Your time is the most valuable commodity that you have. Don’t give it away.

Written by Everett Bogue

In the modern age we’ve managed to find hundreds of thousands of ways to use as much time as possible.

We’ve come to a point where people cannot slow down. When they do, it is uncomfortable for them to sit still.

It’s impossible for some people to dwell in the present moment, without fiddling with a distraction.

We think we need to be constantly connected. We think we need to answer every email as soon as it arrives or society will leave us behind.

We think we need to madly dash from the subway, to the coffee shop (red-eye please), to the office every single day, or someone will think we’re not valuable enough.

None of this is true. In fact, it’s becoming readily apparently that the people who decide to opt out of this system of constant stimulation are far more effective people than the ones who are constantly plugged into the matrix.

Right now, in this moment, we need to reclaim our time.

Some of the most effective people I know, such as Leo Babauta and Tim Ferriss, have realized that being constantly connected is counter productive. They’ve both written in great length in their books The Power of Less, and The 4 Hour Workweek [aff links], about how blockading your time can generate far more intrinsic worth than by not.

The reason for this is simple: if you’re constantly connected, you’re also constantly reacting. Every single request that comes in needs to be answered immediately. This means you’re dividing your time between the important projects you’re working on, and little stupid things that come in.

For instance, I may get two @evbogue requests on Twitter in the time I take to write this. They will be simple questions, or requests to promote things. If I answered all of these requests immediately, wouldn’t have written these last couple of paragraphs.

Alternatively, if I wait until an hour from now, my work on this story will be done. I’ll be able to answer 5 @evbogue tweets and any emails all at once.

Constantly flailing from one activity to the next is only making our lives less valuable.

Time is probably the most valuable asset that we have left in this world, and it is rightfully yours.

This is the moment to take a stand, regain our valuable time for yourself.

How to firewall your time: 14 ways to save your valuable time, so you can use it appropriately.

1, Set dedicated work hours. Many people let there work hours extend into every odd hour of the day. Freelance web workers, like myself can fall into this trap even easier than someone who works at an office. There’s always something else to do, and never enough time to do it all. Set specific times when you will work on work, and stick with them. For instance: today I’m working from 1pm-5pm. After that time, I’m going to go enjoy the lovely weather and read Seth Godin’s new book, Linchpin.

2, Pretend you’re not here. Lock the door, don’t let anyone in. Hide under the desk. This is easier if you work from anywhere, or have your own office, but there are many ways to pretend you’re not here. Be creative!

3, Answer emails decisively. I write about this often. Don’t sit at your computer hitting the send/receive button over and over and over again. Work is not about how many emails you can reply to, it never has been. Work is about thinking about unique solutions to problems, unless you’re a widget maker, which many of us aren’t anymore because all of those jobs are in China now. You need dedicated time to work on solutions, you can’t do this if you’re constantly waiting for a new email to come in your box.

4, Make dedicated Twitter time. Just like email, stop hitting the update button on Twitter. Trust me, it does no one any good if you stay constantly up to date on the 50 140 character messages that flew into your box in the last 30 seconds. Actually, while I’m on this topic, don’t follow 50,345 people on Twitter. I can’t take people who do this seriously. There is no possible way they will ever see my Twitter messages if they’re following that many people. Follow 150 people max. Dunbar’s law applies to Twitter too. Follow people who interest you, unfollow people who don’t interest you. It’s that simple.

(If you want someone to follow you on Twitter, try retweeting a few of their stories. That’s usually the best way to get them interested in your own personal work. There are many ‘bots’ on Twitter, and it’s hard to tell who to follow sometimes.)

5, Refuse to put out fires. I wrote about this last week two. There will always be non-urgent work emergencies, but you aren’t the fire department. These fires usually drop onto your desk at 4:49pm, and can take hours to deal with. Most of the time these emergencies could have been dealt with before they became emergencies if someone had just got in touch before they spiraled out of control. Make it clear you don’t deal with these. When ‘emergencies’ come, unless they’re actual life or death situations (these don’t happen often, but recognize when they do.) Handle them just like an other work request. Don’t panic, just do the work. If it’s 5pm and you’re going home, it can wait until tomorrow.

