How Aimless Web Surfing Might Actually Help You Get Shit Done

So you get on the computer and like James Bond, you have a mission that needs to be accomplished.

You have to write a response email to one of your clients about a upcoming project, write an email to your wedding planner, and write a “I haven’t talked to you in forever but I hope this email will reconcile our friendship” to one of your distant friends in a far away land.

You open up your web browser and immediately get e-hard when you see YouTube (your homepage).

There is a new video of a kitten attacking an empty paper bag, I must watch it at least 3 times, subscribe to the user’s channel, and email it to my friends.

Oh crap your friends, time to get on Facebook.

Wow mike has clearly been hitting the gym, look at Rachelle, man she is becoming bigger than Rosie O’Donnell’s cankles. Sweet Jesus, are those the pictures from Saturday night?

Have you ever found yourself in this loop of never ending bullshit?

No one would like to admit it, but I know for a fact that way to many people waste enough time online to propel a nuclear bomb straight into the home of Al Gore for his invention.

The bottom line is that people inherently act like this all the time. Trying to become a creative and working powerhouse that shovels out 2 novels and 3 around the world trips in a month just isn’t practical for most people.

But at the same time, I would lose my fucking mind if all I did was productive things all day, I would feel like the energizer bunny on crack.

Before you commit Facebook hara-kiri, there is a solution.

The key is developing some middle ground and taking some much needed baby steps in order to divert your attention away from the new event that was just posted on Facebook and towards something that might actually hold some level of impact in your life.

But what if aimless wandering could have a purpose?

What if in some twisted universe your aimless web browsing remained somewhat ambiguous but had a much more defined purpose?

This is how I choose the aimlessly wander when I need time to unwind in front of the computer, and it can be quite magical for getting things done that you want to do.

I think we can all agree that spending anymore than 5 minutes on Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, Youtube, foursquare, or nearly any other social media platform is a complete waste of time unless you own a business or are trying to procure a career in social media marketing (what the hell is wrong with you? Go outside now)

That being said, there are more interesting ways to divert your “follow the shiny thing” syndrome my young web browser.

Start by thinking about some of the things you actually have any avid interest in your life

This could be anything and everything, from career orientation to personal. Go fucking nuts, from poodles to papier-mâché and everything in-between, just stay away from porn and those damned internet time sinks.

Got a few things? My hotspots are anything related to food and travel

Now if you really love these things that you picked, chances are that you know a websites, blogs, forums, and ever risqué photo galleries that are related to your areas of interest.

Find a few websites that you really enjoy, and bookmark them immediately

These sites will be your new and only fallback for when you need to write an email that you really don’t give two shits about writing, so now your shiny syndrome is at least pointing you in the direction that might help you get something accomplished.

Chances are your interests would serve as a career/business/hobby platform (if they don’t already). By frequenting these types of websites instead of aimless wandering the dark alleyways of social media, you could, and likely will, develop an idea, business, or at least some relief you’re your ADD.

Try it, I promise your Facebook friends will forgive you (but who really gives a damn).

Gabriel

| Category: Productivity | Leave a comment

How Your Fear of Cliff Diving Can Tell You More About Yourself Than You Wanted to Know

cliff diver in quebrada

Have you ever found yourself looking at a person spending nearly every waking minute of their lives at a desk doing the same monotonous tasks and wonder how they haven’t committed hari kari yet?

Did you ever get a chance to look at a person who spends their whole life living on the road and wonder how this person hasn’t shacked up with a local hillbilly or start a business in order to make something of their lives?

Everyone has fleeting thoughts and passes judgment on others, its shitty, but its human nature for most people.

What is most interesting is finding out what dastardly group you belong to

Are you the type of person who loves to keep everything in place? Do you loose your fucking mind if your porcelain cats are shifted out of place on the mantle? Does the idea of knowing exactly what is going to happen for the next week give you shivers of pleasure down your spine?

Or are you of the other camp?

Do you fantasize about dropping everything that you are doing and moving to Southeast Asia in order to pursue your dream of being a male host? Do you get hot and bothered at the mere mention of living out of a backpack and jumping from one gringo location to the next? Do you day dream about cliff diving?

The two polar opposites in this comparison of personality types boil down to two simple terms

1)      Certainty, routine, and pattern lifestyles

2)      Uncertainty, unpredictable, pattern lacking lifestyles

Most people don’t play exclusively for one team, this isn’t a sports rivalry

The vast majority of people flirt with both ends of the spectrum, but everyone has one side that they prefer more than the other.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that my love of travel and the unknown makes me the poster child for the uncertain life.

The same blinding truth can be applied to people like my father, who thrive in having control of their surroundings and knowing exactly when they can perform their daily routines.

One side isn’t better than the other, they are just different

The key is understanding which team you would rather play for if lines were needed to be drawn in the sand.

If you know that you love packing up your life and jumping into the unknown, then you can understand that being put in those situations more often will server to benefit you. The same can be said for the other side of the coin.

So what is it mate?

Gabriel

| Category: Identity, Motivation | Leave a comment

What Top Chefs Can Teach You About Being A Better Professional

I had a strong revelation recently, it started when I was reading Kitchen Confidential and culminated during a conversation I had with a head chef at a notorious restaurant down here in big hair country.

