This morning I woke up and the first thing I wanted to do when I regained some semblance of waking sanity was check on the new Macbook Pro updates that were announced at about 3AM in my timezone, while I was asleep (I do that occasionally).

Not because I’m an Apple geek, which I am, but because I’m ready to retire my iBook G4 and get something that can actually function while running Leopard. No, not retire: stomp on repeatedly and throw at the ceiling fan until all its little crumbled pieces are scattered around the living room. It has been a source of frustration for me, as you may be able to tell.

Then I went to check on the prices, and this was another source of frustration. I had budgeted my AU$2,699 for the baseline Macbook Pro and here it was for $3199, thanks to the weak Australian dollar. In light of the fact that I did this on the morning of Blog Action Day, you may now scoff at me. Furthering the arrogance of my statement was the fact that I was smiling in glee a few days earlier as my paycheck came out of PayPal and turned into Aussie dollars on its way to my bank account, a smile brought to my face because of—you guessed it—the weakness of the Aussie dollar.

And as I realized the arrogance of my frustrations, I also realized the hypocrisy, because a few days earlier I scolded someone who said they “refused to suffer through another Queensland summer without an air conditioner,” when true suffering is characterized by things much darker than a bit of sweat running down the back.

Our Culture is Abhorrently Arrogant

It seems to me that Western culture has this sickening disease: the sense of entitlement. The sense of entitlement that plagues the way we view the world and makes it possible for people to plunder the planet with no remorse in spite of the increasing environmental terrors we face. The sense of entitlement that makes snotty Mac fans go red-faced in frustration when prices rise in the face of a failing economy, despite the fact that the nice conversion rates on that last paycheck make up for most of the difference.

There is a lot happening, and a lot that can be done, to stop poverty and true suffering. For an individual to do their part in assisting, all it takes is the right knowledge (which you can acquire from a place like Learn About Poverty) and the right actions—and the commitment and discipline required to repeat those actions when you can.

The methods for dealing with these problems exist. To truly eradicate these problems, many things need to change, but the methods for dealing with and alleviating (as opposed to eradicating) the problems do exist and are available to normal, everyday people without flying into the middle of a foreign country and helping in the flesh. The real problem, or at least one of the real problems, that prevents the eradication of poverty and the development of the right infrastructure to permanently destroy it, lies in the way we—citizens of developed nations who actually have the capacity to do something—think.

I don’t believe that those who have the capacity and have worked for the capacity to enjoy their lives need to live in poverty and refuse to enjoy the material pleasures of life in order to join the fight against poverty. If anything that would exacerbate the problem and even perhaps give those living in poverty nothing to aspire to. But there is much we can do, even if it begins with a simple attitude change in the way we view and interact with the world.

Change the Attitude to Change the World

That’s a starting point, obviously, as nothing happens without taking action. That’s probably one of the laws of physics or something; I don’t know because I flunked any class remotely mathematical in high school, though I don’t complain about that because at least I had the opportunity to pass if I wasn’t so busy smoking in the bushes during class time. And yet people—students—do complain about the fact they have the opportunity to attain an education, unlike most of the world’s population (see, that sense of entitlement again).

A starting point is better than nothing and a step forward is one step closer to finding the problem’s solution. Let’s stop thinking as if we have the right to everything we want and remember that there are those who don’t get to have what they need—and do something about it. Put some cash into World Vision or Kiva (a concept I love because it leads to sustainable solutions rather than putting money into a non-sustainable fund).

I’m the first person to admit I am sometimes guilty of this attitude towards the things I want. Here’s an idea: how about each time we catch ourselves thinking this way, we put some money into one of these organizations? It’ll probably teach us a better way of thinking pretty darn quickly, so let’s not forget to keep up the habit of giving even once we’ve cured our own selfishness.

If you haven’t signed your own blog up for Blog Action Day, go do so now. You might not be able to pour money into third world development (or even poverty in your own country) but, by talking about this issue, we can bring it to the forefront of global consciousness and ensure that more is done by collectives and individuals alike.

Collis, Cyan, Easton, Fuad and everyone else working on Blog Action Day are doing an excellent job. It’s my distinct pleasure to work with the people at Envato on a daily basis. They’re changing the world.

I think that if you tell yourself you need a certain computer before you can start a project, you’re a) kidding yourself and b) never going to start. The computer industry is designed in such a way that you are never content with what you have, because your up-to-date technology is never up-to-date for long.