6, Make yourself unavailable. Some people make themselves always available at the office, or online. This is a trap, because people expect that you will be available at all times if you usually are. A better approach is to avoid broadcasting when you’re online and when you’re not. This might mean keeping your office door shut, or always keep headphones on if you work in an open office. It might mean finding more time to work from home, so you can get important projects done.

7, Always take a day to respond to everything. Make people assume it will take a day or two for you to get back with a request. You can always give a better response to a question or a problem if you have time to consider it. Make a commitment to not respond to requests for at least a day. Make your response incredibly valuable to your client, colleague, etc. This doesn’t mean that you should procrastinate, it’s just a way to consciously slow down the work cycle, so that everyone does better work.

8, Select two primary modes of communication. Make a choice as to which applications you’ll use to communicate with online. There are so many communications platforms available, and it’s incredibly important to select only two that you actually use. I use gmail and twitter. I do use Facebook, but it forwards everything I receive there to my gmail. I don’t check my Facebook, constantly, I don’t check my Wave constantly. Think about which communications platforms you use, and consider how to opt out of some. If you have three email addresses, (your Yahoo, your Gmail, your AOL) consider consolidating them into one email. Most of these services will forward, but if they don’t set up an auto-reply that informs people who email you that you no longer check this email and they should email you a the correct address.

9, Don’t use instant message. Always-on instant messaging is the ultimate enemy of firewalling your time. People expect an instant response to an instant message, and will usually become frustrated if you leave your instant messaging on but do not reply. Just don’t use AIM, Facebook chat, Gchat, etc. If you need to communicate with someone in real time, consider using one of these services on Invisible mode, and contact the person you’re working with.

10, Let the phone go to voicemail. When the phone rings, 9 out of 10 times you have no idea what the person on the other end wants from you. It’s good policy to let the message go to voicemail, and listen to the message. Let it compost in your brain for a bit and then give them a call back. This will give you time to consider a proper response to the problem, and not act in a reactionary manner. Respond once you’ve finished whatever you’re working on. Again, I’m not advocating procrastination, just having the ability to respond decisively.

11, Hire an assistant (or an Intern). In this economy, it’s pretty easy to find someone who can be your first line of defense. Timothy Ferris has an entire chapter in his book about outsourcing all of your boring tasks to India, maybe this can work for you. I don’t personally have anyone working for me, but I also have a very manageable workload. If you find yourself either doing a lot of remedial tasks that don’t challenge you, it can a good idea to hire someone to do them for you. Obviously, this only works if these tasks produce more value for your business than the assistant costs. If they don’t, consider whether it is necessary for you to complete them at all.

12, Take a timeout. Go for a walk in the park. Take an hour lunch break. There are a million ways you can disconnect, and I feel strongly that you should do this more than you are now. Leave your cellphone at home. Take a moment and think about your favorite way to take a break, and then find a way to implement it.

13, Take your work out of the office. If you can’t get any work done in the office, consider doing it at a coffeeshop or at home. This obviously depends a lot on the type of work that you do, and the freedom that you have to do it. I often find that a change of location can increase my productivity.

14, Only read information that contributes value. Unsubscribe from everything that is boring or you don’t have time to read. Many people subscribe to entirely too many blogs and other methods of incoming communication. Information is so accessible in this day in age, I promise you that you won’t run out. Consider each and every blog feed that you’re subscribed to, does it contribute value to your life? If you’re just reading it because you always have, maybe consider unsubscribing to these blogs. I used to check the front page of the New York Times constantly, just out of habit. I eventually realized that this wasn’t helping me. The news would still be there tomorrow, you don’t have to constantly stay up to date. Which blogs are you subscribed out of obligation instead of usefulness?

