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We asked our editors and contributors to create a blue-sky wishlist for all things productivity and software in 2009. Read on for their responses, and to contribute your own do-wants for the new year.

Daily Routines is a blog that does nice work of compiling accounts of how famous minds—great, inspired, slothful, procrastination-prone, and otherwise—set about their tasks. All the quotes and anecdotes come from linked interviews, biographies, or other accounts, and while the workers covered tend toward the creative side, there's a few mathematicians, architects, and other left-brainers.

If you're manager tracks your time based on when you log in and out of your machine at work, then are you missing out on pay for the time you're waiting for your machine to boot up and shut down? That's what a series of lawsuits by employees from the likes of AT&T, UnitedHealth and Cigna demand.

How much you actually make per year or per hour at your job is a bit more complicated than estimating working hours and multiplying by the hourly wage in your contract. Once you calculate external costs in time and expense, such as the time spent commuting and the expense of the necessary transportation, your actual compensation per hour goes down.

Free classified site Workstir aims to add eBay-style ratings and credentialing to contractors who offer their services freelance-style through classified ads.

For those of you who wonder how the other half lives, or are the other half, then compare the cost of living and what wage you'll need to earn to keep up with the Living Wage Calculator from Dr. Amy K. Glasmeier at Pennsylvania State University. Above are the numbers for a single adult or single adult and single child in San Francisco, and let me tell you, getting by on that little would not be easy.

There's nothing more frustrating than volunteering on a project to help out a friend or a worthy cause only to end up resenting the organization when it bleeds into your paying work. In a guest post for the Shifting Careers blog, longtime freelancer Michelle Goodman offers a number of tips on when to and when not to give away the milk if you're a self-employed cow. For instance, a simple contract can help reinforce boundariess when volunteering:

It's about that time of year when giant, staple-bound packages arrive in your inbox, with deadlines for seemingly colossal decisions about which plan, which benefits, and how much money to put aside. Consumer Reports' Money blog runs down up-to-date spending statistics, the legal and tax-savvy fine print, and the considerations any worker should make before just checking off the cheapest plan.

Working as a mystery shopper—someone who rates quality and service for retailers as an incognito customer—can earn those with some spare time some decent spare cash, nothing to sniff at in this economy. A former mystery shopper at the Wise Bread blog points out, however, that there are a number of caveats that keep it out of the "Easy Money" pile, including the need to have, well, money:

CNET's Webware blog lists 14 things to do after being laid off from a tech gig. Number one on the list? Get involved in an open-source software project, coding or otherwise, because they're "filled with people who are also connected to companies that pay their engineers." Laid off recently? Tell us how you've been coping, and moving on, in the comments.