Savvify

I once thought that the word “tired” only had one meaning.

But I recently discovered that there are actually two forms of tiredness — and they don’t have much in common. If you are someone who is “tired” all the time, it might be helpful to think about which kind of tiredness you are experiencing.

For about two years, I was “tired” all the time. I could never get enough sleep. On the weekends, I always needed extra sleep and avoided adding anything to my schedule that might take away from potential rest time. This never interfered with the things I had to do (such as job responsibilities), but, outside of the mandatory things in my life, I never had much extra drive.

I attributed this lack of energy and enthusiasm to just being “tired”. In retrospect, it is clear to me that I was really just uninspired, probably slightly depressed. At the time, I was in a relationship that was not going anywhere. None of the same interests were shared, and I felt like my natural talents and style were not validated. I was trying to be someone I was not to maintain harmony in the relationship, and it just wasn’t working.

So nothing looked better to me than taking a good nap, closing my eyes, traveling into dreamland, and forgetting about all my problems. When I wasn’t napping, I always needed “extra time” to just hang around the house and “rest”. My lack of motivation made me a real drag to be around I’m sure.

“Tired” is an awful feeling. It’s not the real feeling of being physically tired (needing sleep). It’s the feeling of being mentally tired, uninspired, ambivalent, unnecessary, possibly abject.

Fast forward to today, where I’m working two jobs, meeting more new friends every day, doing extra hobbies that inspire me, exerting more energy than ever. Yet I’m no longer “tired”. I want to go out in the world and do things, because I’m having fun. I don’t mind pushing myself a bit (within reason) because my new activities are well worth having a little less “rest time”. I have moved on from my uninspiring relationship, and it was one of the best decisions I ever made.

These days, I’m experiencing the real version of tired: TIRED.

TIRED is when you physically need sleep because you’ve been so busy. TIRED makes you sleep like a baby. TIRED makes you wake up feeling refreshed and excited about beginning the new day.

So how do you know the difference? Well, “tired” isn’t a physical feeling of exhaustion. “Tired” is a outlook that your whole life becomes submerged in. It’s when you always need to rest, often without logical reason. Even a LOT of sleep or downtime is never enough when you’re “tired”. As the old song lyric goes: “I could sleep for a thousand years”. When you’re “tired”, even a thousand years is probably not enough.

“Tired” is when you’re rationing out your energy carefully, because you don’t have any extra to spare. You’re guarding your time carefully, because one extra thing might push you into total exhaustion. You’re barely surviving.

If “tired” sounds like you, maybe it’s good to consider whether the people and situations in your life inspire you. Do your friends and significant others appreciate and validate your natural interests? Are you trying to be someone you are not, or not really wanting to do the things you have committed to do? If you could do anything on a free day, would your plans be totally different from your regular schedule? If so, that’s definitely not good.

The key to not being “tired” is to find situations that inspire you, and make you feel useful and needed. If you feel like nobody really needs you or you have to apologize every day for just being yourself, it’s very easy to become “tired”.

When you feel like your place in the world is necessary and you hang around people who appreciate your unique talents, interests, and style, it’s really difficult to get “tired” and want to just stay in bed all day. Suddenly, you are jumping out of bed every morning, ready to live every minute to its fullest. At the end of the day, you will definitely need restful sleep. You will be Tired (with a capital T).

Tired and “tired” don’t feel the same at all. If you have less energy than you want, it’s important to know which one you’re experiencing. In my opinion, the shortest path from Tired to “tired” is to just be yourself. The freedom you gain will make “tired” unnecessary.

Think back to all your co-workers of the past. What’s the first thing that pops into your head?

Unless they were grossly incompetent and just couldn’t perform their job duties at all, the first thing you probably think about is whether you liked working with them or not – in other words, whether you liked them.

All of us would like to believe that we are judged on how competently we perform job duties, how good we are at our jobs. But that’s basically a myth. One of the biggest determinants of whether you are hired, promoted, etc. is your likeability.

But don’t believe me. A recent survey by NFI Research, reported in Information Week magazine, of 223 senior executives and managers across several industries, found that 63% rely on the ‘likeability’ and personality of a candidate when making hiring and promotion decisions. And 73% said they base their hiring and promotion decisions on a candidate’s “likelihood to fit in” with the organization.

