By Neal Hunter
The world is changing. People, on the other hand, find it hard to adapt. They are very unwilling to get out of their comfort zones. People love their habits. They feel cozy and safe in their routines. But many of your routines are pure waste of your time. Come on. Life's too short.
Getting lost while driving
Invest in a GPS system. It's cheap. And if you frequently drive to unfamiliar places, it will save you a ton of time and frustration. It will also tell you in advance about any road accidents or construction sites ahead.
Wasting your time in the car
Learn something next time you have to take that 3 hour drive up state. The radio is fine, but think about all the hours you can put towards learning a new language, listening to a new audiobook, or a favorite podcast.
Visiting blogs to check for updates
Google Reader. Or any other of the thousands of news readers. They check all the sites for you and show you the updated blogs. The readers are very easy to navigate and they save you a lot of time. And try the search option in Google Reader. It will instantly find that post you once read and couldn't remember where.
Burning back-up DVDs
Just get an external USB drive. Burning DVDs takes an unreasonable amount of time, and then half of them can't be read anyway. Backing up to a USB drive is easier and faster. And you can remove old, unneeded backups as well. Finally, you can copy all the contents of your computer to a single drive, so that when your laptop gets stolen, you can get back to work in minutes, since you have another copy of your entire work environment backed up in one place.
Spending your life in traffic
Talk to your boss. Show him that you could boost your productivity by working from home. Saves you time and lowers your stress levels significantly. More and more employers say OK to this because not only does it make the employees happier, but also saves office resources.
Commuting to college or university
These days you can take all your classes online. And they are of just as high quality as traditional face to face lectures. Plus they take advantage of all the multimedia technology available out there. And you still get one on one tutoring opportunities with the staff if you need them.
Losing your phonebook
It's the iPhone era. Your phone should be synchronizing with your computer and most likely with the cloud as well by now. When someone calls you, take the few seconds to save their name and number and let it sync next time you connect to your laptop.
Watching commercials
First of all, use TiVo to skip the commercials. Second of all, you should be downloading your favorite shows from iTunes or watching them online anyway and dump the TV black hole altogether.
Checking multiple inboxes
Get a free program to do that for you. Apple Mail, Mozilla Thunderbird, or Outlook (if you purchased the MS Office suite). They pull all the emails to your computer for you so that you don't need to log into five mailboxes every day.
Struggling with your laptop's power adaptor
Get a second one for your office. This way you don't need to disconnect it every time you pack your laptop and then untangle it in the office, dive under your desk, and bump your head on the way back.
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