Archives: Time wasting

The week leading up to Christmas is always a weird one. Whether you’re at home, at work or both1 no one is really interested in doing anything and it’s never a hugely productive period2.

So how do we make the best of the week before Christmas and the odd limbo of the following week before the New Year kicks off?

Rather than sitting at your desk procrastinating and clock-watching while dreaming of warmer, sunnier climbs, why not make use of the semi-downtime to make some progress on those little pet projects that have been kicking about in your head for the last three, six or even twelve months?

You know the ones I’m talking about: the projects that you love but just haven’t found time to focus on. The projects that you want to make a reality, but you’re not ready to share them with others just yet. The projects that really excite you, that fill you with drive and passion.

Too many great projects get lost in the maelstrom of everyday life and work, so use this little two-to-three week window to really reignite that passion.

If nothing else, just by working on a project that energises you for a few weeks, it’ll help launch you into the New Year with renewed vigour for achieving your goals and making the most of your life, your career and your talent.

1. working from home, that is [↩]
2. unless your in Panto, in which case you’re rushed off your feat right about now [↩]

When does promotion become procrastination?

When social media goes bad (cue over-the-top American-TV intro music and flashy title sequence)1.

We’ve all been there: listless, unmotivated, snowed under with things we just don’t want to be doing with our day.

We just sneak a peek at what the Twitterverse is up to before we get down to it. We just see who’s thrown a sheep2 at us before we put our noses back to that grindstone.

Before we know it, we’ve lost hours of our day to commenting, reTweeting and generally putting ourselves about, always telling ourselves that it’s all in the name of networking and promoting ourselves, our product or our project. Which it very often is.

But it’s vital not only to your productivity, but to the success of said product or project, that we pay attention to those warning signs of procrastination. There’s no point in marketing yourself if you’re never going to have anything to deliver.

So shut that browser down, Command-Q Tweetdeck and set yourself to task. You’ll be glad you did when you jump back on later to Tweet “I finished it!”

1. Apologies to my American readers, I couldn’t use British TV as all our shows are pretty bland and boring when held up against the US. Two ends of the same spectrum, I guess. [↩]
2. Does anyone actually throw sheep any more? [↩]