And in his book, The Likeability Factor, How to Boost Your L-Factor and Achieve Your Life’s Dreams, best-selling author Tim Sanders says that being liked may be more important than actual job skills.

“Job candidates are more successful if they’re likeable. They’re more likely to get second interviews, and more likely to get short-listed for jobs. They are also more likely to keep their jobs, both in bad times and good,” he says.

When I first read this research, I thought, “That’s probably true.” But I don’t think I realized the full implications until I thought about it more.

Basically, if most people had to choose between working with someone who was excellent at their job but unlikeable OR someone who was just mediocre at their job but likeable, they would choose the latter.

Is that any big surprise? Many people spend more time with their co-workers than with friends and family members. Having to see someone you don’t like every day is a real drag.

One the other hand, we can all fondly remember those great co-workers that we looked forward to seeing on Monday morning, because we considered them friends as much as co-workers.

This goes for management too. Studies show that the number one reason most people quit jobs is because they don’t like their boss (not money, not benefits, not lack of promotions). As we all know, having a boss you don’t like is a significant source of stress – so most unappreciated workers vote with their feet!

All this has made me rethink some of the ways I spent my time at work. Rather than putting five more minutes into a project to make sure it’s perfect, maybe my time is better spent listening to a co-worker tell me about his or her weekend. (Psychologists say that being a good listener and empathizing with others is the number one way to be likeable.)

Or have you ever thought of this…. maybe it’s more important to say good morning to everyone than it is to do a super job the rest of the day, working “like a dog” but too busy to smile at or listen to anyone. It’s counter-intuitive, I know – because we like to think that co-workers judge us primarily on job performance – but there it is.

(On a side note, I think this likeability thing extends to writers too. Rather than read the most intelligent or grammatically correct writers, I prefer to spend time reading the words of people I like and can relate to.)

So here’s a question: If you really believe that likeability is the job skill that no one talks about, and you really believe that being likeable is more important than your “work functions”, then:

Why are you wasting time every day putting more and more energy into the wrong things?

Sneaky doesn’t work anymore, not in 2007.

We all know what sneaky is:

• Sneaky is the really small print, written in indecipherable legalese, at the bottom of the document you are supposed to sign.
• Sneaky is the company that, after repeated attempts, won’t unsubscribe you from their mailing list.
• Sneaky is the store that advertises one product at a low price. Then, when you get to the store, they don’t have that particular model but want to “upgrade” you (read: bait and switch) to a more expensive model.
• Sneaky is the politician or celebrity caught red-handed who doesn’t just apologize, but tries to deny wrongdoing or obfuscate the facts.
• Sneaky is the alternative medicine crowd that makes wild claims about miraculous cures which are not backed-up by research.
• Sneaky is the “free book offer” you sent off for which turns out to be a front to get you to join a religious group you’re not interested in.
• Sneaky is the job applicant who lies on his resume or includes fake degrees.
• Sneaky is the fast food company that tries to pretend like hamburgers and milkshakes are healthy.
• Sneaky is someone who won’t just admit he’s trying to sell you something. (Nothing wrong with selling, but being sneaky about it doesn’t work anymore.)
• Sneaky is the company that automatically continues billing your credit card monthly, as the default, for what you thought was a one-time order.
• Sneaky is the hotel that charges you a hidden fee for “work-out room and swimming pool privileges” even though you didn’t use these services, and signed the agreement at eleven p.m. after an all-day drive to your destination.
• Sneaky is the credit card company that gives your kids in college high-interest rate cards with big lines of credit, knowing they will abuse the cards and that you will eventually have to help them with the debt.
• Sneaky is lying about your age or appearance on an online profile.
• Sneaky is politicians who spend billions of dollars on unnecessary wars and then tell people they’re for decreased taxes.

In a word where everyone has Google, it’s harder and harder to lie about the facts. Better to just lay your cards on the table and tell people the truth. Then, they can decide if they like what you’re doing and want to get involved with your product, idea, and service — or not.

In the old days, it wasn’t very difficult to trick people, sell a fake image, or be dishonest. But in the information age, sneaky doesn’t work.

