After tussling with my 256 MB RAM for more than 3 years, I bought a 1 GB RAM last week. And that very instant I knew that I was making myself a fool for 3 long years.
The #1 rule for productivity when dealing with computers is
UPGRADE YOUR HARDWARE
This does not apply to those who already have tons of RAM, and amazing processor speed and graphics accelerator and so on…
But that poor consumer who just knew that computer can be used to calculate when he was buying his first PC; who bought a PC at the lowest prize (and slowest configuration implied) and then learned so much about everything and computers too; but still forgot to upgrade his own computer, this is to you.
When you bought your computer you were only learning. You needed just a little power.
Once you are in the second year, you have learned almost enough. You need twice the same power.
And every 2 years so forth you will need to make fine adjustments to the configuration of your system.
Or else, you will be doomed.
I learned it the hard way. Thought that the time my computer takes to respond to a click could be used to think about what to do after that. But I was wrong. When my computer started responding faster, I started thinking faster.
What are you waiting for? Go and buy some new chips.