I hope people have learned something in the last seven days and I’ll see you this time next year for another challenge attempt. Between now and then I challenge you all to find other challenges to test yourselves with.

I’ll wrap this up with a Jerry Springer ending…take care of yourselves and each other!

Previously, I’ve been a fan of traditional paper organizers like filofax, or the old fashioned ‘note’ for To-do lists. But due to the modern age, transferring your handwritten memos and such like onto a PC takes time. So now is the time upgrade and to find a device able to meet all my needs.

Welcome to my personal choice – the HP IPAQ 214!

In previous days, I learned the best way to save time is to eliminate repetitive tasks or automating them as much as possible. With email and modern technology taking advancements in the last 2-3 years it’s time to let technology do all the work. Freeing up time is the key to productivity. An investment in time is an investment in the present and for the future.

With the 214, it offers everything I need from a mobile device, without having to drag a laptop around, making 1-to-1 presentations, synchronizing MS Office applications to and from the device with both PC and laptop via Bluetooth. With the ability to control things remotely from BT WiFi PDA through 3G mobile, it frees up time and allows me remote access to any project I’m working on, while being able to spend more time with my family.

If you’re serious about making more quality time, think about your tasks and how a remote device like the HP IPAQ 214 could help benefit your daily routine. If you would prefer to include both a PDA and a phone together, you can find an all-in-one competitive Smartphone for similar price.

A motto I found useful in the last few days is this…

Use modern technology – don’t let modern technology use you.

A special day spent with a special person. This is one day that I wouldn’t of been distracted by this challenge! If only the football season ended a week ago…doh!

From what started off a special day with a special someone, turned into a special day of special development.

It was time to plan an additional project. That project was to consider how many ways to extend space in my house. Time has come to rebuild for the future and to continue to add value to what we have. A new extension? A new floor? A new conversion? All good questions and all good options. They all must be researched fully to find out which option is going to be the most beneficial to the pound. I gave myself a week to do some basic research and a month to come to a conclusion and to shop around. Then up to twelve months to go from planning to development. To-do lists at the ready – you’re in for some using and abusing!

The main issue in this challenge is to not allow technology, media hype and peer pressure to trick you into thinking what you’re doing gives a value of self-worth. It really is just there to interrupt you and get your attention in order to make a profit from your time. If you attempted the challenge and failed, you will be able to work out where you went wrong and thus able to focus on your weak points to become stronger in the future.

I spent a lot of this lazy Sunday thinking about the challenge and where I went wrong, so next year I can beat it. I made the mistake of being in love with football during what is the most hectic time of the season. I feel that if the challenge was based around another period, I would of stood a much stronger chance of completing it.

During recent days, if you look back at what you’ve gained from the challenge and use this to show yourself that you’ve gained something from doing it makes it all worthwhile.

What I personally managed to achieve during the last few days was to realize how much time I spend doing one thing and how much little time I spend not doing something else. I spent some extra quality time with my family, listened to some old tunes that I’ve not heard for some time, created priority lists on how to complete a task, while listing other tasks needed to be done, along with finding solutions to problems, automating repetitive tasks and persuading people to do things so I don’t have to, to name just a few. The positives gained by attempting the challenge more than outweigh the negatives for failing it.

I have also taken something else out of the challenge and that is being able to reduce time spent doing things that can be batched at a later date, or cut down on time spent checking information that doesn’t really matter in my life and those around me.

I also watched Highlander tonight, it was great! Long live the cheesy movies of yesteryear. There shall be only one!

Due to the nature of the game, I had totally forgotten about the challenge, thus technically failing it! Oh no! On the bright side it was a glorious 2-0 victory for the ‘Boro and on the darker side, I will have to wait until next year to have another real crack at the challenge.

Reflecting on my failure to complete the challenge this year, I gained a lot from it, and realised what I had been missing out on. But when local pride is at stake, I had to focus on the final two games of the football season. I have to ask myself this question…did I fail because I’m addicted to information overload? Or did I fail because I’m addicted to football? As my friends who tried this challenge failed days ago, I think I did well to even get this far. lol

I will continue tomorrow where the challenge left off and for the remainder of the week, work out if I can still take large chunks of info out of my day and make it go splat.

At the end of the day I stand proud of going almost 3 days without my usual fix. But a major Boro relapse made me trip over that hurdle of distraction. Better luck next time!

BORO – how I love thee! Next season we shall rise!

It was now time to debrief my privates. And I don’t mean turn on Girls of the Playboy Mansion…it was time to sit down and have a family argument. Did I say argument? I meant discussion! I decided in order to fill the vortex left by lack of information it was about time to extend those conversations with those around me. It was time to discuss the future and make some plans. Something that often gets neglected when someone brings up such a topic. It was at this time when it finally clicked – I was the only person in my family doing this challenge and I began to envy their freedom to sink into the sofa and curl up and watch Jerry Springer episodes that have been aired more times than my dirty laundry.

During our cute little family discussion I thought I would abuse their knowledge of recent events. I had not watched or heard the news in close to 30hrs. Just had it began to get interesting. So I thought I would probe my family to find out what’s been going down in the world and what I’ve missed on TV and in the news. What’s family for, right? For the remainder of this challenge, they will be my researchers and information drones! Like ants providing their queen with honey…OK that was cheesy. But it’s time to work out ways of getting around the rules to avoid wasted time. So this spurred me on to sit and think of ways to get what I want without doing much in order to get it. Lazy, or smart, you decide. I prefer the latter, but that’s because I need my fix.