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Do you find these methods to firewall your time helpful?  How do you firewall your time?Similar Posts:

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“Purity and simplicity are the two wings with which man soars above the earth and all temporary nature.” – Thomas Kempis

simplicity brings balance, freedom, and joy. when we begin to live simply and experience these benefits, we begin to ask the next question, “where else in my life can i remove distraction and simply focus on the essential?”

based on various minimalism guru personal journey, conversations, and observations, here is a list of the 10 most important things to simplify in your life today to begin living a more balanced, joyful lifestyle:

1. your possessions - too many material possessions complicate our lives to a greater degree than we ever give them credit. they drain our bank account, our energy, and our attention. they keep us from the ones we love and from living a life based on our values. if you will invest the time to remove nonessential possessions from your life, you will never regret it.
2. your time commitments – most of us have filled our days full from beginning to end with time commitments: work, home, kid’s activities, community events, religious endeavors, hobbies… the list goes on. when possible, release yourself from the time commitments that are not in line with your greatest values.
3. your goals – reduce the number of goals you are intentionally striving for in your life to one or two. by reducing the number of goals that you are striving to accomplish, you will improve your focus and your success rate. make a list of the things that you want to accomplish in your life and choose the two most important. when you finish one, add another from your list.
4. your negative thoughts – most negative emotions are completely useless. resentment, bitterness, hate, and jealousy have never improved the quality of life for a single human being. take responsibility for your mind. forgive past hurts and replace negative thoughts with positive ones.
5. your debt – if debt is holding you captive, reduce it. start today. do what you’ve got to do to get out from under its weight. find the help that you need. sacrifice luxury today to enjoy freedom tomorrow.
6. your words – use less words. keep your speech plain and honest. mean what you say. avoid gossip.
7. your artificial ingredients – avoid trans fats, refined grain (white bread), high-fructose corn syrup, and too much sodium. minimizing these ingredients will improve your energy level in the short-term and your health in the long-term. also, as much as possible, reduce your consumption of over-the-counter medicine – allow your body to heal itself naturally as opposed to building a dependency on substances.
8. your screen time – focusing your attention on television, movies, video games, and technology affects your life more than you think. media rearranges your values. it begins to dominate your life. and it has a profound impact on your attitude and outlook. unfortunately, when you live in that world on a consistent basis, you don’t even notice how it is impacting you. the only way to fully appreciate its influence in your life is to turn them off.
9. your connections to the world - relationships with others are good, but constant streams of distraction are bad. learn when to power off the blackberry, log off facebook, or not read a text. focus on the important, not the urgent. a steady flow of distractions from other people may make us feel important, needed, or wanted, but feeling important and accomplishing importance are completely different things.
10. your multi-tasking - research indicates that multi-tasking increases stress and lowers productivity. while single-tasking is becoming a lost art, learn it. handle one task at a time. do it well. and when it is complete, move to the next.

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there are countless articles written on the steps to a minimalist lifestyle and the below is one of them:

8 “outside of the box” simplicity living tips that you haven’t read anywhere else:

• buy things for their usefulness rather than their status. stop trying to impress others with your stuff and start trying to impress them with your life.
• reject anything that is producing an addiction in you. refuse to be a slave to anything: coffee, cigarettes, soda, television, chocolate, alcohol…
• develop a habit of giving things away. most of us could get rid of half of our possessions without any serious sacrifice.
• refuse to be propagandized by modern gadgetry. technology doesn’t always make your life simpler. as a matter of fact, most of the time it just makes your life more cluttered.
• learn to enjoy things without owning them. ownership is nothing, access is everything.
• develop a deeper appreciation for nature.
• reject anything that breeds the oppression of others. bananas, coffee, etc.
• never underestimate the freedom of plain, honest speech. a lack of simplicity in one area, such as speech, can undermine simplicity in every area.

I definitely need some time to practice it.

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This weekend, take a moment to turn something off.

Written by Everett Bogue

In the modern age we think we have to constantly rush from this to that. We think we have to wake up and work every morning. We think we have to constantly respond to e-mails.

I’ve had so many interview requests to respond to about The Art of Being Minimalist, it’s humbling to know that so many people care, but overwhelming. I love doing interviews, and it’s exciting to have so much interest. But I’m tired!

I imagine your work week could have been equally as exciting and busy as mine was this last week.

That’s why I’m going to take some serious disconnect time this weekend. I’m going to pull the plug, so to speak.

I hope that you’ll join me.

Here’s a couple of great ways to disconnect:

1, Take a social network hiatus.
Don’t Tweet, Facebook, or engage with people on any social networking platform that you may use. It’s really fun to Tweet and hear all of the amazing people respond. Do you really want to spend all Sunday morning glued to Tweetdeck though? Cook someone a good breakfast instead!