Is there anybody reading this who wouldn’t want to “lose weight without trying”? I didn’t think so. Well, I heard a diet tip a few years ago that is so simple, so brilliant that you will hardly believe it. I don’t have to tell you how many people these days are trying to maintain a healthy weight – and how badly many are failing to do so.

There are tons of fad diets out there. But we all know in our hearts that the two biggest problems are food portion size and lack of exercise. Lack of exercise is very much related to car-based societies where people don’t get out and walk enough. My diet tip won’t help solve that problem, but it will help with portion size.

Portion size is a really big issue. If you eat too many calories, it’s nearly impossible to burn them all off. While exercise is important, the key to avoiding unwanted pounds is to not digest those extra calories in the first place. For many people, that involves following strict diets that can make life miserable. Is there a better solution?

Let’s Catch An Airplane

The diet tip I heard originally comes from Okinawa, a group of islands in the south of Japan. You may have heard of Okinawa because it’s famous for its beautiful beaches. It’s also famous for having some of the healthiest people in the world.

Okinawans are rarely overweight, and have extremely low rates of heart disease and cancer. Every now and then you will see a news story about how some of the oldest people in the world live in Okinawa. Until October 2003, Okinawa was home to the oldest woman in the world – a lady named Kamato Hongo, who left behind seven children, 27 grandchildren, 57 great-grandchildren and 11 great-great-grandchildren when she passed way at age 116!

The age thing is true for all of Japan. In 2004, the average Japanese woman could expect to live until age 85, and the average Japanese man could expect to live until age 78. This is higher than just about anywhere else in the world. Such statistics have spawned many diet books like with titles like “The Okinawa Way” and “The Okinawa Diet Plan”. The bad news is that the life expectancy in Okinawa will probably decrease in the future as more young people adopt a Western style diet of large portions and junk food.

The Secret Tip

OK, here it is. Forgive me for making you read on to get it, but I felt a proper set-up was appropriate. This tip is very powerful, but it’s also very easy to read once, forget, and never practice. But I know that you won’t do that.

The Japanese have a saying, “hara hachi bu”. It means, literally translated, “eight parts out of 10”. What does this mean to someone trying to maintain his or her weight? It means, wait for it, that you should eat until you are 80 percent full and then stop.

Sound too simple? How often do we eat until we are 100 percent full – and then keep going? The idea behind the rule is that you should stop at eighty percent because eighty percent is enough. You don’t need to be totally full.

A lot of good diet advice echoes this old maxim. I remember chatting with a medical doctor once and he told me that many people eat too quickly. They “inhale” their food, never giving the body time to realize it is full. Often, it takes a few minutes after eating to feel satiated (that is, satisfied).

Unfortunately, most people just keep eating and, by the time their stomach tells their brain that they have had enough, they are “stuffed”, sometimes in pain from overeating. This leads to indigestion, upset stomach, and many unwanted extra calories.

The advice the doctor gave me was to eat until you start feeling full, and stop there. Wait five minutes before making a decision to keep eating. Bob Greene, Oprah Winfrey’s personal trainer, also gives similar advice in one of his diet books. He tells readers not to eat until they are “totally full”, but to stop when they are “almost full”.

You Can Always Have More Later

The 80% percent rule is a good idea because it counteracts a dangerous belief that many of us have: that we must clean our plates. That idea was a good one years ago to get little kids to finish their broccoli, but nowadays it’s detrimental when restaurants give us huge portions – sometimes enough for two or even three people!

Another great thing about this Okinawan rule is that it cuts down on greed. I’m not pointing fingers either. I certainly love a big meal that leaves me feeling totally full. But sitting down at the table with the idea that you are only going to eat “80% of what will fill you up” really changes the tone of a meal. Instead of “Dig in!”, it’s “Let’s enjoy every bite because we are not here to fill up for two weeks worth!!”

Remember, if the 80% doesn’t fill you up, you can always have more later. But you can never take back the calories once you’ve overeaten. To your surprise, you’ll probably find that you are “totally full” after all – once the food has had a chance to reach your stomach. Most people are still eating when the initial food reaches their stomach, and that is why they always feel like their blue jeans are about to pop open!

