String enough busy weeks together, and you begin to see an increasing effect on your daily routine. My abused life points, in order of neglect, are:
- sleep
- outside life
- exercise
- proper diet
- prospecting / networking
- media consumption
- blogging
- advertising / pr
- small talk
- team tracking / management
- personal time tracking
- proposal writing
- invoicing
- big talk / meetings
- quality control
- project/service work
- phone correspondence
- email correspondence
- im
The logic? It’s easier to give up things one has direct control over. That’s right, I just rationalized giving up sleep before giving up instant messaging. It’s not right, it’s just easy.
Rather than affect change through personal behavior modification, I look for technology to win back happy time:
- to-do lists (Ta-da Lists)
- rss filters (Feed Rinse)
- time tracking (Harvest)
- invoice automation (Blinksale)
- project management (Basecamp)
- event scheduling (Skobee)
I’d like that list to be longer. Since I can’t seem to set my IM status to away, I’m particularly interested in finding a better correspondence app (no, it isn’t gmail). So, if any of you happen to stumble upon the killer app in the quality of life recovery category, be sure to let me know. I hear nature is nice.