It was mentioned that,

You can teach someone to do anything, but you can’t teach character.

My head practically splintered open when I read that comment, as it set off a chain reaction of mini epiphanies in my mind that helped me understand why certain situations in my life, and in others, worked out in the obscure way they did.

Just like how you feel about that guy in your office who bitches that he doesn’t make enough money,

Building one’s character is infinitely more important than learning new skills.

Everyone always tries to get on the forefront of the new technology that is in the market, from eight track players to social media, there is always something new and exciting to learn that ultimately becomes as important as table manners to a regular KFC patron.

But as I have seen time and time again, character is something that is not only more important than skills, it is something that cannot be learned

If you have a bartender who free pours for regular customers just so he can procure extra tips, you won’t be able to save him.

A graphic designer who panics during all pending deadlines and ultimately makes excuses for his lack of timeliness while touts his win percentage in Starcraft 2, he is screwed.

A Harvard graduate who has more extracurriculars than the valedictorian from every high school in America combined won’t be able to do jack shit for a company if he can’t even give a proper handshake.

Character is something that some people have, and others don’t

You develop it over time (or you don’t) and you can’t pick it up like a how to guide on making your own wine.

People who strive to build their character, who not only read books on that sales technique that all the cool kids are using, but more often than not, seek to help build up the lives of those around them and are not afraid to fail, those are the types of people who succeed in life.

Recognize the character of yourself and the people in your lives, are they the type of people who are ready to kick ass and chew bubblegum? Or are they the type who do the bare minimum to get by?

Bubble gum or mellow yellow?

Gabriel

| Tags: | Category: Career, Goals | Leave a comment

How to Make Shit Happen

Step 1

Decide what you want in life

Step 2

Figure out what steps need to be taken to make your dream a reality

Step 3

Make a commitment to yourself and everyone within earshot that you are going to perform action X until you receive result Y.

Step 4

Further to strengthen your resolve by telling those closest the pending self imposed consequences for not performing action X

Step 5

Perform action X mercilessly

Step 6

Inevitably get your ass kicked by initial steps until you reach your breaking point

Step 7

Keep moving forward. Be a stubborn bastard about it.

Step 8

Achieve your result Y after a set period of time (sometimes many years)

Step 9

Celebrate and rinse and repeat for your next goal

This is what it takes to make an improvement in any aspect of your life.

From building relationships, to starting a company, and even learning how to play tennis, the process remains the same

Are you willing to fall in the dirt for what you want?

Gabriel

| Tags: | Category: Goals | 3 comments

Emo(tional) Rooms

I love the title of this article, even if it has nothing to do with whiny preteens being upset that their life is so miserable with their 2009 Jeep Wrangler and complete lack of Abercrombie apparel.

So if I’m not talking about kids getting overly emotional and crying in a corner of their room, then what am I talking about?

I am talking about the abstract but applicable concept of viewing emotions like rooms in a house.

This isn’t some evolved game of hide and go seek where you undoubtedly find yourself hiding in the closet of your parent’s bedroom because, “no one will ever think to look there”.

What if I told you that everyone has a set group of emotional states that they enter and exit during any given day, like predesignated states that people enter when certain conditions are met.

For example, if I was to continue that game of hide and go seek and I see you go for the hiding spot under your Grandmother’s bed and tell the seeker that you are hiding there after I get caught; you would likely do the following:

A) Cry

B) Complain

C) Get Angry

D) Tattle Tale

E) All of the above

The key here is understanding that certain events caused you to trigger your desire to enter the “pissed off at the world” emotional state that many of us have.

The same situation could arise when you ask someone to do something, but they ignore you and blow off their responsibility to you, you are likely to enter the same emotional state.

This emotional state occurs and ends in the exact same way you enter a room in a house. You pick a room, you enter it for a set time, when you are ready you leave.

Everyone has a set number of emotional rooms in their house, and at any given moment you have the ability to not only determine what rooms you enter during a given situation, but what rooms even exist in your metaphysical house.

I know this is crazy abstract and a bit transient, but you and I both know that we all choose to feel happy, sad, pissed off, adventurous, etc

Think about the implications that are possible with this, you could literally lock yourself out of certain emotional states by simply refusing to enter those rooms during specific trigger mechanisms.

All you have to do is view emotional states like rooms in a house, you have just as strong of an option to enter your “I am take over the world because I am having such a kickass time” room when you are feeling depressed as you can enter your “life sucks and so does everyone else” room when you are feeling pretty damn good.

The key is understanding and knowing that you have a choice

Understand that this whole damn article is for shit if you view your emotions like Ron Burgundy in Anchorman. You can escape your glass case of emotion by deciding the what, when, and where of your emotional states. This will not only give you more control over your life, but it will empower you with the ability to be unwavering and relentless in the pursuit of all great things in life

So to wrap this whole hippie concept up, stop visiting the rooms that suck you emotionally and redirect some time to the rooms that will better serve to make your life more enjoyable. Because while you watch that meter maid write a ticket for your car, it’s probably not worth entering your bastard emotional room and bringing down the wrath of a thousand suns upon him.

Taking the sunny room

Gabriel

| Tags: | Category: Emotion, Happiness | One comment
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