Additional Diet Secrets

I’m convinced that we were not meant to feel “full” all the time. This may come as news to people who haven’t actually been hungry in years. In between meals, you should feel a little hungry sometimes (not starving, but a little hungry). This is perfectly OK; in fact, it means you are burning calories rather than storing them.

The feeling you are going for is “satisfied”. That is why the 80% rule is so powerful. You want to leave the table feeling good. After dinner, you can even go dancing or something – rather than straight home to take stomach medicine.

Knowing that you’re not going to have a meal “All You Can Eat” style will make a few other things happen. You will start to enjoy your food more and eat more slowly. Scientists tell us that chewing, or mastication, actually contributes to our feeling full and satisfied. (One of the most popular parts of a traditional Japanese meal is rice, which requires a lot of chewing.)

People who just scarf down their food never feel full, because they don’t take advantage of their body’s natural mechanisms like chewing. Chewing is also important to break food into smaller pieces, decreasing the amount of work that your stomach has to do.

So try it for a week. Eat only until you’re eighty percent full. Enjoy your food more, eat slower, and chew more. Add an evening walk to your daily routine. You’ll feel better; less bloated with more energy. Just don’t blame me when you have to shell out extra cash for a new (smaller) wardrobe!

For much of my life, I was needlessly intimidated by jazz music. A lot of people who come from a pop music background are. I mean, I liked jazz music a lot, thought it sounded great, but I never understood it.

Whenever I would see a live jazz band playing in the park, it was easy to enjoy the groove and notice the proficiency of the musicians. But what kind of structure were they using? It certainly wasn’t the “verse-chorus-verse” structure of pop tunes like “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” and “Be My Baby”, or even the Tin Pan Alley structure of early pop and show tunes like “Come Fly With Me” and “’Til There Was You”.

Sometimes I heard songs that I recognized played by jazz bands, songs like “Night and Day”, “Stella By Starlight”, “Georgia On My Mind”, or “Midnight At The Oasis”. I could relate to the great melodies, but was amazed at the way the players would totally deconstruct these songs and create new interpretations on the spot. How the heck did they do that? I finally decided that I would try to solve the mystery of jazz music.

Traditional Structure of Jazz Music

You don’t have to know how jazz music works to enjoy it, but it certainly makes things a lot more fun. The explanation I will offer here is probably not technical enough for some jazz lovers; that’s OK, I am writing this for newbies as a stepping stone to get further into jazz.

OK, down to brass tacks: The most important part of a jazz song is the beginning. A jazz song is like a newspaper story; the band gives you all the important information in the “first paragraph”, and then expands on the information and reveals more details if you decide to “keep reading”.

A traditional jazz song opens with the whole band playing the melody first. Sometimes this is called the “theme”. If a band does a cover of “Georgia On My Mind”, for example, they would start by playing the main melody (the part of the song that the singer would usually sing) together. If you are seeing a live jazz band, listen for the beginning to hear the theme – during the rest of the performance, the musicians will be expanding and improvising around that theme. Also, some jazz songs feature a short introductory riff played just before the main theme.

Improvisation: What Makes Jazz So Cool

After the main melody is finished, here comes the fun part. The rest of the song features each of the individual players improvising around the theme. This involves playing their own original melodies, usually created live as you hear them, around the notes and chords in the melody. This is where jazz musicians really have a chance to shine and show their chops. This is why no two jazz performances are ever totally the same.

For example, after the beginning of the song is concluded, the guitarist might play a solo. He will take some of the elements of the song’s melody and rearrange them in his own way. This takes a lot of skill and is really fun to watch. Next, the saxophone player might do the same thing. Then, the organ player, the bass player, and sometimes even the drummer will take a solo.

While each member of the band is soloing and improvising, the other members of the jazz band will continue playing, but will be more in the background. Mostly they are playing chords, rhythms, fills, etc. This is called “comping”, short for accompanying. It may seem like they are not doing as much as the soloist, but their contributions are very important to hold the structure of the song together. It takes a lot of skill to stay in the background, not drawing attention to themselves, while still being creative and adding little flourishes that make the song more interesting.

