Legendary web designer Dave Shea Dave Seah has a recent post where he releases what he calls the Procrastinator's Clock, which is implemented in a simple pop-up window in your browser. Although he considers it silly, I think this thing is pure genius.

The idea here is that many people (like me, unfortunately) set their clocks ahead in the hopes of being on time more often. The problem here is that if you yourself set the clocks ahead, you already know how much extra time you have. If you get clever and let someone else do it for you, it won't take long to figure out what your time buffer is. So, David postulates, what we really need is a clock that is sometimes fast, but not necessarily.

The Procrastinator's Clock has the potential to be up to 15 minutes fast, but it just as easily could be exactly accurate, assuming your computer's time is accurate. This means that you basically have to assume that it is correct, and you will likely show up for meetings or appointments with some small amount of time to spare, rather than walking in 5 minutes late and having to apologize profusely.

Now I just wish someone would implement a version that manipulates my system time on my computer in the same way.

Axosoft is conducting an experiment in social marketing, so here's to it: they are giving away their OnTime 2006 app for a mere $5 donation to the American Red Cross. Even if you're no fan of the ARC (I know some people aren't, they have their reasons), this is a pretty sweet deal. We're talking software that sells for $500 discounted 99%. So what? OnTime is a respectable bug tracking and project management tool, with all the requisite reports and tracking tools, some cool email alerts, and a web UI version. Those portal pages are gold when dealing with outside contractors or clients, I tell ya. Give the demo video a look and see if the $5 is sweet enough for your taste. Get busy though, because the offer only lasts until February 24, and is only available via blog links. Thanks to Kevin who sent this in.