2, Ignore all calls.

Don’t answer the phone at all this weekend. It doesn’t matter if it’s your mom or your boss calling, just choose not to pick up the telephone. In fact, turn it off. Go to the beach instead, if you live somewhere that’s not as cold as it is here in New York. Otherwise, maybe just grab a coffee and watch people walk by.

3, Don’t check your email.

Just let it sit there, trust me, it will be there come Monday morning. Too often we spend hours of our lives hitting the refresh button on e-mail. Take the exact opposite approach and don’t check it at all.

4, Spend a day in silence.

Just go about your day without speaking to anyone. Observe your thoughts. Read a book. Be sure to let anyone who might be offended know what you’re doing, so they don’t get mad.

5, Refuse to buy anything.

Take a break from consumerism and don’t go shopping or eat out for one day. Make sure you have enough food to prepare before you start this. Leave your credit cards and cash at home if you go out.

6, Don’t use any electricity.

Unplug all of the appliances and lights in your house (don’t do this to the fridge, your food will spoil.) Pretend you’re no-impact man for a day, and see how it is. You’ll notice that you won’t have any light after a certain hour, so either light a candle or sit in silence until it’s time for bed.

7, Don’t use transportation.

Don’t take the subway, don’t drive your car, don’t even bike. Just walk if you need to go anywhere. I love walking into Manhattan on weekends to take Yoga. It makes me appreciate my surroundings so much more. A two hour walk somewere can be very meditative.

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An NYC chef is getting a lot of attention these days for serving a rare, artisanal cheese made from his wife’s breast milk. The restaurateur, Daniel Angerer of Chelsea’s Klee Brasserie (a former Iron Chef competitor), decided to put the stuff on the menu, after several customers learned about it through the restaurant’s blog and asked to try it.

The breast-milk cheese — which is paired with Hungarian figs and goes well with Riesling — is the hit of the menu these days, even if it has attracted its fair share of raised eyebrows. Says Angerer’s wife: “I think a lot of the criticism has to do with the combination of sex and cheese, but . . . the breast is there to make food.”

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There are a million things you can do right now instead of doing something important. How do you choose?

Written by Everett Bogue

We are faced with unlimited choices in modern society.

There are millions of paths we can go down. One of the biggest questions inevitably is: which path do I choose?

Choose the one that is most important.

The most successful people I know aren’t on Twitter for two hours a day, they don’t watch TV three hours a day, and they certainly don’t own a Wii.

If you know what your important priority is, good. I applaud you.

If you don’t, your first priority needs to be figuring out what your priority is. Go on a vision quest. Lock yourself in a room. Read books. Anything until you have some idea, because until you’ve figured that out, it’s really hard to find an excuse to turn Lost off and do something worth your time.

What is important to me.

I have a little important project that I want to share with you: I’ve been working on a e-book on being minimalist.

Around a month ago I realized that I was writing too much material for this site, I had to publish it somewhere more important to me. An e-book seemed like a good choice. I hope you’ll agree.

I’ve never been a published author before, so I’ve been a bit nervous about how this e-book would turn out. So far I’ve been very surprised though. The words are just flowing out of me.

The e-book basically covers the minimalist journey that I’ve undertaken over the last year. It explains in detail the experiences I had ridding myself of my possessions, quitting my day job, and beginning to live and work from anywhere.

I hope this e-book will help a few more people take this rewarding journey.

Well, that’s all for now. I’ll be sure to give you updates as the e-book progresses.

Obviously working on an e-book is hard. I’ve spent countless hours (probably in the hundreds) writing, designing, copyediting the final text. I want it to be perfect.

The constant threat of distraction.

Seth Godin writes in his new book, Linchpin, (aff link) which comes out Wednesday, the following:

“By forcing myself to do absolutely no busywork tasks between bouts with the work, I remove the best excuse the resistence has. I can’t avoid the work because I am not distracting myself with anything but the work.”

I’ve been thinking a lot about this paragraph as I spend the hours making my e-book happen.

Many people would find something else to do, but I choose not too. I choose to make something important, a text that I hope will help people.

I could have watched TV, gone shopping, or had another cup of coffee. I could have complained about how hard it was to come up with ideas, or asked a dozen people to give their opinions on whether I’d fail or not. But I didn’t.