If a member of the band plays a really good solo, the audience will often clap after their part in the song. One of the fun parts of jazz is hearing each player’s interpretation of the melody, as well as how the individual instruments sound both alone and together. A typical jazz band usually consists of guitar; piano, organ, or keyboard; bass guitar; drums; and brass (saxophone, trumpet, trombone, etc.), but may have almost any instrument you could imagine (marimbas, jazz banjo, flute, clarinet, etc.)

Now For The Big Finish

At the end of the song, when all the players have shown their stuff, the band will usually return to the main theme and play it again, often exactly as they did at the beginning of the song. It’s always fun to hear the original melody repeated after they have played it in many different ways. The band might also repeat the introductory riff. When you hear the main melody again, you know that the song has come to an end. At this point, you can applaud loudly and know that you have not only enjoyed a jazz song but also understood its structure.

Jazz is not just limited to the traditional structure, of course. There are many variations. A lot of “vocal jazz” or “jazz pop” has a structure similar to a regular pop song, but uses more complex jazz chords, jazz-style melodies, or jazz chord voicings. Jazz pop is even easier to understand than the traditional jazz structure, so it is a natural entryway into jazz for a lot of people. One of the first jazz pop bands I really liked was Steely Dan, who practically invented the genre. Other kinds of jazz may have different structures or no structure at all (and these can be fun too, once you get over your initial fear of jazz!), but most jazz will follow the structure I have described above.

With A Twist of Lime

Jazz originated in New Orleans at around the start of the 20^th century. It was originally a musical form played by and enjoyed by regular people, mostly blues musicians inspired by African musical traditions. It’s funny that so many people are intimidated by jazz today and think it’s so complicated. It is complicated to play and requires talent, but it’s fun, fun, fun to listen to and easy to appreciate.

Now that you understand the basic structure, go enjoy some jazz music! Be sure to get a table in the front row of the jazz club, where you can really hear the band. Order a Cuba Libre to sip while you’re enjoying the music – and I recommend ordering one with Malibu rum since you’re cool.

The first year that I lived in Asia, I decided to keep a diary to document my experiences and also to keep in touch with my friends back home. I did this in the form of an online blog. I had never kept a serious diary before and was amazed at how much I learned about myself – and even the nature of time – from my diary!

You do more than you think

How often have you said, looking at another year gone by, “Time flies” or “I never get anything accomplished”? The truth is that you do more than you realize. The problem is that human memory is fallible and you forget most of it.

Don’t believe me? Try just keeping a list of all the small errands you run in a week, the meals you prepare, etc. You will be amazed. Now, consider keeping a diary for a few months of all the places you go, small achievements you have at your job, or people you visit. It will make you tired just reading it!

It reminds me of dreams. The average person can have sometimes eight dreams a night, but if you ask most people they say, “I never dream at all.” The truth is that people just forget their dreams.

At the end of December, I was taking down a wall calendar in my house and putting up the calendar for the next year. My wife saw me and commented, “This year went by fast.” But the reason it had appeared to go so quickly – for me – was that I had taken a new job, traveled to five different countries, and even written a book. (Not to mention I drank about one million cups of coffee!) One reason we think that the years fly by is because we don’t remember all the important stuff we did.

You never know what’s going to happen

A diary is the suspense novel of your life, because you never know what’s going to happen next. During the year that I kept my diary, I actually met my wife. Can you imagine how cool it is now that I actually wrote a description of the first time I met her and our first date? How many people can honestly say they have a firsthand account – their own account – of the most important moments of their life?

Wouldn’t it be great to look back and relive your successes and the great moments of your life? It’s especially useful since, if you’re like me, it is unfortunately much easier to recall your failures and missteps than it is your triumphs.

So much is made about having a “positive attitude” (as if that is the solution to every problem on Earth!), but keeping a diary is having a positive attitude in action, because it automatically assumes that something meaningful is going to happen to you – that your life’s next big surprise or defining moment is just around the corner. A diary offers a secret insight: maybe it will be actually found in a quiet moment rather than one of the expectation-filled big rites of passage.

It doesn’t matter what form the diary takes

Call it a diary, or a journal, or a blog. Write it longhand in a nice little book with a padlock or put it on the web for all your friends to see. The form doesn’t matter.

