I just had possibly my most productive week ever and I wasn’t even facing a deadline. In fact, I could have spent half of every day at the office reading the internet and nobody would have known or cared.
Instead, I found myself going from one useful endeavor to the next with virtually no down time.
It was Easy
The idea came thanks to reading the transcript of an interview with Ryan Holiday. In the interview he shared a conversation that he once had with bestselling author Robert Greene. Holiday was telling Greene how he was planning to write a book… someday.
For Holiday, Greene’s response was awesome and life changing. Greene told him, “Ryan while people wait for the right moment, there are two types of time: Dead time—where they are passive and biding and Alive time—where they are learning and acting and leveraging every second towards their intended future. Which will this be for you?”
Those words struck deep. I’m not a lazy guy but I have a list of dreams still to become reality and personal projects screaming for attention. I’m not a particularly lazy person. I have a lot of alive time in my life. And, yes, there is plenty of dead time that I could hack out of my days.
A Reminder
Instead, I found myself going from one useful endeavor to the next with virtually no down time.
It was Easy
The idea came thanks to reading the transcript of an interview with Ryan Holiday. In the interview he shared a conversation that he once had with bestselling author Robert Greene. Holiday was telling Greene how he was planning to write a book… someday.
For Holiday, Greene’s response was awesome and life changing. Greene told him, “Ryan while people wait for the right moment, there are two types of time: Dead time—where they are passive and biding and Alive time—where they are learning and acting and leveraging every second towards their intended future. Which will this be for you?”
Those words struck deep. I’m not a lazy guy but I have a list of dreams still to become reality and personal projects screaming for attention. I’m not a particularly lazy person. I have a lot of alive time in my life. And, yes, there is plenty of dead time that I could hack out of my days.
A Reminder
The picture above is now my computer’s desktop image.
Every time I notice myself off task, idling, or outright wasting time, I close all of the open windows on my computer.
Next comes decision time. Standing between me and my next action is the choice, “Alive Time or Dead Time.” I have to chose. I must “make the call.”
My productivity has soared. Not only am I getting the work for my day job finished in record time, I am finding the time and energy to work on side projects. This blog came out of choosing alive time over dead time.
Take it, Use it
When you need a reminder to stay on task with your life, try this out. Feel free to use my screen saver. You can drag and drop it to your own computer and with a few clicks it can be your constant reminder. It just might make all of the difference in the world.
It has for Ryan Holiday, since Robert Greene uttered those words , Holiday has written four bestselling books.
Alive time or dead time, you make the call.
Every time I notice myself off task, idling, or outright wasting time, I close all of the open windows on my computer.
Next comes decision time. Standing between me and my next action is the choice, “Alive Time or Dead Time.” I have to chose. I must “make the call.”
My productivity has soared. Not only am I getting the work for my day job finished in record time, I am finding the time and energy to work on side projects. This blog came out of choosing alive time over dead time.
Take it, Use it
When you need a reminder to stay on task with your life, try this out. Feel free to use my screen saver. You can drag and drop it to your own computer and with a few clicks it can be your constant reminder. It just might make all of the difference in the world.
It has for Ryan Holiday, since Robert Greene uttered those words , Holiday has written four bestselling books.
Alive time or dead time, you make the call.
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