None of these things would have helped make this e-book a reality.

Here are a few techniques I’ve put into play to avoid distracting myself from the work.

1. Incentives. Finish X before you’re allowed to have another coffee. When the going gets tough, I like give myself a little somehing that I’ll get once I’ve spent two hours working. Like I can’t have another coffee until I finish this blog post.
2. Sitting in silence. Force yourself to sit in silence until your work is done. This is very difficult for many modern people, who are constantly updating the Twitter and digesting information. Don’t let yourself fiddle with a random thing until an idea comes to you, because it won’t come if you fiddle. Sit in silence until the idea comes, you’ll find that they come far more frequently.
3. Continuing to do the work. When no ideas are coming, It’s important to keep on creating. There’s a common myth that creativity comes in waves, and you just have to catch the next one when it comes. Creativity doesn’t work like that though, so most people sit staring out a window waiting for the daemon to strike. It doesn’t just strike, you have to work for it. Sit and work for 30 minutes, and eventually your work will transition from crap to magic over that time.
4. Take yourself away from distractions. If you’re having a hard time concentrating, consider moving away from distractions. I’ve been doing this by going to a coffee shop in Brooklyn, but there are endless other ways. Sit out in the back yard. Go work on a mountain top. Disconnect your Internet.
5. Make everything else done first. I have two things that need to be done before I start working, the dishes and my email. I clean all of my dishes, and answer all of my email before I work. This is harder if you have a bottomless to-do list. I’ve programmed my life to have very few things that I’m required to do every day, so this works for me..
6. Don’t allow multitasking. Don’t allow yourself to flip between Twitter and Facebook and chatting with your friend while you’re working. When you are creating something great, there is no way that randomly tweeting during the process will help make it better. Dividing your attention is project suicide.
7. Recognizing the importance. I honestly can’t work on projects that don’t care about anymore. I’d rather starve than make another widget. The promise that I’m creating a work that is important in this moment in time has really kept me going. Are you working on what something that you feel is important?
8. Deadlines. I’ve set the expectation that this my project must be done by the end of next week. I could have given myself an open deadline, but I feel like I’d then spend endless hours aiming for perfect. There is no perfect, there will be flaws, there will be things I wish I had said differently. The most important thing is to ship this project: 1, so it can start making good in the world; 2, so I can start on my next project.
9. Off time. I don’t let myself do any work between 5pm and 10am. I know that sounds rediculous, but I’m convinced that workdays are too long, and we spend a good portion of them wasting time by procrastination and pointless busywork. I limit my work day, so I feel that I can barely get the goals I’ve set out to do. I finish the work without distraction, and then I stop. I read a book, I spend time with my girlfriend, I go for a walk, I cook dinner. The next day I can work again. The one exception is that I let myself write material at any hour of the day. Ideas come to me, I can have them finished and into Evernote in 15 minutes.

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Here’s one more thing that occurred to me recently, I thought I’d share:

We’ve been taught over and over again that great work comes from thinking incredibly hard for a lot of hours. This doesn’t make sense to me.

I don’t think great work comes by thinking really hard about things that are hard to think about.

To be honest, this upcoming e-book is based on my experiences. The techniques that I’ve learned and employed. They are natural to me, because I’ve mastered them. If I was writing a book about something I didn’t know about, it would be difficult and I’d have to think really hard. I would make my brain hurt. But I know this stuff, so it comes naturally.

Great work doesn’t come from overworking the picture box in your pre-frontal cortex. It should just flow out of you without prior contemplation. It just comes out of you onto the page.

Important work should come naturally.

I have a guest post coming up on Zen Habits, in a few weeks (not sure exactly, Leo has a long guest post cue because of his site’s popularity) which deals more with creative flow. It’s quite a privilege to have a post up on Leo’s blog, I can’t wait until it posts. I hope you’ll subscribe to Zen Habits, if you haven’t already, so you don’t miss my post.

Anyway, it’s really important to remove anything that will stop you from achieving flow with the creation of your project. Distractions kill great work.

How do you remove distractions? What great work are you creating?

If this was helpful for you, please help spread the word in any way that you can. The buttons below are two good options.

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