Do you have skills, practice and knowledge or just consume information?

Quality products are made from quality materials.

Garbage came in, garbage came out, as they say. And instead of focusing on debates about how TV and the internet turn us into mindless drones, the real problem is that instead of giving more, we consume more!

New technologies - good, bad and evil ...

What is the Internet?

Unnecessary distraction or access to the world's greatest knowledge?

It depends entirely on the way you use it.

Today, you can easily catch the virus of 'excessive passivity', that is, the habit of drawing from the information available, instead of actively gathering knowledge and experience in areas that are interesting and useful to you.

But how do you get rid of the intoxicating digital narcotic?

Hard! To get the result, think about the way you spend your time! In The Seven Habits of Highly Efficient People , Stephen Covey calls this "controlling circle" that fights with our "circle of concern."

Reactive people - A great deal of concern and a small circle of control. So much energy and time wasted on events over which have no control.

Proactive people - A large circle of control and a small circle of concern. A lot of energy and time focused on issues that are under their control.

The most important thing to get out of this is that you need to look for specialized and useful information that you will use in your life often, not to allow the occasional one to constantly distract you.

The circle of control is everything that comes directly to you:

• the habits that define your life
• situations in which you influence the end results;
• the new skills you acquire,
• the products you create;
• the information you spend your time.

It emphasizes your attention as a super-valuable, scarce resource. Something you have to defend.

If you pay attention to insignificant things, you may develop the " fear of not dropping something " syndrome , and this causes meaningless interaction with information that is of no importance to you.

Think about the news as well.

As you try to learn something new about current events, as most people do, think about what you give to the news and what you get from them - give them attention, energy, time and emotions, give yourself everything you have for some information you will not actually use.

What a scandalous politician has done in a country where you do not even live can sneak into your  circle of concern and exhaust your attention with a problem that you can not use later in any meaningful way.

In other words, 99% of what you will see on TV will not help you! Compare this with the time spent in gaining knowledge on a topic that you are interested in or developing certain skills that will improve your life.

Then you will be convinced that what you focus on has a significant impact on what kind of person you are turning into.

How to strengthen your circle of control?

Bringing knowledge and experience means building your skills and raising your level of knowledge. When you say you will expand your circle of control, it means cutting down the "blank" information and spending more time exploring topics that matter to you.

But how do you do this in the era of information overload?

Here are two ways:

• Create / test / test more new things.

Nobody gets the time. The most productive thing you can do all day long is to reject things that do not matter.

He then replaced them with something new - a new business experiment, a new trick in marketing , a new tactic for more sleep and productivity, and so on.

Professor  Alan Laitman , one of the most prominent computer scientists, checks his e-mail once every three months. Imagine what you might have created if you said "No" to all these minor commitments.

• Invest your attention in valuable information.

The shocking truth: I still read the news and occasionally watch different real-life programs. But more importantly, I do not stop pursuing my goals, I'm not satisfied with the first page of the newspaper "Life".

I do not stop searching for quality information, testing and applying innovations just to be able to offer you content from which to gain skills and knowledge .

And too useful information can be harmful!

Another shock?

Of course, not everything you read or look at should be of use to you.

The shows I watch after a hard day will not teach me any special skill, nor will it do me any harm.

I just do not pay any special attention to them.

The most important of all is:

Give priority to your circle of control! Otherwise your circle of concern will take too much of your attention!

Do not forget:

Do not look at the news or another reality, instead spend your free time in something useless, it's like boasting that you do not eat salami but tread with three chocolate cakes a day.

That is why in the arguments "The news is something bad" there is no context.

Health and happiness are determined by the way you spend your time as a whole. And it is the interest that produces the greatest results.

Whether you enjoy reading news, gossip, silly TV shows or whatever, do not forget to spend time on what you want to achieve and do, what you are interested in - just prioritize the development of a circle of control.

And remember:

Just as you spend your time, you will live your life. So invest it wisely.