Have you ever gotten into a conversation where someone is telling you about all the hours they work?
Then you come in and tell them about all the hours you work?
It’s like a competition out there today with everyone trying to out-busy the other.
I think maybe the idea of being busy got confused with the concept of work. Just because you’re doing something doesn’t mean you’re doing something worth doing.
What Do You Want To Be?
I’m a big fan of the saying, You are what you do every day. To me, if someone wants to be busy doing all kinds of things all day then that’s fine. I assume that’s what they want to be with their life.
It catches me off guard when they complain about it. Once and a while it’s fine. We can plan on doing what we want, but sometimes things get out of whack. But we all have the power to bring it back to what we want to be doing.
And for many successful people in the past the idea of work and play wasn’t as black and white. And having idle time was actually looked at as a good thing. Even today, successful people seem to recognize the importance of taking time to sit back and reflect and to think about the world.
Other successful people talk about being able to recognize the need for changes or opportunities. If you’re busy all the time it’s difficult, if not impossible, to pay attention to what’s going on around you.
You can’t spot opportunity with your head down all the time.
Reading & Reading The News
That brings us back to the title of this article…
Is it a good thing to take time to read the news? If you’re in the regular work world you might not feel like telling others that you read the news. You might feel like it’s wasting time to browse the latest news on the Internet or even to pick up the paper.
I still feel that way sometimes, but I get two local papers here in Wisconsin. One is a paper with stories about rural life and the other is about the outdoors. They don’t come that often, but sometimes I’ll catch myself thinking that’s it not good to take an hour or whatever to read them.
But then I’ll come back and remember that it’s good to read. It’s a way to acquire knowledge. It’s a way to read stories to learn about other people and other topics.
And I do it online too. I have a few websites that I keep up with and I use my Twitter feed to bring me the daily news and knowledge that I feel is important to success in life.
One thing that successful people seem to have in common is that many are in love with reading. They read all the time. I just read two autobiographies. Sam Walton and Alex Spanos. Both talked about how they liked to read. Another big name right now is Stan Kroenke and he is known for his love of reading.
News, books, whatever. Reading is good.
What Are You Reading
But this is a question I have to check myself on sometimes.
During the NFL season I have to catchy myself with how much I read about the Green Bay Packers. There’s maybe a limit on how much you should read on the entertainment side of things.
I like to keep a balance with my sources. I don’t subscribe really to any email feeds or things like that. I have sources setup on Twitter where my main feed is business and life related. I have a couple of key sources on what’s going on in the online marketing world and the health world so I can stay on point in my work industry and on my personal health.
Then I have a list for Golf, which is a passion of mine.
From time to time I’ll audit Twitter and my other sources of information. We live in a great period of time today where we can get any information we want, but that requires us to kind of figure out the best sources for what we want to be in life.
Conclusion
Reading the news and taking some time away from being busy is a good thing. It’s a good thing as long as you audit the information you’re taking in. And it’s okay to have a little in their for entertainment or pleasure. And it’s good to mix up the information you bring in from time to time. You never know where inspiration will come from. Successful people like to keep things open in their lives so they can discover new ideas.
Don’t let yourself get caught up in needing to be busy. Being busy does not necessarily mean being productive. Take time to read the news, read a book and let your mind grow.
