“That he not busy being born is busy dying”

It’s the last line in the second stanza of Bob Dylan’s It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding). It means so much to me for a couple of reasons. First of all my original interpretation of the line was pretty negative: I thought he meant that we start dying the minute we’re born. Technically true, however also incredibly pessimistic. Something I had learnt to expect from Bob Dylan. Then one day someone pointed out to me that there could be another, far more beautiful interpretation.

This was over ten years ago – a few students were helping me out with some tasks at work and somehow we ended up discussing Bob Dylan. I still remember the moment of clarity – it might seem trivial, but it was pretty formative for me as a person. “You’ve got it all wrong,” one of them said. “Dylan actually means that if you stop reinventing yourself you’re dying.”

And there it was. An “Aha!” moment. It set me off on a train of thought that changed the way I look at things completely. I am now a person who’s scared of only one thing: stagnation.

Because the minute I stop being born I’m dying. Whoa. That changes your perspective on life because it removes the middle state: meaningless existence (or calls it dying, depending on how you see it).

This lesson helped me greatly in my work life because it means I get to do a much better job. Part of who we’re meant to be at Switch is a company that’s ahead of the curve. And as long as I’m scared with living in the past, then the future is the only place to be. However, that’s the boring part.

The phrase also defined how I see myself on a personal level – and has helped me get out of ruts I was getting stuck in at different stages of my life.

It also helps define my persona – if you ask around the office I’m known (together with Ed) as one of the people who can continue a conversation about nearly anything. From handbags to boats, cars to Greek philosophy, high quality food to the politics of the USA – I usually know something about so many things it’s insane.

The thing most people ask me is how I manage to keep up with so many things – do I have some Jedi trick to keep up with everything? Well, not really. I don’t have a magic formula, but I do have an incredible sense of curiosity for everything except other people’s lives.

I also have another mini mantra that’s tied to Dylan’s phrase – never kill time. Time is our most limited resource. It’s a bank account that’s constantly draining, so whenever someone suggests doing something to “kill time” it drives me crazy.

These two, put together, mean that I very rarely just hang about doing nothing. Don’t get me wrong – I relax, I do quite a bit of things that are relaxing and make it a point to chill out regularly, however I try to keep my relaxing time meaningful. I won’t sit down and see what’s pushed at me on TV – I’ll choose what to watch deliberately. If I’m going to spend time on a beach, then I’ll read something fulfilling, not a gossip magazine. If I have conversations with friends it will probably be about something we can have a debate about, not somebody else’s life.

I also have a behaviour online that’s probably pretty different to most of the people around me. Even though I have over 1,000 Facebook friends – I only keep a few of them visible on my timeline – and it’s very easy for friends to be hidden completely – just post about politics in a partisan manner, for example, and you’re off my wall forever. Instead, I replaced my Facebook feed with follows of pages I find interesting. Tech news, marketing news, fashion, world news, food, politics… You name it, there’s probably a page I follow that feeds me some information about the subject.

I subscribe to quite a few interesting newsletters in different fields that keep my brain ticking. I don’t read all of them every day, but I try finding enough time to go through a few that tickle my fancy.

Two sites I started using over the past year have also helped quench my thirst for new stuff to learn. The first might sound insane – Reddit. I got on the Reddit train very late in the day but was hooked almost immediately. It filled a void that I had missed since the death of Google+ in 2013. It is a great social site that’s built around people’s interests, not who they are. In fact, unlike Google+, I haven’t even made any friends on Reddit in over a year using it daily.

Over the past few days, for example, I’ve learnt about the way lawyers get sucked into firms in the US (from lawyers who got sucked into firms), I understood what the major news item about the discovery of gravitational waves actually means for us, and I’ve also read about the conversion of an old school bus into a camper.

And that’s just at the very top level. The beauty of Reddit is that it all starts off with a link or a short post, but the way comment threads evolve are usually so interesting. Deeper down into threads you find goldmines of information, usually in far more detail than the original thread itself. It takes patience, but it’s usually worth it (and even when it’s not, it turns out to be entertaining). It’s essentially crowdsourced knowledge.

The other site I got quite hooked to is Medium. Medium is far more serious than Reddit is, and the front page of medium is usually full of high quality articles that give you much more depth into a particular subject from a single person. There’s a lot of value to this too. Articles on Medium are well written and well researched. Authors tend to be an authority on the subject when they get pushed up enough, so, as long as you stick to the recommended stories (there’s a great Medium Daily Digest sent by email) you’re rarely disappointed.

