How much time do you have during the average day to get anything done? I have very little most days. Am I really that busy or do I waste a lot of time? To be honest, I am really busy. I work full time now for a magazine as a composition and graphic designer. I also work full time as a freelance web designer and developer. I know, that’s a lot of full time work. As I write this I’m beginning to wonder how I find time for it all.

There are a few things that I do know. The two things I used to do that cost me a great deal of time everyday were watching television and sleeping late. Those two things are probably a large reason some of us can’t get everything we need to do done. I can confess to a lot of gaming also. I found it hard to get through a day without my World of Warcraft.

Maybe you don’t share my time wasting addictions, but I’m sure you can think of a few time wasting habits you need to kick. Regardless of how you waste time, there are ways to get better organized. There are ways to kick the time wasting habits we’ve all developed, but you have to want to do it. No one else can do it for you.

I made up my mind to make television and gaming a treat. I allow myself some time gaming or watching television if I can push myself far enough ahead of my schedule to allow time for either habit. I still sleep late on Saturdays, but rarely on any other day. I worked hard on my discipline issues to develop some new habits that complimented my work schedule rather than hindered it.

The first new habit I formed was making a schedule for myself and sticking to it. It sounds easy, but it’s hard to do. I scheduled time for everything. An example of a typical day for me is:

• 6:00 AM – Wake up and take a shower
• 6:30 AM – Breakfast and a glance at the day’s headlines
• 7:00 AM – Return emails and mail proposals
• 8:00 AM – Pack up my laptop and finish getting ready for work
• 8:30 AM – Drive to work
• 9:00 AM to 6:00 PM – Are  set aside for work
• 6:30 PM to 7:30 PM – Dinner
• 7:30 PM to 9:30 PM – Work on graphic design or web projects
• 9:30 PM to 10:30 PM – Writing time
• 10:30 PM – Quick shower and off to bed

At that point its simply a matter of rinse and repeat. I will admit that this schedule is rigid, but I usually get everything done and before any deadlines. My scheduling method might not work for you. I’m not claiming any mystical powers or intelligence. I do know that everything I’ve talked about here is a problem for most people I know.

Start small and try not to go crazy with the schedules. Once you break out of your bad habits and stop wasting time, you will feel more relaxed and probably get more done than you thought possible. Whether you schedule a complete day or just set aside some hours each day for writing, painting, or whatever you need time for; you’ll find my methods work.

I finally decided on a Kindle. I liked the overall setup and what I had read so far. As I weighed the solutions to my ebook reader problems, frugally, I decided to give developers another month or so to impress me further before deciding on a reader to purchase.

After my brief wait, I was shocked to find that the Kindle had removed the SD expansion slot. Now there was no way to expand the amount of storage on the Kindle. Until this discovery I was literally on the edge of purchasing a Kindle. Now I would have to extend my search. Sony was out and so was the Kindle.

The Nook answered my ebook reader search with fireworks. An SD slot for more inexpensive storage and AT&T 3G service. All for a very reasonable price. The services and features are far from lacking and equal or exceed those of the Kindle and Sony ebook readers.

Do your own research and read up on the popular ebook readers. I think you’ll come to the same conclusion I have. The Nook is the way to go for ebook reading.

The story behind the choice to remove the Sonny’s branding and choose new branding is a sad one at best.  The links below tell the story pretty well so I won’t bore you with another version. Oh and I’m a bit slow on this one – it’s not breaking news.

http://www.bpsoutdoor.com/blog/?p=476

http://www.walb.com/Global/story.asp?S=11602204

http://www.tiftongazette.com/local/local_story_335220203.html

http://www.mysouthwestga.com/news/story.aspx?id=384363

Desktop Applications

• The GIMP – Image Editor
• Mozilla Firefox – Web Browser
• Mozilla Thunderbird – Email
• OpenOffice.org – Word Processor, Spreadsheet, Presentation and Database Management

GNU / Linux Distributions

• Debian – Very stable Linux distribution, recommended for servers
• IPCop – Firewall server distribution
• Ubuntu – All the latest and greatest features, recommended for the desktop

Server and CMS

• Apache – Web Server
• Drupal – Content Management System
• MySQL – Database
• Nagios – Server Monitoring
• PHP – Programming Language – great for web based applications

I use all of the software listed here. I also provide development and commercial support and training for all of the above.