Personal productivity and GTD (Getting things done) on web 2.0
If you are one of those who likes to keep an eye on the Internet world then you would have heard about a 
personal productivity service known as 43Things. The concept of the web site is very simple and is built on the principles of tagging, rather than creating explicit interpersonal links. Users create accounts and then list a number of goals or hopes; these goals are parsed by a lexer and connected to other people’s goals that are constructed with similar words or ideas. This concept is also known as folksonomy.
43Things was built by a Seattle startup called The Robot Coop, formed by some ex-Amazon developers in late 
2004. The site was developed using the Ruby programming language and the Ruby on Rails framework. Just in case you were wondering why it is called 43 Things… That is because 43 is about the largest number of things that you can work on at once, apparently. And that is pretty much what the site is about! From the outside, 43 Things is quite hard to figure out, but signing up is quick and easy and once you are in, it all starts to fall into place. Answer the “What do you want to do with your life?” question and you should see a list of things come back. You can now adopt one or more of these as one of your ‘things’. There, you are started. Keep going until you have a reasonably complete list, or 43 Things.
One of the great things about 43Things is that there are RSS feeds for everything. What’s more, you can aggregate feeds on your People > Feeds page. Another plus for 43Things is the ability to filter the aggregate feed. People who have been reading R/WW for a while know that filtering is one of my hot buttons this year. With 43Things you can add and personalize feeds by going to your subscriptions page.
The most popular goals on 43 Things are
- lose weight 19839 people
- stop procrastinating 15629 people
- Fall in love 13320 people
- write a book 12936 people
- be happy 11815 people
- Get a tattoo 10474 people
- drink more water 10295 people
- go on a road trip with no predetermined destination 9849 people
How does 43 Things help? It helps in a number of ways. Firstly, it helps you to connect with others that are working on similar things. You can add blog-like entries to track your progress, 
and can see the entries of others working on the same things. This is great for getting occasional tips and sharing with others on the same journey. Very encouraging, although your milage may very. Secondly, you can see what other things like-minded people are working on. This can provide inspiration for new things to go after. 43Things also helps you choose wisely! It is easy to get distracted or overloaded, just because someone else is doing something, doesn’t make it the best thing to be doing. 43Things helps you to clarify your, you can see which things you are actually making progress on, and which are stalled. Be prepared to be challenged. Another nifty feature is that once you achieve a goal it, you can help others achieve that goal.
Like all good things in life 43Things does have disadvantages. When using 43 Things it very easy for you to end up surfing and reading for hours, with not much output, which isn’t such a good thing. Big style procrastination. 43 Things is growing in people and functionality all the time. If you want to connect with people from around the world, and get some inspiration for new goals, I’d recommend it as a great starting point.
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