How to Waste Less Time

Most people waste an enormous amount of time - have you noticed? When was the last time you killed time on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, or checking your email? People in modern society suffer from an information overload.

The solution?

A low information diet.

This doesn't mean you'll become ignorant or an ill-informed citizen. You're simply moderating your intake of information to 'need-to-know' only.

How?

Stop watching the news and reading the newspapers - wait! - This won't mean you won't know what's going on, but just glance at headlines as you pass the papers and try asking your co-workers, colleagues, waiters, or whoever, what's big news in the world that day. Let the news junkies sift and distill for you.

EDIT: I originally posted this in the comments, but decided to include it in the main body of the post. This will work for problem websites as well as email: http://macfreedom.com/ Though it says Mac, a Windows version is also available.

Now, it's time to attack your cellphone and your email. Settle down, it will be OK - everyone got along peachily before they came around and I am not advising you cut them out entirely, just moderate them. How?

Go into your email settings and create an autoresponse (sometimes called a vacation response) that tells people the two times of the day that you check your email - and that's all you will do! Do not make one of the times first thing in the morning - give yourself some time to be productive before you check your email. In your auto-response, give the times you check them and explain that you're doing this to increase your efficiency and effectiveness and, if it's truly urgent they can call you at <your phone number here.>

People can get along without you, even if the business setting, and this will dramatically cut down on the amount of time you spend sifting through your inbox and responding.

Now what about that cellphone? Keep conversations short, especially if they're not 'pleasure calls' from friends, family, etc. Be polite, but press that you're busy doing something right then and prompt them with something akin to: "Hey, I'm really busy right now and I have to <do whatever> in two minutes, how can I help you?"

If they keep dawdling, politely interrupt with, "I really need to run, could you shoot me an email about this?" or something similar.

Enforce these rules (both with yourself and others!) and you just may find that you have a lot more time on your hands for both work and play.

Streamlining Your Mornings, Part II

Now that your ass is out of bed, what do you do? If you're like me, you start making coffee and take a shower. Simple enough, so where are the life hacks I keep going on about?

Wonderfully bubbly coffee.
Don't question the bubbles.

Let's take a look at that coffee. Assuming you're not like me, you probably make pretty gross coffee in the morning - kudos if you don't - so what's the problem? Is it bitter, tinny, too weak? If your refrigerator doesn't offer filtered water, invest in a Brita filter and fill the coffee maker with cold water the morning you make it, not the night before. If you can, buy whole beans and grind them yourself as you need them to maximize freshness - though generally coffee you buy in the store isn't truly fresh anyway, but that's another story.

Last lifehack for bitter coffee, besides adjusting the ratio of grounds to water? A dash of salt on the grounds. It works.

I feel exhilarated already. 

Let's talk about how to be a lifehacker in the shower. Most people waste time, water and money in the shower and sabotage their energy levels by taking unnecessarily long showers with hot water, especially when it's cold outside. Am I right?

The life hacks may already be obvious to you, but you might be too much of a pansy to do them: Navy showers with cold to lukewarm water. 

What is this nonsense? The so-called 'Navy shower' was used by the Navy due to limited fresh water supplies on ships. It's also a super easy way to use less water, save money, and take faster showers.

Here's how to do it:

1. Turn on the shower and wet your body and hair. 
2. Turn off the water, lather and scrub. 
3. Rinse - repeat if you condition. 

Total time: Two minutes or less. 

Total water used: circa 11 liters/3 gallons. 

An average ten minute shower uses up to 230 liters/60 gallons -- and it takes ten minutes. These statistics, by the way, are thanks to this PDF put out by the University of Florida. 

Speed showering with cold to room temperature water also works really well for getting you pumped for the day. 

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Lastly, and perhaps most lamely, if you're reading this blog you probably read several. Well, the lifehacker way to read all these blogs - and any other websites you like to keep pace with - is called Morning Coffee  

Morning Coffee is a Firefox add-on that allows you to add websites to a list, as well as give them a frequency rating, which will all be brought up in different tabs by clicking on the icon - this way you can easily catch up with them all while you enjoy your now delicious morning coffee. 

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