Many people shy away from keeping a diary, because they think it will take too much time. In truth, a diary can be as short or long as you want. Have you ever kept a “laundry list”-type diary of a vacation, where you wrote down on a notepad all the places you visited, so you could report about your trip when you got home? A diary can be just that simple. Keep a list of important things you did on a given day, include a few comments about how you felt, etc.

If you really want to emote, you can write about a day’s events in extended narrative form. This is actually what I did in my “blog diary”. The reason I did it was because I was writing for a small audience. Even though it was a bit cheesy at the time, it caused me to include a lot of interesting details that the laundry list approach wouldn’t have.

I would recommend leaving out really boring details, such as what you had for breakfast, unless said details have some real consequence for your life. For example, one time I went on a diet, kept a diary of everything I ate for every meal, and lost a ton of weight. Later, I could revisit this “diet diary” and make sure that my eating habits hadn’t slipped back into the “junk food buffet” category!

To reflect, we need to put things in perspective

A diary not only helps you remember, it actually lets you look back and see how seemingly mundane events actually changed you and sent your life in a new direction. Remember that new person you met, who later turned out to be a great friend? Wouldn’t it be neat to recall what your first impressions were?

How about that idea you had to visit Iceland in 1989 that later turned out to be the seeds of a new career overseas, opening a taco stand in Reykjavik? You would really be surprised how ideas grow. One thing I learned from my diary about the nature of time is that events are rarely meaningful when they happen. We give them meaning only later, when we can look back and put them in perspective with other events in our lives.

So there’s some great reasons to keep a diary. What’s stopping you? Try it for a week or month and see if it doesn’t change your life.

I have persuaded several friends to try it and they all agree that they get more out of their lives, because their “memories” are more accurate and even happy. I’ll even give you a first line to start: “Dear Diary…”

When they’re not listening to music, many people enjoy listening to podcasts on their MP3 players or iPods. Podcasts are great, but have you ever tried listening to old time radio dramas?

Before televisions were in every home, families would sit around listening to shows on the radio. There were thousands produced from 1920-1960, which is considered the Golden Age of Radio. Many of these shows were recorded and are now available in MP3 format.

I started listening to old time radio dramas last year, and they have been a blast. I find that they are the perfect length for my bus ride to work (usually under 30 minutes an episode) and engage my imagination much more than watching something with a visual – some of the sound effects are quite amazing. Here is a list of my favorite radio dramas, followed by links to where you can find OTR shows online:

1. “Box 13″ – This detective drama stars Alan Ladd as writer Dan Holiday. He runs a column in the newspaper that reads, “Adventure wanted – will go anywhere, do anything – Box 13″. Each episode features him investigating a letter he receives in Box 13.

2. “Gunsmoke” – A classic western show considered by many to be the greatestradio drama of all time. It takes place in Dodge City in the 1880’s and features characters you probably already know, Chester, Doc, Kitty and Matt Dillon, US Marshal. I honestly think this program is better than half of the shows on regular television today.

3. “Barry Craig, Confidential Investigator” – Another great “Whodunit?” type detective show featuring William Gargan as Barrie Craig, a Madison Avenue private detective with great one liners that remind me of a Raymond Chandler novel. Many episodes have great surprise endings!

4. “Six Shooter” –  Starring Jimmy Stewart, this western ran only from 1953 - 1954. It’s still one of my favorites, and Stewart’s acting is top notch.

5. “X Minus One” – Great science fiction series that featured stories by such authors of Isaac Asimov and Ray Bradbury.

Of course, there are many more shows work checking out – Variety shows, Comedies, Soap Operas, and even Quiz Shows. Why not add them to your playlist? The following links all have free shows you can download to get started:
Old Time Radio Catalog: http://www.otrcat.com/index.html
Old Time Radio Lovers: http://www.radiolovers.com/
OTR Network Library: http://www.otr.net/

If you’re like me, you love to surf the net. You sit down at your computer with one specific task in mind and then – three hours later – you realize that you still haven’t gotten it finished!

There’s just so much great information online that it’s easy to lose track of time following links and exploring. I heard just the other day that the average America processes more new information in one month than most Americans did in their entire lifetime 100 years ago. I have no idea if this statistic is true or not, but I’m sure that I could look it up in seconds!

