Recently two of my favorite blogs have taken big steps forward. This has had a motivational affect on me and my aspirations for Organize IT (more on all this in a future post) and it got me thinking about influences. Over the years, particularly as a child, I’ve had a few weird/funny ones, some of which are listed below. What weird influences have you had?

• Friends (the TV sitcom)
  In my naive pre-teen optimism I thought it was perfectly normal to have such a close group of friends who knew each other from college and were conveniently neighbors too. I also thought Chandler (Mathew Perry) was super cool, which probably explains where I get my sarcasm from…
• The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13¾
  Oddly perhaps, this book was one of the first influences that put the idea of being a writer into my head. Looking back over ten years later, I can’t remember why that was, but that might just be me blocking out my memories of teenage angst.
• House M.D.
  It’s one of my favorite shows and Gregory House is a brilliantly written (and performed) character. I’m not sure how it’s influenced me on any deep level, but I’m a walking stick away from being able to pull of a half-decent impression of him at a fancy dress party so that must mean something.

If you believe all the studies and reports, social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook are changing the way we use the internet and how we socialize. I know so many people who are signed up to these sites and it is actually a bit perturbing to me to see some of the stuff they write and the pictures they put up on their pages. Another problem I have is how they dilute the definition of a friend. Everybody from casual acquittances and former school mates to work colleagues and friends of friends now become part of your “inner circle.” In case you haven’t guessed by now, I don’t have accounts on these sites However, I am curious what the state of play is with all my readers because engaging in social networking sites is (arguably) not the most productive or constructive of pastimes. Please spare a minute to share your thoughts and experiences on this subject. What sites are you signed up to? How much time do you spend on them? What benefits do you get from them? Leave a comment!

In preparation for an up to date look at tracking roles and responsibilities in your life (you can read my original view on the topic here), I want to throw the issue out to all my readers. It would be great to hear your thoughts on this as tracking my progress in terms of roles and responsibilities is now an integral part of my productivity system (my weekly planner has an entire section dedicated to it) and I want to know if others follow a similar path. How do you implement it? What sort of information do you track for each role? If you don’t use this approach please explain why. Looking forward to hearing from you all!

I’m sure most of you will agree that very few, if any, cleaning products out there live up to their optimistic claims. However, every so often I do come across a product that does exactly what you would expect from it, no more no less. My favourite tools are those that make otherwise difficult and messy tasks just that little bit easier. Two cheap (and cheesily named) tools I have that fit this description are the Steam Bee and the Sonic Scrubber. The former is great for tasks like cleaning the oven; no longer do I have to get elbow deep in sticky fat and grease. And though the scrubber looks like an oversized electric toothbrush it really digs out dirt in those pesky corners. Have any of you guys tried out these tools or similar ones? What are your favourite cleaning tools/products?

As a slight change of pace I thought I would ask you, the readers, what your top five websites would be if you were stuck on a desert island with a big nasty firewall in place that stopped you viewing any other sites. Below is my selection along with explanations. Please do leave your own choices in the comments.

• BBC: The first place I go to if I want to get the latest news or if I want to find out the sports scores. Plus they have a load of radio streams.
• Lifehack.org: The biggest productivity site out there with both fresh and user submitted content. If I can’t view any other GTD sites at least this site will give a good idea of what’s going on.
• Zen Habits: My favourite producitivity site. It’s updated regularly and comes complete with a philosophy of simplifying your life that I can really relate to.
• Digg: If I want alternative opinions, tech news, cool photos and videos then this is the site to go to. Plus the comments are always entertaining
• ProBlogger: Seeing as blogging is one of my favourite hobbies right now, it’s only appropriate I choose the ever popular ProBlogger.