Comments on: Increase Your Productivity by Eliminating "Black Time"

By: Time Multiplier | The Wisdom Journal

Time Multiplier | The Wisdom Journal — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 05:01:53 +0000

[...] really care where the horizontal break line is on the sidebar. When I refuse to participate in time wasting activities at work or at home, I am continually amazed at how much I get accomplished. My wife is fond of [...]

By: Donald Latumahina

Donald Latumahina — Thu, 15 May 2008 08:31:20 +0000

Bruce,
Thanks for the kind words.
I haven’t applied it well, but I agree that the context concept in GTD makes it easy to fill our otherwise unproductive time.

By: Bruce

Bruce — Wed, 14 May 2008 17:24:00 +0000

I find that my Vitalist GTD setup allows me to take advantage of my "black time" really well. Categorizing tasks by context makes this really easy. Great blog, btw.

By: Donald Latumahina

Donald Latumahina — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 10:03:17 +0000

Mark,
Nice tip. For me, that kind of action is effective to eliminate black time. Requiring me to consciously do something acts as a reminder to me that I still have something to do.

Olle,

it is not black time if you know you are doing it and you feel good about it.

I agree. We should fully control how we use our time without having “leaks” here and there.

Hugo,
I think web browsing itself is not a time waster if we do it on purpose. But – as you pointed out – the problem is it’s easy to get distracted. It’s up to us to keep the distractions under control.

By: Hugo

Hugo — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 07:21:32 +0000

For me web browsing is definitely a time waster. It’s just too difficult to narrow down a search without being distracted by all the other interesting things that come along.

The beauty of the web is that its so huge, but that also sometimes seems like a disadvantage because there’s never an end. It’s not like a book that you can finish. And sometimes while looking for a specific subject I want to know all about it, not just one websites opinion. This kept me awake for too long many times…

By: Olle Linge

Olle Linge — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 10:14:53 +0000

Stanley, in addition to what Donald said, I think the crux here is that the browsing is done on a whim, without any conscious planning. Browsing the Internet, playing games or whatever, are not bad things in themselves, but they are not good if you do not realise what you have been doing until two hours later. I spend a lot of time playing games and surfing the net, but I try to plan it and do in consciously. To go along with the terminology of this article, it is not black time if you know you are doing it and you feel good about it.

By: Mark - Productivity501

Mark - Productivity501 — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 03:05:24 +0000

I find sometimes that turning off things that I know may be a distraction can help. For example, if I’m writing, I may turn off my wireless card so using the internet requires me to consciously turn it back on. It helps keep me from slipping into black time without realizing it and heading over to a new site or something like that.

By: Donald Latumahina

Donald Latumahina — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 15:48:16 +0000

Stanley,
You’re right that such web browsing can help us acquire useful knowledge. What I mean here is unplanned web browsing that causes us to neglect our main responsibility. In my case, I lost two hours of working time which was significant.

Ange,
Yes, I have a lot of such experiences myself :) Welcome to Life Optimizer!

By: Ange Recchia

Ange Recchia — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 11:57:33 +0000

Talking about black time… this is my first visit to your blog and I got caught checking out the brain training excersises. Don’t get me wrong, it is a great tool. It goes to show how easily one can be distracted!

Thanks for the tips.

By: MrPositioning.com (Stanley Bronstein)

MrPositioning.com (Stanley Bronstein) — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 13:22:43 +0000

While I generally agree with you that we need to eliminate time wasters, I’m not entirely certain that your web browsing example was necessarily a bad thing.

While you may not have gotten everything done you needed, you were acquiring knowledge on a variety of subjects and you were increasing your overall knowledge.

Somewhere along the way, the things you read then may be of benefit. I know that happens for me all the time.

Mr Positioning
Stanley F. Bronstein
Attorney, CPA, Author & Professional Motivational Speaker