what i do when i’m supposed to be working

Do it. Now.  Your only excuse to continue reading without shutting it off is that you don’t know how to.  Since you’re still reading, I’ll assume you don’t know how to turn off Search Indexing.  Well, according to this handy article, the steps are as follows:

To disable constant indexing:

• Click Start then Computer 
• Right Click the C: Drive or any other drive that you wish to prevent indexing of 
• On General Tab, Uncheck Index this drive for faster searching 
• On the subsequent dialog box, Select Include subfolders and files.

Ranting after the more link… 

I have been trying to figure this out forever.  Seriously.  I thought I was Mr. Super Nerd, and went in and disabled the Search Indexer thinking that would put the kabbash on things.  No result.  I looked in various other places, but for some reason it never occurred to me to look in the properties of the disks themselves.

There are so many reasons to do this:

• Performance – This is the obvious one.  Less activity on the disk from the Search Indexer means the disk isn’t busy with other requests when it’s time to retrieve the files you actually want.
• Wear on the disk – Think about it, this Search Indexer is keeping your disk running nonstop.  It’s gonna burn out in maybe half the time it normally would.*
• Power Usage – Think about how much faster your laptop’s battery dies when you’re running the CD drive a lot.  Exactly.
• That sound, that AWFUL SOUND – That soft ‘click’ sound that a hard drive makes as the heads swing back and forth over the platter. It’s fine normally, but when it’s just constant like that…makes me want to punch an infant.
• Seriously, how often do you search your computer for files.  Are you that unorganized?**

*I completely made this figure up.  Who knows?  Running the hard drive all the time could increase the lifespan.
**This isn’t so much of a reason to turn off Search Indexer as it is a personal attack on the reader.  Sorry.