All this information can be a two.sided coin. While it’s great for information junkies and autodidacts like you and I, it can also lead to a condition where you brain feels stuffed with too much information. Some are now calling this “information overload”. Here are some tips to help you surf more efficiently:

1. Choose A Specific Online Task You Want To Accomplish
If your goal is to research airline prices for your trip to Las Vegas next spring, don’t get lost reading travel pages. Name a specific goal before you even turn on your monitor. Also, estimate how long it will take you to finish that goal. For example: “I want to find out average airline prices for my spring trip. I estimate I can do this in 30 minutes.”

I find when I have a specific goal that my online time is better spent. Of course, this is only when you are in a rush and need to do something. If it’s Saturday and you have extra time, surf away and learn something new by accident!

2. Formality Is Unnecessary In Most Email
Until very recently, I still sent email to my friends that began like this: “Dear Matt,”. That kind of formality in writing has definitely become an anachronism that went out when “snail mail” did. Of course, there may be some formal emails you need to write for business, but for friends, family, and people you mail frequently a header and even are signature line are often unnecessary.

In fact, most people appreciate short, non-rambling emails these days that don’t force them to go on a wild goose chase, scanning formidable blocks of text to find out what the point of the message was. I once thought writing a reply of just a few sentences was rude. Lately, I think it may be more polite. Some people regularly read and manage 100.200 emails a day – and that’s just at the office!

Another trick that is getting popular is to use a “NRN” tag in the subject line – that stands for “No Reply Needed” – so the receiver doesn’t have to waste time writing back “Thanks” or “That’s great” or “OK, see you Thursday night”.

3. Make A Handwritten List Of Things You Want To Google
For all those things you just want to look up in Google or Wikipedia, but which really have no direct effect on your life at the moment (“What is the official currency of Macau?”), consider keeping a notecard in your pocket. Write down ideas you get for things to research while you are standing in line at the post office or driving to the carwash. Then, when you have time to surf freely, look them up.

If you don’t have extra time, but still are dying to get your daily fill of esoteric information, pick the top two off your list, look them up, and then save the rest for next time.

All joking aside, having things you want to look up is not a bad habit at all; it’s a great way to learn. I  regularly write down new vocabulary I don’t know when I am reading a book on the train – I include the page number of the book on my notecard. Later, when I have time, I go to an online dictionary and look up the word.

4. Have A Second Email Address For Unimportant Stuff
Give this one to people you don’t want to hear from but who ask you for your email address – stores, people who might subscribe you to lists without permission, etc. Give your “real” email address only to friends, family, and other people whose email you never want to miss.

When you are busy and sit down to check your email, skip the garbage account until you have time. Check the real account for important messages. To avoid spam almost completely, never post your personal email address online and tell your contacts not to either.

A lot of the spam you get comes from robots that “grab” your email address when you post in classifieds or discussion groups. Other spam comes when you give your email address to marketers or online stores. Save all that for when you have time to sort through the “garbage” account. Give the real address to the hot girl you met in the grocery store check.out line last week.

5. Take A Day Off Once A Week
Have you taken a vacation recently where you had no internet access? Even if it’s just a day trip, it really clears your head and puts things in perspective. You log back in after the trip and realize you really haven’t missed so much. Most of the tasks you wanted to do waited just nicely. Meanwhile, you got a break and had time to enjoy some nice trees and fresh air.

Scientists now say that one of the functions of sleep is to help our brains integrate information. In that sense, sleep is actually a form of learning. So catch up on your sleep and give your poor brain time to make sense of all the information that’s recently flown across your screen. Spend some time with your family, ride your bicycle or go to the park. Consider turning your computer off one day a week; no email, no web; no nothing.

Sound totally impossible? Maybe that’s all the more reason to do it. As much as I love the information revolution (honestly, I don’t think I would have wanted to live during any other period of human history), the internet is truly “the thief of time”. It’s like that famous potato chip ad: you eat one and you can’t stop.

When I was young I always loved libraries, so now I’m like a kid in a candy store with all the online libraries. But seriously, everybody needs a break sometimes, so take one, OK?