I considered mentioning a few exceptions where you do need up-to-date technology to get the job done. I thought through the list: animation, music… Hmm. Then I realized there are no exceptions, unless you create them; I recorded over 250 demo recordings over the span of two years on an underpowered Mac mini without any decent audio equipment and not a lot of storage space, and before I went Mac, a very old PC that could barely run Adobe Audition (which, by the way, no self-respecting musician uses).

But this isn’t about whether you need technology to do good work, because you don’t. This is about whether updated technology is an important factor in determining how well and how quickly you can do work.

As a writer at one of the web’s most popular productivity blogs, I am seeing this attitude more and more:

People are obsessed with the notion that better technology will get more of your stuff done. That’s stupid! Technology is distracting and makes us less productive. Cut my internet cable and give me Lotus Agenda*!

*Which I am not knocking, partially because I have never used it. Partially because there are some very tech-savvy people who I respect a lot that think it’s great. Hi, dad!

You probably expect me to nod along with this group of people who hate new technology, especially given my rants about digital task lists being bad for productivity (they’re not actually bad, and they can work if you manage them right, but they’re not optimal and productivity is about optimization). I actually think that, while you should never, ever use lack of technology as an excuse to ditch your work, better tech definitely means better work, done faster.

• Better tech means better processors and better memory, which means your computer runs faster. Less time waiting for things to happen.
• Better tech means more storage space, so you can spend less time getting your data to shed pounds and more time adding to the weight.
• Better tech means more reliable tech, which means less time waiting for repairs or losing whole chunks of data or even years of work.

And the list goes on and on.

One of the most famous examples, partly because it’s a fact confirmed by reputable studies, is that more screen space means more productivity. The screen space can come in the form of bigger monitors or more monitors; heck, Al Gore uses three 30” displays chained together and he gets more done in a day than most people do in a month.

There is a growing trend to treat technology like a big interference in our lives, like something that’s not helping us get more done. Like something we should regret ever became an integral part of our lives.

Bullshit. Show me how much you get done if I give you a notepad and pen and cut off your internet connection. Sure, there will be less distractions, but that’s not a problem with technology—that’s a problem with the user’s inability to focus. Distraction is present in every environment.

The fact is that you will get nowhere near as much done. You cannot write as fast as you can type, unless you’re a beginning typist. You cannot access important information or do any form of research anywhere near as quickly, and any in-depth research will probably involve getting in the car and driving. And every minute in the car is more money spent on gas than you’d spend on electricity using your computer all day long.

So the little club of vocal people who are telling us that technology is ruining our productivity need to shut up for a while and reassess. Simple logic seems to indicate the opposite, and if doubling my screen real estate helps me get more done in a day, I’ll be damned if I don’t do exactly that.

Updated technology is definitely important to doing productive work. You don’t need it to do work, but if you want to grab the absolute most out of each day, it’s a huge factor to consider.

The old rule of thumb for freelancers goes like this: for every hour of billable work you do, there’s another hour of work you can’t bill for.

It could be book-keeping, it could be marketing, it could be organizing or brainstorming. For the record, you shouldn’t be billing your clients using an hourly rate, but by charging a fixed rate for the deliverable. Working out your hourly rates is useful for planning purposes only.

Let’s say you’re earning $1,000 a week as a freelancer. Depending on your situation, this probably means you’re comfortable. Maybe not comfortable enough to go out for a beer every Friday night, but you’re also not struggling to pay the rent.

If this rule of thumb is true — and in my experience, it is — you can either double your income or halve your work through the art of delegation. I’ve just recently started delegating about 90% of those non-billable hours (and a few billable ones) to my wife, and so far it has allowed me to focus on getting more clients and doing more money-earning work.

The beauty is that because most non-billable activities can be batched, the time expense for Isabelle increases at a much slower rate than mine each time a new client comes on board. I can work full-time just on writing and delivering the product, while she works part-time keeping things in order.

I mentioned that I’ve also delegated some of my billable hours, because Isabelle has also taken on the role of my research assistant. This means I send her an article brief, and she does some research and sends me back a document with notes and links. This effectively halves the time I have to spend on each article, and sometimes I can even use the document I receive as a basis outline for the article I’ve got to write.

I still do research for each article, but now the groundwork is done — the most time-consuming part of research is the first phase where you have to dig into the topic and find out where the good information is.

