Ever felt like you didn’t have time to do the things you wanted? Like get around to starting that new business, or get that skill cerification, or finally visit your parents? Yet when you take the time to write down all you have accomplished, you come up with a blank.

It’s not very uncommon. You’ve kept busy doing nothing.

Being busy has always been nothing but an excuse for me. Like when someone invites me to a party and I don’t want to go, I tell them I’m busy. When people ask me why I haven’t been going to the gym as much as before, I tell them I’m busy even though I’m really just sick of going to the gym and will probably stop for a few months.

I’m dumbfounded everytime I see people talking about how busy they are. I’m sure many of them really are busy but I can’t help but think how easily avoidable I’ve always found busyness to be.

From what I’ve seen, there are two ways that people are actually busy:

1. Physically busy like they’re driving somewhere or running errands or playing

2. Mentally busy like examining a problem, thinking things through or worrying about something

Both types can be productive, depending on how they are used. In the same breath, they can also both be huge wastes of time and resources. I like outlining busyness as a quadrant divided into four areas where any activity that adds to your busy lifestyle can fall into: Physical-Productive, Physical-Wasteful, Mental-Productive and Mental-Wasteful.

Unfortunately, many people spend much of their busy time engaging in activities that fall into the Wasteful area. And because of this, they accomplish nothing or very little, despite spending an inordinate amount of time on them.

I have a list of my personal activities that fall into each of the above. When I catch myself doing any of the wasteful stuff, I hold back and see how to either: do things differently to make them productive or stop doing it and focus on something new.

Here’s a sample list for each of the above classifications.  Surely, you’ll have your own.  Edit the list and put in yours.

Physical-Productive

• working out
• working on my internet projects with a clear goal in mind
• learning new skills
• going someplace or doing something for the first time (always stimulates the imagination)

Physical-Wasteful

• playing videogames
• talking about making money with people who aren’t making money
• idly tweaking my websites or marketing campaigns
• spending more than 1 hour at the mall

Mental-Productive

• learning new ideas from books and audio programs
• meditation
• planning with a clear goal in mind
• thinking about ways to enjoy my activities more

Mental-Wasteful

• entertainment television, radio, magazines
• entertaining doubts - they never run out
• talking and thinking about negative outcomes
• thinking and gossiping about other people

The wasteful stuff will keep you busy - sometimes for days on end  - but lead you nowhere that you’d care to be two months down the line.  They add no value to your present moment and, in fact, diminishes it.  Most of the stuff that keep people busy simply add no value to their lives.  Why would you spend your precious seconds that way?

Technorati Tags: busy, add value

I gave up cable tv over two years ago. I don’t even have a TV antenna. The only shows I get to watch now are those I buy in DVD’s or those I download from P2P. I can, for the last two years, schedule my purely entertainment viewing without interfering with more important tasks. My new time-waster: Mindlessly devouring content on every internet link I can click on.

It’s not uncommon for me to google for a zip code to a particular address and find myself, two hours later, googling anecdotes for a little-known war hero, murdered by his own men during his sleep, who lived in that town.

It’s literally television all over again.

I’ve recently implemented adjustments to my online reading habits so I can continue to enjoy reading interesting stuff without impinging on other things I need to get done.

Maybe you’d like to implement the same or start from them and create your own.

1. Finish reading an article FIRST before clicking on any links in the page

This was the crucial first step as clicking on every interesting link has become, to me, the internet counterpart of mindlessly surfing tv channels. Tabbed browsing has allowed this to become convenient and it’s an extremely easy trap to fall into.

Additionally, websites are always trying to get you to stay longer in their site, or view discussions from friendly sites, as a way to maximize pageviews and foster friendly relatinships with other internet authors, so they are intentionally structured to get you to click again and again to all sorts of different places.

If it’s a primarily content website, all the info you need is likely on the main article and the links are mere supplementation or clarification. if it’s one of those human newsbot weblogs (of fine hypertext links), as Guy Kawasaki refers to it, just click on the main link and ignore the rant.

2. Download entire websites for offline viewing

I use HTTrack for this. I’ve done this with long-running blogs that I’ve only recently discovered and whose posts I intend to read in their entirety. I view them literally offline - on a machine with no internet connection - so there are no outlinks whatsoever.

3. Take notes instead of opening links immediately

I use another software, Keynote, for writing down various points as well as relevant links for later checking. It’s a three-dimensional notepad with tabs and nodes, allows text formatting, and exports to RTF. I only open one Keynote and do all my writing from there, as opposed to 10 notepads and 5 word documents. It’s one of the most useful tools in my desktops.

