As a graduate student I am naturally obsessed with my productivity and on a constant mission to find devices and methods to improve my efficiency and quality of life. One constant problem is that I need to sleep and I feel that the time is wasted. Even worse is when I wake to my alarm to discover that I am groggy and waste even more time in an unproductive funk. Sleep researchers have long known that the brain goes through various sleep cycles during the night and that it is best to awake when brain waves are in a certain pattern. This knowledge has been used to help chronic insomniacs get at least a minimal amount of helpful sleep, but it is clearly also useful for students who want to spend as little time sleeping as possible without losing mental acuity while awake.

I experimented with timing my sleep cycles as an undergraduate, but in order to reliably work one needs to be observed and awoken at the appropriate time. Now there is technology to the rescue! A company SleepTracker has developed a wristwatch that detects movement correlated with "light sleep" and activates an alarm to make sure that you wake up during that period, and as close to your desired wake time as possible. Even better is an upcoming product by SleepSmart. Theirs is a headband that actually detects the appropriate brainwaves and wakes you up at the optimal point in your sleep cycle that occurs prior to your desired wake time. You'll always wake up in time and fully invigorated by your sleep (no snooze button pushing anymore).

The SleepTracker costs $150 and is available from their website. The SleepSmart system is clearly better, but it isn't available yet. According to their website they project the cost to be in the $300 to $400 range and you can reserve one now (I did). Is it worth it? Just determine your minimal hourly wage and see how many hours it will have to rescue from the abyss of unproductiveness. For example, if you could use that time to earn $20 an hour, then it only has to save you 20 hours…if it saves you five hours a week then it's worth (5*52*$20=) $5200 for just one year's use. If you're a graduate student then you NEED this!

People who know me are already acquainted with my general dislike of holidays. One of my problems with holidays is that certain products oriented to particular holidays are only available around that holiday. For example, it's rather hard to find egg nog when it's not around Christmas and it's hard to find Cadbury crème eggs (in America) when it isn't around Easter. And I quite like Cadbury crème eggs.

But let's face facts; these things are really rich, so eating a whole egg can be a little too much sugar for one sitting…especially for a little kid. And the super sweet goo filling these chocolate-shelled orbs of splendor makes crème eggs one of the messiest foodstuffs on the planet. For over a decade I've wished that they came in smaller, bite-sized versions. And now they do! I tried a mini egg carton full of these foil-covered delights and they really are just scaled-down versions of the original eggs.

So for any of you other Cadbury Crème Egg fans who don't want to commit yourself to a 440 calorie (and 16g fat) treat, try the (I think) new mini crème eggs. They're cleaner, smaller, cuter, and taste just the same. Now we just have to get stores to sell them all year round like the rest of the candy (can you image if they only sold M&Ms in August and Snickers in October?).

I would really like to wake up to my choice of music with no commercials and no annoying commentary so I started looking into CD alarm clocks. Most of the ones that I could find were huge (covering most of a night stand), ugly (like an 80's boom box), had terrible sound quality, and around $80. I then looked over at the so-called "shelf systems", mini-component systems that fit on an office bookshelf. They have sleaker designs, much better sound, remote controls (which take up very little nightstand area), and averaged around $100 (for a 3-disc changer!)...BUT NO FRIGGIN' ALARM.

These shelf systems have clocks and sleep functions to turn off, but no timer to turn it on. How stupid are the people working at these companies that they can't figure out that they should just put a timer on the device..and they should make sure that the remote's numeric keypad can be used to set the clock and alarms as well having buttons to turn off the alarm or snooze. Maybe they're not stupid, but it seems like a pretty damn obvious thing to do to me also that it would be a good idea. If somebody out there knows of any CD player that is decent enough to wake up to and includes an alarm clock then please let me know.

I know I can use my computer to do this, but then I have to leave it (and the speakers) on while I'm sleeping and that's an egregious waste of electricity. So then I built a robot to turn on my normal sound system in the morning, but the robot got in the way during the daytime. So I ended up with a Memorex CD Alarm clock for $50 that is basically a Discman with attached low-end computer speakers. For reasons that I won't bother listing, this thing blows. I'm looking for better options.

Like many people, post-it notes are a ubiquitous element of my life and greatly enhance my productivity. Over the past few years 3M has greatly increased their product lineup to include mega-sized post-its and many other "presentation-sized" pads. They've also gone wild with the color schemes and shapes...so much so that it is often hard to find just plain old little yellow post-its (the only kind I actually use) even in stores like Staples and Office Max. But there is one thing that I would actually buy that they don't make (yet), clear post-it notes.

Think about it, you could write on them with standard AV markers and put them on overheads for last-minute presentation add-ons; stick them on windows and mirrors without totally marring the view; stick them to monitors and TVs for various purposes; and even use them on documents to make removable comments and corrections. I can't believe that they don't make these yet. If anybody out there reading this has pull with 3M, let 'em know that there is a product that they should make which is more important than pastel and flourescent-colored house-shaped post-its with varying levels of stickiness.
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Thanks to a reader names Bernard for telling me that 3M DOES now make translucent Post-It notes (in yellow, blue, and melon, but not in clear transparent). They've been released in Australia and Canada, but not in the U.S; presumably because some people who work there lack vision or intelligence. Come on guys!!! What are you waiting for?!?!

Their website addresses are too long to print here, but just go to:

http://solutions.3m.com/wps/portal/3M/en_WW/Search/3M

and search for "5507-SY" for the "sheer yellow" ones.