If you don’t have a spouse who is happy and willing to take on this role (or even, if you don’t have a spouse you can trust with your work), this will be harder to pull off initially. You’ll need to find an assistant the hard way and pay them by the hour. But if you do it right, you won’t be losing money, you’ll be making it. I don’t need to pay Isabelle by the hour because any money either of us makes is automatically considered family income.

If not double the income, then…

If the effective practice of task delegation does not double your income, it doubles your income earning capacity. It means you can take on more work than you could humanly take on before. There are essentially two ways to double your income: double your rates, or double the amount of work you do.

Doubling your rates is a very time-consuming process. You can’t wake up one day and multiply your prices by two. And you may lose clients as you get more expensive even if it’s gradual, especially if you’re not seen to be delivering that much value.

But delegation is something you can implement rapidly, see results from quickly and either double your income or give yourself the potential to double your income in a much shorter timeframe.

How to Make the Transition

Taking on an assistant who you can delegate work to is not always an easy transition, especially if you like to have control over all aspects of your business. Most of us do.

Making the transition successfully is primarily about planning properly and setting clear boundaries. You have to know where your duties stop and your assistant’s begin, and conversely, you’ve got to know where the assistant’s duties stop and yours begin. There’s no better way to cripple an effective assistant than by dumping work on them that’s not theirs to do.

You’ll need a list of duties, whether that list is verbal or written (obviously written is better), and you’ll need to communciate it clearly and concisely. Clearly because boundaries that are foggy around the edges are as effective as no boundaries at all, and concisely because anything that communicates more than the minimum necessary will be forgotten within five minutes.

I’d love to hear your own tips, tricks and techniques for effective delegation, and if you meddle in this dark art after reading this article, come back and tell us about your experiences.

Wordprezzie offers tutorials and themes for WordPress, and Nick has launched out the gate with:

• A tutorial on WordPress security tips and growing a great comment section,
• A premium and very attractive theme called Ice Cream Dream,
• And a free theme called Changing Room—an entertaining way to say, “We’re under construction.”

Before you ask, I don’t make a cent from Nick for posting this, but I know that many of you are just starting out in building a web-based business and that Nick always does high-quality work. This is definitely a site for your RSS reader, and perhaps your credit card if his themes look useful to you.

WordPress themes, tutorials and design from Wordprezzie.

Public relations is no longer about relationships.

Traditional PR is now about trying to get journalists to notice you and your sensational little stunts. It’s about getting the media to do the relationship building for you.

This is why public relations practitioners are failing online, especially in the social media space. By its nature, and by name, social media is about developing relationships with others, whether they’re content producers or consumers.

But public relations isn’t about long-term relationship building anymore. It’s about the short-term instant return of sending out a press release and seeing how many bites you get—if any actually get past the spam filters. It seems some PR people still have the attitude that bloggers are like journalists and you can send them whatever you feel like.

But bloggers aren’t journalists; news organizations want your press releases because they need to fill up their pages. Blogging is a different world, where unsolicited marketing is called spam. Unless bloggers ask for your releases or have a “submit a tip” form or address, you cannot send this stuff to them at all.

You might not like it, but don’t ignore the warning. Spam, unsolicited email of any kind, is an offense by law.

Instead of firing off a release, you need to take another route. Long-term investments in relationship-building will get you somewhere. Don’t even think about pitching until you’ve contributed to the community and developed some kind of relationship with the author, and even then, you have to approach ‘the pitch’ differently. Releases don’t work here.

There’s a lot of hate for PR people out there, and having worked as one, I’ve felt it. It’s not necessary because there are good, competent, social-media-aware PR people out there, and many of those who aren’t competent in the social media field are learning. Bloggers: don’t hate PR people by default. PR people: don’t spam and later claim it was an accident. Spamming is not ever accidental, and it will possibly get you in legal trouble and almost certainly get you on lists like these.

To succeed in the social space, public relations practitioners need to change their job description and their attitude. They need to spend time building up profiles and reputations, and they need to rinse and repeat the process in every social space they wish to use.

Furthermore, they have to add value to build that reputation. Which means no more spamming, no more “just handle it with a release.” It means hard work and long-term investments and connecting with others who you can give something valuable to.

If you’re in PR and you’re trying to infiltrate the social web, you need to think of it like this: your current public is made up of journalists. Maybe not the public you want the journalists to get you in front of, but you are shaping press releases for journalists. They’re a more immediate public.

