Be More Efficient And Don’t Read This

Something that gets continually drilled into everyone’s head is that in order to become more efficient we need to eliminate all the noise in our personal and professional lives. Focus on what matters and keep a blind eye to everything else.

Before the birth of my first son, I will be the first to admit that I was an unfocused procrastinator with a pinch of twitteraholism. After his birth I found myself with only about 2-3 hours a day to accomplish all the extracurricular interests I had. And as a result, I found myself giving up many previous luxuries such as video games, leisure reading, and even cutting back on night caps.

Now after the birth of my second son (to put this into context, that is two under the age of 15 months of age), I have almost no time what so ever to do any of my interests let alone work on all the aspects of my business that I wish to grow. You know there is no hope of ever playing Xbox again when you can’t even find the time to mow the lawn in the last month. However, amidst all of the chaos, I have accomplished more in the last month than ever before.

I don’t know how many times I have heard people preach “Stop listening! Stop analyzing! Start doing!”…and now that I have been *forced* into practicing this I feel more focused, energized, and productive than I ever have in my entire life.

• Email – Processed once a day…maybe…
• RSS – Speed processed twice a month…maybe…
• Phone – I will answer during work hours….maybe…
• Twitter – Turn on then off 1-4 times a day (still a voyeuristic vice)

And that is just what I have done with my applications. Here is a longer list cross sectioning many aspects of my life:

• Moved from dual monitors to single monitor to increase focus and decrease screen real estate for time sucking apps
• Work in coffee shops to minimize distractions of co-workers and family
• Hire out to a neighbor kid (or neglect for long periods of time) chores like the mowing the lawn or washing the cars
• Make myself committed to time lines and promises that I can not easily break to increase prioritization of tasks

The list goes on and on….

Anywho, I am not going to keep rambling on as I need to get some other things done…and I suggest you do as well.

Quit reading this damn article and get something done today.

Max has over 8 years of professional software development experience. He is a MCSD and holds a BS and MS in Computer Science, and is the primary blogger for Codesqueeze.com Maxfield is a DZone MVB and is not an employee of DZone and has posted 10 posts at DZone.