Blogrolling

I have finally started doing something with my sidebar. It's about time--I've been lazy about it for way too long. So far, I have added "Donate to Project Beagle" (a very worthy project)

and I have also joined the atheist blogroll

I have my atheist blogroll set to show 25 links at a time. Within the next few days, I will be creating my own blogroll (some of whom are already on the atheist blogroll, but since it's a rolling 25, I'll repeat them) as well as links to several of my other favorite sites--science related and otherwise.

And while I'm at it, I would like to send a big thanks out to those bloggers who've already added me to their blogrolls (all the while I've been too lazy to make my own).
Jen Luc
Kristine
Donna
Janie
CrazyHarp
Of course, the fact that they're all female has absolutely no effect on my male ego. I swear!

Procrastination

There was an interesting article today on Science Daily about procrastination.

Date: January 10, 2007
...

"Essentially, procrastinators have less confidence in themselves, less expectancy that they can actually complete a task," Steel says. "Perfectionism is not the culprit. In fact, perfectionists actually procrastinate less, but they worry about it more."

Other predictors of procrastination include: task aversiveness, impulsiveness, distractibility, and how much a person is motivated to achieve. Not all delays can be considered procrastination; the key is that a person must believe it would be better to start working on given tasks immediately, but still not start.

Oops, did I say today? I meant three weeks ago. I also meant to write about it three weeks ago, but I wasn't sure that I had anything constructive to add to the conversation. Now I've finally decided that I have something to say, hence this post. Not only have I ended my procrastination on this specific topic, but I'll be cutting back on stalling altogether for a while (or at least try). I'm throwing down the gauntlet!

February will be "new blog post per day month." That's right, every day (not just Fridays) I will post some new material. Starting tomorrow February 1st, here's the rules I'm imposing on myself:

• Every day I will put up at least one new post.
• At least one post each day must have a minimum of five sentences of original content.
• The penalty for skipping will be 2^n original posts in one day (n = # of days where I violate one of these rules).

So basically, I can't just post a link or embed a video unless I include 5 sentences of commentary or have another post which is compliant. It shouldn't be that hard to pull this off. I've got a few ideas for some posts, but I imagine that most will be hurried ejaculations of whatever is on my mind. Not bad for a reworking of a failed New Year's resolution, eh? Maybe I'll even get around to resurrecting the nascent and comatose Science Pundit podcast.

Let the fun begin!