entirety of my blame falls squarely on the interwebs.

Culprit #1: Facebook.

If you are trying to be productive, Facebook will surreptitiously tip-toe into your room, softly press a pillow over the face of your productivity and deftly smother it to death. Do you log in to Facebook anymore? Do you even need to use a password? If not, then you are like me—a broken human, continually plugged in. You have now fully integrated with the social network. You are a freaking appendage of your Facebook status update. What is the point? To wait for someone to comment and validate your banal existence?

Culprit #2: Google.

Google is especially dangerous because it blankets you in the illusion of productivity. You say to yourself that you are on a quest for information and information is power! You start telling yourself you are looking for a chili recipe or a news story about the midterm election and 12 hours later you find yourself dehydrated, shaking, and concluding a 300-page Wikipedia entry about monarch butterflies. Another day wasted...but did you know the monarch butterfly is believed to have reached some of the islands it has colonized by hanging on to the riggings of ships?

Culprit #3: Everything Else on the Interwebs

YouTube, Chat, eBay, blogs, podcasts, etc. All of these things distract from a well-lived life. You can go on YouTube and literally not enjoy anything you watch for six hours but continue to search anyway. You can have a chat conversation with an old friend that takes three hours to type, yet fail to comprehend that the same conversation uttered in our native tongue would take three minutes. Ebay is a great way to not only blow a day but $500 as well. No, you don't need a collection of soup spoons used in the Roosevelt Room of the White House during the first Bush Administration... but throw in the linens and you might have yourself a deal.

So I have written this, and you are reading it. Oh no...you have gotten lost on your path to getting directions to Red Lobster. You are probably already drowning in a tidal wave of extraneous nothingness, submerged in a sea of Adam Lambert and cat videos and non-descript photos of mishaps with “fail” printed in power font across the bottom; I still have only a vague understanding of what that means, but if you spend more than 30 seconds looking at it, someone should stamp "fail" on your forehead. You have been trying to update your resume for weeks now, for goodness’s sake; I can't help you with that! Snap out of it, can you hear me? Run as fast as you can, shut this thing off and throw it through your window and scream at the top of your lungs, "I'm bored as heck and I won't take it anymore!"

But before you hurl your PC or Macbook, shattering the glass prison that enslaves you against the infinite opportunity that awaits outside your apartment, friend me on Facebook and click on a few banner ads! I love US Bank! Did you know you can deposit checks using your iPhone! Wow!

If I were you, I'd consider investing in a dry erase board.

Alia