Your public in this space is not made up of journalists. It is people. Broad, eh? They might be content producers who can review your product on a well-known blog, or they might be people with 32 followers and an archive of an entire 27 tweets on Twitter.

Since you can’t divide your public into well-defined slices, you need to cater to them all. And that means giving them information they can use.

In short, how to transition from old media to social media as a public relations practitioner:

• Think long-term investments, not immediate returns.
• Think relationships with people, not broadcasting to an audience.
• Think about how people can use your information, not how you can use them.

They’re basic guidelines, but you’ll see better returns with this attitude than with the traditional system that doesn’t work anymore.

I recently had the pleasure of interviewing J.D. Roth. J.D. is a prominent personal finance blogger who runs Get Rich Slowly, which has more than 60,000 subscribers. If you’re looking to understand money better and get your financial life under control, I suggest heading over there and subscribing yourself.

We spoke about writing, blogging and the transition for print writers to the web. I hope you enjoy this interview and learn something new from it.

Why did you choose to write about personal finance, as opposed to other writing niches?

In some ways, personal finance chose me.

I was writing a personal blog, covering topics like comic books and movies and what my cat did today. But in the background, I was struggling with debt. After reading several books about money management, I wrote a blog post called “Get Rich Slowly” that summarized what I had learned. For whatever reason, this post got picked up by a lot of big sites (Lifehacker, Boing Boing, etc.)

Several months later, I was fishing around for new blogs I could start. I started a comic book blog, and then as an afterthought I started Get Rich Slowly. I thought I would be the first personal finance blogger. Little did I know there was already a vibrant community of money writers!

What is the biggest challenge of content generation that’s specific to your niche? What problems, and rewards, does writing about personal finance present that other niches don’t?

I’m not sure that I can identify one challenge that’s specific to personal finance blogging, but I can share the challenges I face daily (some of which are surely present for writers in other niches). For example, it’s a HUGE struggle to balance the needs of new readers and and the needs of veterans. If I provide an extra paragraph of background to a post in order to make the context more clear, existing readers get bored because I’ve shared that stuff many times before. But if I don’t share that information, new readers are lost (or make incorrect assumptions).

It’s also challenging deciding what sort of content to post. I’ve already written about buying a new car a couple times before. Is it okay to write about it again? Should I wait a few months?

There is one thing that writing about personal finance has done for me that writing about another topic might not. It has helped me improve my financial life. I try to follow many of the things I share on the site, and by doing so, I’ve really made terrific strides. I’m out of debt. I’m saving. I’m learning to invest. If I were writing about comics, I’m sure my financial situation would have deteriorated, not improved.

What’s your best tip for traditional writers who are trying to grasp writing for the web?

Great question!

I actually interviewed Scott Burns recently (he’s a financial writer in Dallas), and we discussed this topic. He’s been able to make the move to the web, but many of his colleagues have not. In many respects, the actual writing skills are the same. If you can write short, punchy copy for newspapers and magazines, you can do the same for the web.

But writing for the web is more interactive. You have greater contact with the readers. They’re more vocal and more visible. They give you instant feedback — and not all of it is positive. So I think the best thing traditional writers can do as they move to the web is to do their best to create a relationship with their readers, to respond to their suggestions, to establish some sort of give and take.

What do you do to put yourself in the writing mood?

Write.

Actually, this is something I’ve been wrestling with lately. Before, when I wasn’t writing full-time, I simply wrote whenever the muse arrived. Now, though, my livelihood depends on writing. Sometimes I’m not in the mood, and it’s not possible to force it. (Or not advisable to force it, anyhow.)

Fortunately, I’ve discovered three things that are almost sure to break writer’s block.

1. Yardwork. Without fail, every time I mow the lawn, I’m struck by inspiration. It’s uncanny. I have a long list of posts — many of them quite popular — that were brainstormed while working in the yard.
2. Running. I’ve recently begun running for the first time in my life. I’m finding that when I get in the zone, I sometimes get good ideas.
3. Getting out in life. Many of my best ideas and stories come from getting out of the house and just mingling with people: friends, family, and total strangers. If I’m really stuck, a trip to the library or the mall or a restaurant is almost sure to spark something.

Once you’re in the writing mood, what is your typical process for creating an article or blog post?

This is tough to answer. I don’t have a set method, and that’s part of the problem. I’m a very scattered writer.

