i haven’t had to iron my shirts in over 5 months.  someone does them for me and they come back perfectly starched. tonight happens to be the first time i’ve used the washer/dryer at my apartment in the same amount of time.  the only reason i am doing so now is out of lethargy and the fact that i ran out of clean dress socks.  i don’t feel like carting the sack to the fold and wash, even though they’re open until midnight.  laundry is a time suck so i’ve outsourced my life.  in 15 mins i can drop off my clothes and they come back smelling nice and neatly folded where as before i had to wait around for hours and spend another hour or so a week folding the stuff.  folding is busywork if you ask me.

at the advice of tim ferriss, i’ve outsourced my life and i couldn’t be happier.  time truly is money in the fact that i will pay someone to get my time back… and it’s worth every penny.

over the last two weeks i got “busy” and managed to let my google reader overload.  well, really that just means i got stuck doing time sucking tasks and didn’t make keeping up on things a priority.  the unread items counter simply read “1000+”.  bblee suggested i “jubilee” some feeds and i did that tonight.  i even went so far as to unsubscribe from certain feeds.  i canned my “top post only” lifehacker feed as well as some random design blogs.  it felt liberating.  i did, however, take the time to read every post of my friend’s personal blogs… so don’t think i don’t read your brainfarts people.  but i often read the other clutter to stay “busy”.

as the holidays approach, it is usually a busy season for all of us, but busyness is when you waste your time.   i run in to people sometimes who tell me they’ve been busy and that’s why i haven’t seen them.  for some, i know this means they’ve been getting a ton of stuff done and making progress towards their goals.  for others, i know it means they’ve been wasting lots of time essentially doing nothing.  having a calendar full of events does not mean you’re being productive.  activity does not translate to productivity.

i’m going to make this holiday season different.  when i return from the city of angels on sunday, there will be no busyness for the rest of ’08.  granted i still have to go to work, still have a worship ministry to coordinate, and still have enterprises to build… i’ll take care of that without being busy.  i’m even taking a week off of work to spend in the desert to write my book.  ok, not really the desert, but moreno valley might as well be the desert. and i’m going to do it with copious amounts of stone brewing company ales and all without being busy.