My deviations and cunning ideas were buzzing around my mind, working out ways to complete the challenge, while getting things done and staying sane at the same time. I felt like a movie villain plotting an evil scheme to cheat the system. A fun twisted game that maybe is a sign that I am well and truly addicted to my overload of information, or yet to succumb to defeat, or working out solutions to the problems this challenge brings. At the end of Day 2, I stand tall…but for how much longer?!?!?

As the hours tick by I feel like I’ve accomplished something more already and the challenge has only just started.

I begin to wonder…it’s just a matter of time before I bite the bullet and do something I’m not supposed to be doing. In order to combat this I go to the grass roots of the problem and write up a To-do list to help me beat this monster, of a challenge. It’s time to get things in order and get down to some old school time management. I start to think back to when information wasn’t really a problem. I go back to as far as I can remember – the glory of the 1980s! No Internet! No Emails! No Instant Messengers! Lots of great cheesy and hilarious music. Already I have found out how to beat one of the biggest demons I had to face on the challenge – The World Wide Web. In order to avoid getting caught in the web, I have to go back to my roots. Back to when I was a kid. I thought, “is there any better place to start?”. At this time I head straight over to my music collection and dig out a suitable weapon to help me crack the challenge – Iron Maiden!

With my favourite Iron Maiden album in hand, The Number of the Beast, I begin to blast it out. The nostalgia was beginning to creep in and shortly after Iron Maiden album reached its climax, I followed up with a collection of other bands from my childhood and school days. Out came the likes of Queen, Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer, Nirvana, Pantera and Machine Head. It was the 80s and 90s revisited. Albums I’d not heard in years were getting local air time.

As the loudness of heavy metal began to thunder out of my speakers, I got my head down and continued to work on my To-do List, which also turned into a Not-to-do List.

I was trying to hold off playing my ‘get out of jail card’ until I felt the urge to get my daily one-hour fix of information! I decided to cheat and split up my hour into two half an hour blocks. The first of which was spent checking emails and quickly skimming through my usual football, design and music websites and blogs, while seeing how one of my best in real life friends was doing. He was having some problems with his neighbours as was going to beat them up. Great stuff. I’ll look forward to finding out what happens tomorrow.

My second half hour will be invested in setting up my auto responder to let people know I will get back to them at the end of the week. Why didn’t I think of this sooner? I have now saved myself about 4-5hrs a week if I batch them all together at once. I also decided to abuse my laptop that was now taking over as the main source for music and compose this blog post and slap it in a flash drive, so my remaining half hour of sanctuary would be more productive. Luckily for me, I don’t have wireless internet access or I would of failed long ago!

As the day draws to a close, I have a slight feeling that the rest of the challenge will be interesting to find out how I handle it…or should that be, how it handles me? Whoever said less is more could be onto something.

What we recommend is that you contact friends and relatives. informing them of what you intend to do. They are the closest people who will witness your information outcast suffering and will get to monitor your progress and most likely to sponsor your endeavour. Did I say suffering? I meant your good will and acknowledgment in knowing how much time we’re investing in severe information overload through practice!

If you’re feeling brave you can put together a basic spreadsheet and gather all your donations via signatures, together with names and sponsorship amounts. Upon doing so, you could go take an additional step and approach small businesses and explain what you’re doing and if they would like to contribute towards your charity at the end of the week.

What we recommend you do is compile a simple diary of events to show people what you have done, or haven’t done during your challenge. During and after completion, this will act as your guide and reference in finding out how much time you’re actually spending soaking up all this information, which mostly is not that important.

Have you got what it takes to accept this challenge and also raise money for a good cause?

The May Day Information Challenge is an open challenge to go one week without consuming an overload of information.

In this week, you can’t do the following for 23hrs of your day, for seven days a week, starting from May 1st and ending May 7th of every year:

• No Internet during your private time (unless you need to for an important task at work)
• No RSS feeds or reading email via home or mobile devices
• No television
• No magazines
• No books
• No radio

During this week, you are allowed one ‘get out of jail card’ per day and this outlet lasts for one hour. In this hour you are allowed to do any of the above, but it cannot go over the 60 minute limit.

“OMG WTF R U SPOSED 2 DO???//?/?/??”…I hear you say.

Here are some examples, for those who are already left scared beyond belief that someone is challenging them to cut out the vast amount of information they consume each day…and for SEVEN days!

• Use this newly found free time to look at your current situation in life. Are you happy with what you have? Or do you want more out of life? Now is your time to sit down and plan for the future!
• Spend time with friends and family that you wouldn’t be able to do while reading the overload of information you’re usually doing.
• Take some time out to visit places you wouldn’t normally visit. Go outside, experience the world in your area, or go beyond your area and enjoy some time away from the consumed lifestyle we all lead.
• Fit in some more exercise, or if you’ve slacked over the years, now is a great time to get rid of that spare tire you’ve been carrying.
• Find, or recreate a hobby you’ve always wanted to do, or used to do and thought that you would never find the time to do it.
• Be creative and do something productive and memorable

Those are just some of the activities you can do during this info restricted week.

He must be mad, I hear you say. Rest assured – I’m not mad, even though some would argue this. I’m up for the challenge if you are man (or woman) enough to join me in this May Day Information Challenge.

If you take part in this challenge, feel free to post a comment below to publicly state your involvement. You can also use some of those 60 minutes each day from your ‘get out of jail card’ to leave additional comments explaining to others what you’ve done during this May Day Challenge.

Make the challenge more fun by challenging your friends to take part too and link them to this post. Like the idea? Use your social networking sites bulletins and email super powers to spread the word – and enjoy the challenge!

~NicoN

Note: The May Day Information Challenge is a non-profit org, setup by me, to raise awareness of how much information we all consume – by removing it for a short time, to come to understanding what more productive things everyone can achieve if they cut back and see the bigger picture.