Below I outline my biggest “time sucks” and how I am dealing with them… and I will keep you posted on how they go as the year progresses.

GET RID OF CABLE

I have decided this year to begin removing these “distractions”. Television is no problem. I find it boring. I find it adds no real value to my life. I like sports, but with the Superbowl two weeks away and soccer nearly impossible to find on local networks I can see this not being a problem. So – SNIP – no more cable. We still have an HD antennae to get the free local channels, access to Netflix, and HuluPlus. These options are so my wife doesn’t kill me. But even with the removal of the channels she, herself, has started being more productive in her studies and hobbies. The added benefit of saving nearly $1,100 in cash is also great.

BE HONEST AND GIVE UP ON OLD DREAMS

I have also “given up” on recording instrumental music at home. So I am selling everything but my acoustic guitar. This does two things: it focuses my attention on my goals by removing a craft I was never really that good at. Also, it frees up space in my office to add shelves thereby making my personal workspace a better place to “get things done.”

Sometimes, you have to be honest with yourself and give up on old dreams. Am I really ever going to make anything out of this activity? I enjoy listening to music more than making it these days. I love finding new music and telling people about it. I had fun writing songs when I was younger about heartbreak and life but those days have passed. Making music is not a passion of mine – therefore I can leave it behind rather easily. This realization came to me the other day, as I looked at my acoustic guitar in the corner, dusty from maybe six month of neglect. I picked it up and said “I am going to write a song tonight.” So I tried. And I tried. I realized at the end of the exercise, with fingers hurting from the lack of callous tips, that I had lost the urge to express my feelings through music.

Design is my passion. That is what I wake everyday to do. And I am okay knowing that. I still will have my guitar to lazily strum a Neutral Milk Hotel song and reminiscence about playing at open mic night in college. A couple years ago I “released” a four-song MP3 EP on a website that has since gone dark because I didn’t pay to re-up the domain name. For your listening pleasure, the only song I have ever been truly proud of. End Book.

QUIT MAKING NOISE – START SAYING SOMETHING

I will admit I am one of the people who updates their status maybe four times a day. Facebook is probably one of the biggest “time sucks” affecting me today. One can spend hours looks at people who have no bearing whatsoever to their lives at the moment. Though I don’t typically look at others profiles, I have spent a lot of time commenting and updating my own. For what? Hell if I know. Who is the audience? I don’t know. Facebook is just noise. It is a facsimile to what a real relationship is. If people want to get ahold of me… they can. Through email or my website or, as crazy as it seems, a real conversation. The human element is what I have been missing.

In contrast to my views on Facebook is Twitter which I find to be educational. I only see the people I want to. I cannot interact with large posts of text and I present myself in a much more edited way because I know anyone could see it. In essence it is almost as if its outside of “me” and more about my work and thoughts. I feel as if when I write a post on here and get a couple thousand views that this actually might help people – while Facebook is just noise to sift through.

So are you making more noise? Or are you playing to an audience?

CONCLUSION

This article is a bit more personal than most I have posted the past year but we all struggle with focusing on our personal goals. We are being pulled in a million directions, we work long hours for our professional day-jobs, at night focusing on freelance and our real dreams. Maybe we have a spouse, or kids, or other responsibilities. They all are vying for our attention. The sooner we can recognize the activities that add no real value to our lives, the sooner we can begin to pull ourselves out of their black holes… and start doing the things that will truly change our lives.

J.B. Chaykowsky specializes in building brands, culture, and experiences with design. Primarily working in the built environment executing branded environments and experiences, J.B. has worked on projects domestically and abroad. He is also obsessed with the processes in which creatives develop, execute, and sell ideas. He can be followed here on twitter @jbchaykowsky. He lives in Dallas, Texas with his beautiful wife Kelly and their amazingly, awesome Chi-Pom pup named Pippa.