So, yeah – rant over. I rarely get to write personal stuff here, and I hope you find some of this craziness interesting. Just keep this in mind – you’re either being born or you’re dying – there is no time to kill.

The post He not busy being born is busy dyin’ appeared first on Switch - Digital & Brand.

Stop. Take a minute and think.

Like my old man always said ‘if you really want to, you can do it – having no time is just an excuse!’
As we grow we start to understand that multitasking and time management can help us juggle a million things at one go – it’s okay boys, you wouldn’t understand the multitasking part – don’t worry, with all our nagging you’ll get there eventually 😛
The trick to it all is planning ahead and being positive! The worst thing you could do to yourself is to fall into a monotonous routine and regret the decisions you have made in the past. Every second you spend is  an experience to learn from and a memory to treasure!
Set your alarm 15 minutes earlier to make time for breakfast and kick start your day on a positive note!
Have a positive can do attitude and you find that any task you need to complete is done in a shorter time because you didn’t spend half of it complaining about how busy you are or about how impossible it is to get the job done.
Spare five minutes and call your parents, an old friend, or an ex colleague. If you think you have no time for that – do it while you’re in the bathroom, just make sure to flush after you hang up and not while you’re on the phone; having to reply to the question ‘what’s that noise?’ can be a little embarrassing – true story!

Spend 30 minutes cooking some healthy chicken and yummy salad for dinner instead of queuing up at a fast food restaurant. Do your grocery shopping once during the week instead of having to go to the store everyday – draw up a shopping list and plan your meals in advance, it’s not rocket science!
Find a hobby, pick a sport, go out for a short walk and stay active instead of dumping yourself on the sofa watching useless TV programs.
With all that’s been going on over the past few days you stop and realise that you’re here today and gone tomorrow.
What I am trying to say is that we all have the same amount of hours at our disposal – what we do with this time is what makes us happier or angrier, what keeps us sane or stresses the living hell out of us.
Can’t believe I found the time to write this in my busy schedule – and no, I’m not on the loo – or am I? 😉
Until next time! (ha ha)

The post Make Time for Time appeared first on Switch - Digital & Brand.

There is a lot of potential for exposure without capital outlay, but do keep in mind that it is not completely free. Your time is valuable, and part of the power of social media stems from the fact that it has a very nasty habit of being addictive.

Sometimes even if you log into Facebook, Google+ or Twitter to manage your business page, there always is another new gadget popping up, another cruel joke that you have to forward to your friends or another meme that you just have to read – “it will only take a second”. Next thing you know an hour has just flown by.

So what should you do? Should you close all your accounts and go back to living in the age of cavemen at the expense of being well-networked? Definitely not – you still need to have a voice out there, you just need to make sure you are doing it well and making the best of the time you spend online.

Set time aside for social media

No, unless you’re running a 911 service by Twitter, your clients are not going to die if you do not answer them within five minutes. Sure, they will be impressed if you do, but they will be far from impressed when you fail to get their server back up and running in the timeframe you had promised because you spent all your time checking your 20 social media feeds.

I encourage you to actively engage with your customers, but don’t get lost in it. Set an hour or two aside for managing your social media and do not dilly dally. When you get online, do what you have to do and move on quickly. If needs be, set alarms and stop when your time is over. There are apps on every platform to help you do this. If you want to go back for leisure feel free to do so – it is perfectly OK as long as it is outside your working hours (whatever they might be) or in self-designated breaks.

At all other times your social media tabs should be closed. Not in the background. Not minimized. Closed. Do not even think about them. Let your notifications gather, remember: you are not running a 911 service.

You Gotta Keep’em Separated

Open a new account for your business presence online. It might be hard to build a new set of followers, but once you do you get two major benefits.

The first is that all your following is there for the right reason. Your great-aunt (once removed) probably won’t be of much use if you’re promoting the latest blade servers.

The second major advantage is that if you decide to respond to mentions of your brand immediately and want to set up alerts of all contact and mentions of your business name, then you can do so without worrying that you’ll be disturbed the next time your brother’s wife has done her nails.

Formulate a strategy

Now that your time online is limited you are going to have to take a long and hard think about what you want to achieve from social media. If you offer on-site service in Denver, Colorado, it would be useless having 10,000 followers from all over the globe. 100 business owners from within 100 miles of your business would be far more valuable and much more likely to react if you posted a special offer from one of your suppliers online.

Think of who you need to engage with and work hard on that audience. Find out what they like, what they want, what they need and give it to them. Also decide on what you want out of them. Do you want them to become loyal clients or are you after one-off customers who, however, might suggest your business to an acquaintance? Act accordingly.

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