Instead of clicking on link after link, I just copy each link in a tab called, say, User-editable HTML Grids, under a node called Links.

If I finish the article and I still have some questions, I check the links for seeming relevancy and open them one by one.

4. For reading new posts and updates, use a newsfeed software

Download a newsfeed software from the internet. There are tons of them, some free, some with low cost, but they are really a great help. I personally use an older version of FeedDemon, which is not freeware.

While I have groupings to organize the feeds I subscribe to, I have a “Page 1″ Group which is the default group my feedreader opens to. This contains all the websites I frequently check like Stevepavlina, Problogger and Lifehack.

I also check the titles first. If the title interests me, I read the rest. If not, I skip. While I’m sure I’m missing some good content because of it, I don’t lose any sleep. I read latest posts mostly for my amusement anyway.

5. Set schedules

There’s seriously no point to me in reading every website I fancy or posting to every forum I am a member of every single day.

So I manage them. I check my newsfeeds every morning, drag all the titles I like to my news bin and schedule them for later reading. I post to forums only twice, at most three times a week.

IN CONCLUSION

If you notice yourself using the internet like you used the TV in the past, it’s time to do some reorganizing. You can follow my personal guidelines above or create your own. The important thing is to be conscious of how you are using the medium, minimize passive browsing, and use it as aid to maximize your important efforts instead of delay it.

Most people hate being late. But they come late anyway.

They are late for work, for dinners, for parties. There is something about lateness that calms the one being late - it’s both a claiming of power and a way to avoid the anxiety of waiting.

For people who work regular jobs, lateness often drags lots of other things:

• You start work late so you end it late
• You set a bad example for your subordinates
• You waste time making up reasons for being late
• You waste time justifying being late (both to yourself and to your supervisors - you have to convince yourself in order to convince others)
• You set yourself as an obvious, easy target for unimaginative criticism that can affect raise and promotions

How do you stop being late?

There are many solutions for being late. And, fortunately or unfortunately, all of them depend on you - your values, your discipline, your desire to make it happen. You can’t buy a tool to fix the problem. You are the tool that will either solve or compound the problem.

Don’t sleep. Obviously, it’s not sustainable. But I did it several times when I was trying to sleep every other day so I thought I’d throw it in.

Wake up earlier. If you’re late late because you get up late, the simplest solution is to wake up earlier. I believe the best, most sensible guide to that is here. If this is not your problem, then skip.

Set a time-limit from the time you wake up to the time you leave for work. Most people who are habitually late for work are also habitually lazy in the morning. Or they simply have too much to do before leaving. Set a 1.5-hour limit or less from the time you wake up to the time you leave. Schedule each morning chore and stick to it. Do as much chores as you can the previous night: Packing lunch, ironing shirts,helping the kids pack their things, among many other tasks can all be done the night before. Don’t turn on the tv. You’ll just end up watching longer than you intended to. Don’t play video games. You know you won’t want to end it. Make a habit of sticking to the time constraint and you’ll have more productive mornings on top of it.

Reclaiming your passion for work. I’ve been a chronic latecomer in many of my jobs. I used to reason that I really didn’t give a shit. The truth is, I think I just lose real passion for them. It’s really little more than a way to keep body and soul together.

What’s funny is everytime I’m at a new job, I always come early. I used to think it was because I was trying to make a good impression but lately, I’ve realized it wasn’t so. It’s because everytime I start a new job, I’m always excited. I’m eager. An old, dormant passion for creating software gets rekindled and I want to be present to light it aflame.

After a while though the reality of office work - politics, lack of meaningful purpose, and boredom - get to you and you lose those good feelings.

Most people like to blame corporations for it. They blame the office. They blame the system. They blame the managers. While it is true to an extent, it’s still nothing but a convenient way to avoid taking responsibility for your own emotions. Anyone can feel good about the shittiest job if they approach it the proper way.

Strive to find a way to make your work more fulfilling. More than a strategy to get yourself to come early, it is a much better way to spend your time, rather than trudging through another workday listlessly.

Treat work as a daily necessity. Treat work like you treat bathing. You can live without it but you rarely go through the day without it. Unless you’re European, tee-hee. Seriously, treat it like you treat something you do everyday that is not of dire importance but that you do because it adds value to your life. This will make it less emotional and something you can attend to in a more level-headed way. A lot of the time, unprofessional behavior is a manifestation of repressed feelings in the workplace. Considering how restrictive and stifling many office policies are, it is not the least bit surprising.

There are many other ways you can go about fixing the problem of habitual lateness but all of them will boil down to how much work you are willing to put into achieving it.