I was supposed to finish this piece last Friday to cap off productivity, but, in fact, I was traveling. That’s right. I couldn’t do a piece on travel productivity because I was traveling.

Trust me: it wasn’t for wont of gear that I didn’t turn in my piece. It was because we just weren’t prepared for the strain travel takes on communications. You can carry your favorite laptop, cellphone, and power converter and still be as disconnected as if you were on the surface of Mars.

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Before I write this gem of a post, let me attempt to absolve myself of all legal responsibility: I’m merely doing what I was told to do. That should hold up in court, no?

My second charge this fine Productivity Week is to teach y’all how to pirate movies, music, video games, etc. more efficiently. On what planet is this type of advice is both approved of and encouraged I don’t know, but here we are.

I’ll divide this into two parts: helping make the most of your BitTorrent experience, and doing that Usenet thing as painlessly as possible… while you still can! Oh, man. The fun, it never stops here.

BitTorrent is for poor people or jerks who either cannot afford to pay for Hollywood works of art like that hilarious Zohan movie, or who think they’re being righteous and thumbing their nose at The Man by downloading. I fall into the first category. I’m not about to pay $30 for the Blu-ray version of Rambo, but I’ll sure as hell download it, watch it and then delete it, then forget I ever watched it.

But how to use it smarter? That’s what everybody (nobody?) wants to know.

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Our ground-breaking series on productivity continues today with a quick look at making your car as fuel-efficient as possible, or just how to save yourself some money while driving around town. For whatever reason, be it merely supply and demand or the sinister result of speculators speculating wildly, fuel prices are at an all-time high. Right now, oil trades for $130, up more than 100 percent since the same time last year. In other words, in just one year fuel prices have doubled, which, combined with other dismal economic factors here in the U.S., stretches the family budget as thin as it’s ever been in recent years. And since our country simply doesn’t have a well-developed mass transportation system in place, save for some of the larger cities—have you considered moving?—owning and driving a car is a necessity for most Americans.

So if you’re forced to drive a car, heed the following advice, most of which comes from old men screaming on CNN about how consumers are getting screwed. A little bit of money saved here, a little bit there, it adds up quickly.

First, and most obvious: drive a fuel-efficient car. Why so many people still insist on driving SUVs, then complain about the lousy gas mileage they get, I’ll never know. It’s 2008 and you don’t look cool—you’re not Jay-Z—and you don’t need that much space to take your son to T-ball practice. Get yourself a smart sedan, or maybe even a hybrid if you’re willing to spend a little more upfront.

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We all love our gadgets, but that love can sometimes lead to a mess of wires and lost time looking for chargers. If you find yourself with this dilemma, it might be a good idea to buy docking stations for the devices you use often.

This should solve two problems. The first one is obvious. Your device should always be charged and ready to go, since it will be sitting in the base station on your desk. The second is you should always know where your charger is, and you will spend less time looking around for it. You could also keep one at home and one at work, so you don’t have to worry about leaving it at one or the other.

Most devices have base stations available. I recently wrote about one for the Nintendo DS. Nicholas did this post about a Transformers one for an iPod. So it shouldn’t be too hard to find one for your favorite gadget.

Have a productivity tip? Drop us a line at tips@crunchgear.com.

Since this is Productivity Week, I was told to come up with some short and sweet tips for you to enjoy. So I quickly started to brainstorm. At first I was using my computer to try and find tips, but I found myself getting distracted. So I moved to a piece of paper I had lying around.

As soon as I put my pen to the paper I thought, “Wow this could be my first productivity tip.”

If you are trying to think of ideas or start a project, sometimes just working it out on paper is a good first step. Even thought technology makes out life easier, it can also make things more complicated. I find brainstorming on the computer difficult, since the internet just leads to wasting time. If you plan on paper, before you get to the computer, you will be more focused and less likely to be distracted.

If you are an eco nut and can’t stand the thought of using paper you could also use a tablet PC with an Internet blocker on it. PCs (and Macs) come with parental tools now, so it shouldn’t be hard to figure out how to do that.

Let’s start with the basics here for CrunchGear’s Productivity Week; your workspace. Everyone’s work area should be an exercise in functionality and each one will undoubtedly be as unique as a fallen snowflake or the DNA test results that cleared you of all those murders back in ‘99.

That being said, let’s take a look at my personal workspace as I share some tips with you that may or may not help you get more work done, faster.

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We feel bad that many of you sit at your desks or in your cubicles and read our silly gadget blog instead of getting real work done. Sure, you do enough to get by, but you’re never going to get the raise and then be able to afford the new car or Rock Band accessories, are you? You need to work smarter, not harder.

We’re here to help. We’ve taken this week as Productivity Week, where the CrunchGear staff has prepared a collection of how-tos and tips that should help you get that corner office without having to do more than you’re doing now.

We’ll also help with getting your personal life organized, from home theaters to inboxes and everything in between.

So enjoy this package as our way of saying thanks for reading. We hope this keeps you from getting fired.