Work(Hard and Good)

When you launch a new blog, start a new business, or accept a new job, you might be tempted to work long hours and throw yourself into your work.

What you think might only be a month of hard work turns into more months and sometimes years. Your hard work becomes a pattern. You forget that there is a difference between hard work and good work.

Instead of compromising your health and relationships, start slowly. Don’t worry about how busy you are, but what you are really accomplishing.

• Answering email all hours of the night instead of having dinner and time with your family is not good work.
• Generating busy work by creating collateral or buying things that you don’t need is not good work.
• Trying to connect with as many people as possible is not good work.

Instead, focus on quality connections that develop into long term relationships. Work with what you have, and only check and respond to email 2 or 3 times a day during business hours.

You will be happier, and healthier. That is good work.

Best,

Chris Dutton

Productive

An inspiring person asked a simple question the other day: What do you do when you’re bored Chris? Well, You don’t always have to work hard to be productive.  Productivity can simply be the side effect of doing the right things.

So here’s a list of  “semi-productive” things I do online when my mind is set on avoiding ‘real work.’

1. Check delicious popular tags like useful, Tips,How To, advice, inspirational,etc. for interesting, educational articles to read.
2. Watch one of the thousands of educational videos streaming at Ted.com,Academic Earth and Teacher Tube.
   
3. Read an online book list and find a new book to grab next time I’m at the library.
4. Read a classic book online for free at Project Gutenburg, Planet Ebook, or the E-Books Directory.
5. Research a new Do It Yourself project at DIY Network, eHow, or Wiki How.
6. Create a cool graphical mind map of some of my recent ideas at Bubbl.us
7. Email a close friend or family member I haven’t spoken to in awhile.
8. Backup my recent photos, documents, and other important files online using Dropbox and Flickr.
9. Touch up on my math and science skills over a the Khan Academy, MIT Opencourse
10. Send a paper greeting card directly to a friend or relative at enGreet.
11. Start learning a new language online for free at BBC Languages.
12. Use Media Convert to convert video files I have on my computer into a format I can view on my iPhone or iPod later on.
13. Listen to an educational podcast over at  iTunes on iTunes U.
14. Read one of the academic journals at the Directory of Open Access Journals.
15. Find out what happened today in history.
16. Take a fun, educational online quiz at Quizlet..
17. Sell old stuff I no longer need on eBay and make a little extra cash..
18. Find out what’s happening in our world from quality international news sources like BBC News and Reuters.
19. Write a blog post like this one.

You get the idea. I try to keep fairly busy and fill my mind and day with Impacting projects that will benefit me in the future. Take care and hope you enjoyed it.