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After last week’s post, some readers have written to ask me how I answer the ever-present “What do you do?” question. I usually say something like this:
I’m doing marketing for a few small start-ups, though I also have a job blog and have been spending time working on music and video production. I really enjoy all of the challenges that are presented to me through these different activities. What do you do?
And the follow-up to this statement, from both readers and questioners, is “How do you do all that? I wish I had the time to do that.”
But here’s the thing: you do have the time to do that. And more.
Sometimes, it’s a matter of reining in your breaks from work. Or creating a better routine. A lot of the time, it’s a matter of motivation. But the ability to do multiple things for fun and/or profit comes from the ability to weed out the less important tasks from your day. But the secret to improving your time-management skills comes from cutting back on two things that have become bastions for procrastinators and time-wasters: television and the Internet.
I’m not saying that all TV is bad. In fact, I’m wary of those who claim to “never watch” or “don’t own” a TV – there’s no reason to cut off all exposure to an entire medium if for no other reason than the silly belief that it will turn one’s brain into mush. In fact, I’ve used TV as an example quite a few times. But unless the show is conducive to your career or goals (ie: Shark Week for marine biology, Bloomberg for financial updates, etc.), chances are you can skip it.
I love the Internet, too. Blogs, Facebook, YouTube, Texts From Last Night, College Humor, Cracked and Wikipedia…there are so many great sites to find information on, read and enjoy. But these sites are also time-wasters. Instead of cutting yourself off from the Information Superhighway completely (and when was the last time someone called it that?), if you limit your focus to only sites pertinent to the task at hand, you can save yourself hours of time each day. By limiting the time I spend checking social networks and emails to the end of the day (and doing the same with the Internet for leisure purposes), I’ve gained about 2.5 more hours of productive time every day – that’s over 12 hours per week!
If you can cut out the extraneous activities in your daily schedule, you’ll be amazed at how much more you can accomplish.
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