Day 90 – Anti-Productivity Apps

Yesterday I wrote about my 6 favorite productivity apps. I thought it only appropriate that today I write about the opposite: anti-productivity apps. These are things that help me waste time (like I need a lot of help doing that…) while I am supposed to be doing work. I am not a huge gamer, but I like to play some small games when I am killing time. Here are the three applications (besides my internet browser) that I most often find lowering my productivity.

NetNewsWire (freeware)

When I actually need to get work done, the first application I close is my feed reader, NetNewsWire. It is a feed aggregator made by NewsGator. That is just tech jargon for a program that pulls updates from websites you subscribe to and displays them all in one place. You can look at all of your favorite news sites, blogs, webcomics, photo journals, etc. without opening up a formal web browser. I currently subscribe to 59 feeds, but that changes weekly depending on new sites I find and if I get bored with something I am subscribed to.

By the way, NewsGator makes great free readers for Windows and mobile operating systems, too!

Solitaire XL (freeware, 10.3 and up)

Solitaire XL is made by Lavacat Software. For those of you who have switched over to a Mac from Windows, you probably miss playing solitaire to kill time. There are no solitaire applications pre-installed in OS X, so multiple developers wrote freeware solitaire apps to fill this void. I think Lavacat’s UI design is the best of all solitaire apps for OS X I have seen. I don’t play it often, but I put it in this list for those of you who miss playing solitaire and want a version for OS X, but didn’t know it until you read this. (Say’s law!)

Enigmo 2 ($19.95)

“Enigmo 2 is a 3D puzzle game where you construct mechanisms to direct lasers, plasma, and water to toggle switches, deactivate force-fields, and eventually get them to their final destination.” It is built by Pangea Software and really appeals to people who like geometry and angles. I enjoy the challenge of constructing ways to direct water, plasma, and lasers through obstacles and to their destinations in a certain amount of time.