How best do we spend our time?

We all are challenged by the limited resource of time in our lives. For the last four days, I have been down with the flu sleeping as much as possible. This downtime has led to some re-evaluation of how I spend my time. This thought process actually started a few days earlier, when my wife and I were discussing an article I shared with her about the risks associated with some social media activities.

"Top Facebook Applications Vulnerable to XSS and SQLi: Highlights the risks of trusting third-party apps"
In reference to Farmville and Causes, the top two applications on Facebook, the article states: "Both applications contained cross-site scripting vulnerabilities that could have been exploited to perform a wide range of attacks, from exposing personal information from a user's profile to launching a social networking worm that propagates through clickjacking." Yikes! That is not the kind of exposure I want.

After reading the article, my wife said "Instead of wasting time fake farming, I could be learning to cook amazing things on Rouxbe for the holidays when the family comes to visit." Rouxbe is a beautiful and informative online cooking school to which I purchased a lifetime membership for my wife. Christine's comment brought a smile to my face.

So while I was home sick over the weekend I eliminated about seventy percent of my applications on Facebook, left about forty groups and/or pages, tightened up my privacy settings and cut out almost all Facebook notifications to my email. Then in my personal email account, I unsubscribed to about thirty emails; and cut my inbox down from about 400 to forty emails.

How will I spend all this time saved?
There are some things that I need to do more. Listening, walking, jogging, stretching, reading and writing are among them. So I have committed to do more of these things, in place of some of the mindless online activities I have eliminated.

Yesterday, I went out to the garage and pulled out a box of old books that I would like to read. Since I recently attended the Wizard Academy out in the Texas Hill Country west of Austin, I dusted off a copy of Greek Tragedies. Mythology and storytelling are very important in understanding our world; and can help immensely in making us more compelling communicators.

I must admit that understanding mythology is not one of my strengths, all the more reason to study up. However, I did find the following beautiful and wise.
"Justice so moves that those only learn who suffer; and the future you shall know when it has come; before then, forget it. It is grief too soon given. All will come clear in the next dawn's sunlight."
~Chorus of Argive Elders,
Agamemnon of the trilogy The Oresteia

What are some ways that you would like to change how you spend your time?