Nip boredom in the bud!

So, today I finished all of my school work for the rest of the semester. No more tests, assignments, nothing. After tomorrow, I will have way more free time than I have had for a while now. I will still have my job, but with no classes and no homework, I realized that there is a major potential for ending up with too much time on my hands.

It is a fundamental principle of time management that you should decide what you need to accomplish in any given day so that even if you don't do anything else, you will feel like that day was a success. Since September, triathlon training has been that task. If I spend a couple hours running or swimming or breaking a previous personal best, I consider that day to be successful. And that motivates me to work on it, because I hate the feeling of laying down at night realizing that I did not do anything that day that I considered productive.

Surely, much more of my free time this summer will be spent training in the sunshine, for a change. But as nice as that will be, I know that between training and my part-time job, I will still have lots of time to fill. So I take an approach similar to what I do for new years resolutions, define specific tasks or projects with specific deadlines. Conveniently, these will likely stem from my new years resolutions this year. Besides racing in an Olympic distance triathlon, I wanted to start my own business this year, which I have felt too busy to work on with school taking up so much of my time. I also want to read more, I'd say a book a week if I was confident that I would follow-through, but unfortunately I am not. Therefore, I will try to get through 2 a month, and see where it goes from there. Time spent learning, in my opinion is time well spent.

Another project I have been involved with as of late is "remodeling" my parents BIG backyard. My brother-in-law and brothers have been working on it for several weeks now and are making great progress. This project will also take some time. Which I am fine with, that is another activity that makes my day productive.

My point today is simple: establish a list of a few specific things you want to accomplish, and focus on reaching those goals. If you cannot see how a specific activity contributes to your success, then don't do it until you have already done enough to make you feel good about your day. The more you follow this pattern, the less time you will spend doing the things that just take up time, and the better you will feel.

Note: It is just as helpful to identify your personal time wasters so as to avoid them, as it is to identify the activities that are worth your time. For me those things are TV, video games, and Facebook. I hardly ever watch TV, (it helps to not even have one) I've played video games probably... 3 or 4 times in the last year? And Facebook... Well, lets just say I'm working on that one.