I hear lots of people complaining about the time they waste reading corny quotes on Facebook or watching hopelessly stupid YouTube videos.
You don’t have to be a slave to those time-wasting habits.
If you harness your computing time well, it even becomes an extremely precious ally to strengthen your social network, your health and your organization skills.
Check these 10 means to improve your life with a computer, I’ve successfully used them for quite some time now and I hope they help you too:
Journal – We tend to forget the events occurring in our life, including what we learn. Stop that bleeding by writing a personal diary on your computer.
Record your progress, your discoveries, your feelings. Most diary apps allow you to also add pics and videos, helping you store pics intelligently in their original context.
Try to do it daily. In 10 years you’ll be able to track how much you improved, you’ll feel rewarded for your efforts.
Make a new online connexion – Just a new connexion on any forum or social network. A connexion a day, that’s 365 connexions a year: a lot of friendly resources you can reach out to.
BTW: Those who still claim that FB friends are useless definitely missed something ;)
Use your laptop for workouts – Bring your Gym everywhere you go by keeping work-out material in your laptop.
I use my Mac to do Yoga for instance. When I’m on a trip, my laptop is a great substitute if I can’t attend a live yoga class (there are recordings that guide you all the way through the session) and the inbuilt camera replaces mirrors to control my posture.
Be generous on social networks – Facebook and LinkedIn make it easy to prove to some people that you care for them.
On Facebook you can post an old school picture and identify friends or share links and videos you know they’ll like, they will sense and appreciate that you really thought of them.
LinkedIn allows you to write a recommendation for a colleague in a snap.
Those random acts of kindness take 5 minutes max and won’t go unnoticed.
Muscle your knowledge with Wikipedia – Most of what we hold for true is an urban legend: Mayans never predicted the Armageddon, literacy rate in Cuba is 96% and the capital of New York state is not New York city.
Wikipedia will help you get rid of most commonly admitted ideas,if busting stereotypes matters to you.
Reconnect with friends and family – Send an email to an old friend, colleague, or family member, give them an update on yourself first and ask them an open question, a regular email touch-base is better than a yearly phone call..
Send a Thank You note – Send a short email to someone who did something for you, be specific on how her contribution helped. If you want to make your email really meaningful: offer to repay the kindness.
GTD your life – The Getting Things Done method is very flexible, yet it allows you to screen and organize EVERYTHING and stop worrying about items you could forget. You can implement it on your computer to sort all your files, reminders, contacts… (there are many apps for that).
Get Personal Finance in Order – Take time to review your current financial status, review bank balance, consolidate credit cards, sign-up for online bill pay, move money from low interest bank account to high interest bank account, research re-financing your home mortgage for lower rate.
Write a blog Post – Stop being a consumer, share what you know and what you feel. You’ll be surprised how many people actually care, it might even be the start of a writing career for you.
You can set up a blog in 5 minutes. It sounds simple but few people actually do it.
Subscribe on the right menu and receive awesomely motivating posts without stock pictures of people jumping in the air and whatnot :)