time

Why am I in a Hurry to do Everything?

In the last two years, I’ve developed a bad habit of skimming articles instead of taking my time to comprehend them. I think this habit is partly the reason for my reading comprehension being at an all time low. The question is, why do I feel like I’m always in a rush whether it’s reading an article or trying to get a task done?

It doesn’t matter how long the article is, if I can’t read it in the same time I can read a Tweet, it’s too long and I lose interest fast. This sounds like symptoms of attention deficit disorder or ADD to me. Even if no one is forcing me to move fast, it feels like there’s someone pushing me or a voice in my head saying “I ain’t got time for that“.

I feel like my lack of reading comprehension skills has significantly affected my ability to write. Have I unknowingly become part of the TL;DR movement? It’s ridiculous that TL;DR exists at all, but I can see why it’s a legitimate thing.

I need to slow down and read articles from beginning to end. I need to stop letting notifications take my attention away from whatever it is I’m doing. Responding to Twitter, then Facebook, then email, then back to Twitter creates an endless cycle of interruptions and lack of productivity. I need to increase my comprehension skills before I don’t have any left.

Adjusting Has Been A Pain

This is the first week in where I begin working weekends only at the grocery store while doing freelancing Mon-Fri. One of the reasons I was looking forward to this type of work schedule was the simple fact that I would finally be able to develop a sleeping schedule that normal people use. Well, in my first week, sleeping schedules have been anything but normal. I’ve been trying to get to bed at an early time but after a year and a half of working 9PM – 5AM, it’s just not that easy. Coupled with the fact that here in northern Ohio, we have been flirting with 70 degrees all week long but thanks to my insane sleep schedule along with the time change, I haven’t been able to take advantage of it.

My writing this week has also suffered. I haven’t published as much content at Performancing this week nor have I written anything for this blog in a little while. I’ve been thinking about using some sleeping aid pills to help me out but my girlfriend is strongly against me using those. The only real choice I have now is to pull an all nighter where I stay up for most of the day and then try to go to sleep at a decent time. Pretty poor for my health but I am sick of waking up in the middle of the afternoon.

Blogging Is A Juggling Act

As I reach ever closer to my goal of being able to use blogging and online activity as my primary source of income, I am finding it increasingly difficult to manage my time to accomplish tasks from day to day. I’m currently bringing in around $1,300.00 a month from my blogging ventures but that cash is spread out amongst 3-4 different jobs. On top of this, I work 32 hours a week from 9PM-5AM and that doesn’t seem to make things any better. I’ve also noticed that my sleeping pattern has changed to the point where I am really sleeping in instead of waking up at a decent time. This is leaving me with even less time to get things done and it is driving me up the wall.

I’m really thinking about cutting myself down to weekends only for a little while to see if I can get my life back on track. I envy those like Lorelle and others who seem to write mile long posts and publish things on time. These folks make it seem easy although I doubt it really is.

Kudos to those out there who are making a living online by creating content while also maintaining a social life as well as a second job.

Series Of Updates

No Shortage Of Birthdays

The Birthday Boy

I’d like to start off this post by saying thank you to each and every one of you who stopped by to wish me a happy 24th birthday. I truly do appreciate it. As you can see from the image above, there was no shortage of birthday wishes to go around. What’s funny though is that, I receive happy birthday emails all year around. I only configure the correct birth date on forums or websites that I take seriously or that I know I will be able to be apart of. So during the year, each website or forum that I signed up to for one reason or another generates a happy birthday message on some of the most unusual days of the year. How many of you guys are reminded by your inbox that it’s your birthday?

New PC Build

Speaking of birthdays, I happen to receive two gifts that will make there presence known in the new computer I will be building for myself. So far, here are my thoughts as to what I’ll be building:

On my birthday, my girlfriend purchased me a Creative X-FI Audigy Gamer card from BestBuy for about 100$. Then, I picked up a 700 Watt, RocketFish power supply via the giftcards I received. Now that those two items are out of the way, here is what I need.

Case – Thinking about getting the CM Stacker case. This thing is big, roomy, not meant for LAN parties and also has a bit of style. 2 Huge 120mm fans for cooling and plenty of bays for expansion.

Ram – I’ve made the choice to purchase DDR2 ram instead of DDR3. Apparently, DDR 3 gives you high clock speeds but with higher latency. DDR3 is also pretty expensive.

SATA Hard Drive – This one won’t be too hard to find. A low storage SATA drive on New Egg. Don’t care who makes it.

Video Card – Still undecided on this one. But it will be an Nvidia based GFX card and I will most likely not be going in the direction of SLI.

Motherboard and CPU – Not sure on this one either except that I’ll be going Intel instead of AMD. Going the AMD route would be like throwing money in the garbage.

If you have any suggestions as to which route I should take as far as single graphics card solutions, motherboards, Ram, and Intel CPUs, I’d be willing to hear them.

Ongoing Forum Discussions

Not to be forgotten, we do have a forum attached to this blog for discussions YOU want to begin. I wanted to take this opportunity to tell you a few of the discussions that are currently ongoing:

What happens…? – Mark Lima, a brand new user to Forum2pt0 has brought up the question, “What Happens When Jeffro2pt0 Goes 2.1?

Got Some New Toys – This thread is for my PC Building project. Again, suggestions wanted.

True Life MMO Messes up family – I posted a link to a YouTube video where you can hear a child being scolded at by his parents for being obsessed with his computer. It was funny to me, but you have to wonder how many families are actually struggling with this issue of their children being obsessed with MMORPGS.

My Apologies

I have to take this time to apologize for leaving the blog go post less for a number of days. Apparently I, like so many others, have succumb to the holiday season. I’ve been busy spending time with family members as well as reading books and generally, just doing things other than blogging. I plan to get back on track before the new year. I’m also hoping that I can prepare a new years gift that I really look forward to hearing your feedback on.

Also, I’ve written two posts so far on WeblogToolsCollection which have bother garnered a good amount of positive feedback. I do have a few more posts in mind for WeblogToolsCollection that I hope produces the same amount of feedback, but we’ll have to see.

Conclusion

I’m reading, writing, and coming up with ideas behind the scenes. With the beginning of 2008 around the corner, I am trying to develop a timeline or series of goals that I would like to accomplish in the blogging world for the new year. I started this blog back in May and I can’t believe that at the end of 2007, I have the opportunity to write for one of the biggest blogs pertaining to WordPress.

I wanted to take this time to thank YOU, the people who have subscribed to the blog, the people who visit this site on a daily basis, those who contribute, either by sending me a link via my contact form or by leaving a message in the shoutbox, all the way to those who post messages on the forum. I really appreciate the sense of community you guys and gals provide at this particular blog. I love being around like minded individuals who contribute to conversations. Differences of opinion are welcomed here as well.

I hope each and every one of you had a happy holiday season. I hope you’ll be here with me as we progress through the year of 2008. What will happen to Jeffro2pt0 during 2008? I don’t know, but it sure will be interesting to find out.