I have, for example, a large text file filled with one-line topic ideas. I have scores of half-finished posts. I have maybe a dozen articles that are nearing completion. Recently I began experimenting with writing my articles long-hand on yellow legal pads. I have 8-10 of these rough drafts sitting on my desk.

It’s a mess.

So, there’s no typical process. Most of the time, I come up with an idea, jot some notes about it, set aside and forget about it for a while, come back to create a rough draft in a few weeks, forget about it some more, and then polish it at a later date.

Or maybe I just sit down and write a story from start to finish in twenty minutes. It all depends.

Regardless of the method, I almost always spend more time revising than I do writing. If an average post takes an hour to write (which seems in the ballpark), then it probably takes two hours to edit. Right now I’m working on a book review that I started almost a month ago. I spent half an hour finishing the writing portion earlier this evening, and then spent an hour on editing. I have at least 30 minutes left. For me, endless revision is part of the process. (In fact, I frequently revise posts that are over two years old!)

Thanks, J.D.!

There’s a blog that I used to read every single day. Absolutely religiously—every time something new was posted.

The author of this blog was a smart guy and really knew his field. And I knew that every single time the lights lit up next to that blog’s name in my feed reader, I was going to learn something new, or at least learn to do something I could already do, a whole lot better.

It was that dedication to providing valuable content that caused this blog to skyrocket into the so-called “A-list” and achieve great successes in a variety of ventures throughout the blogosphere.

Unfortunately, things changed and now I don’t read this blog anymore.

What did the owner of this blog do wrong that not only lost my interest, but the dedicated, loyal interest of readers all around the globe?

The problem was that he failed to see the power of selective guest posting.

When most of us subscribe to a blog, it’s to get the advice, teaching and point of view of the individual, or individuals, who make the blog work.

So when a guest post crops up, we expect it to be truly great and hopefully introduce us to someone just as dazzling and valuable as the owner.

Over time, the number of guest posts being published on the blog in question skyrocketed. And at the same time, the number of posts the original writer published shrank and shrank.

Some of the new writers became regulars publishing helpful material. But most were fly-by guests and their work was never particularly good. It wasn’t valuable and informative, or even entertaining. There didn’t seem to be any criteria for getting published on this blog.

Not only was the work dull, but these guests detracted from the work that the regular writers of this blog were doing. The signal-to-noise ratio got so bad that I dropped my subscription.

Guest posting is a great way to get your name out there; you gain credibility because the publication of a guest post is basically an endorsement. And if the blogger practices selective guest posting, it’s truly effective promotion.

And on the other side of the pond, posting a guest post lends yourself credibility. It means that others have found you and your site valuable enough to want to contribute.

But mark my words and burn this into your skull: if you become the harlot of blogs and let every half-assed writer who comes knocking on your door publish whatever they like on your blog, your reputation and your own writing will suffer for it.

When you select your guests carefully, you only strengthen your reputation, and you offer more value to those who are kind enough to gift you with well-written, considered articles.

There’s a blog that has a whole lot of respect throughout the blogosphere and from myself personally. If you’re a regular reader of this site, no doubt you know the Men with Pens. They practice selective guest posting, too—and today, I’m their third.

Today marks a pretty amazing milestone, at least for me.

For the first time since I started freelance writing, I’ve had to notify clients, and potential clients, that I have a full workload, and I’m not likely to take on any more work, unless I find the project personally interesting and the budget is equally interesting.

For me, getting to this point has been relatively quick; there are writers who slog at it for years, trying to fill up their billable hours with work, and never quite make it. Suffice it to say, I’m feeling a slight tinge of pride (if you think pride goes before a fall, please fall out of your chair here; nobody ever mentioned whose fall pride precedes).

But my move into freelancing was borne out of necessity, and like all of us I was desperate for work when I began. The desperation to have enough money to feed your family, fuel the car and pay the rent on time causes a sense of panic some would compare to the sensation of suffocating: gasping for more air, and not getting it. Feeling strained and closer to the end of it all by the moment.

Looking back in retrospect over the journey from suffocation to satisfaction, it becomes clear that the tough times are some of the most useful times of a freelancing career. The suffocation is a sense of urgency, an urgency that spurs you on and on to achieve what you need to achieve.

You can’t take a sick day. You can’t take a day to relax. You can’t afford to get distracted by Twitter even for fifteen minutes without feeling like you’ve squandered precious time (though it needs to be said that you can sometimes, if you’re lucky and smart, find clients through Twitter).

Put the sense of urgency to good use. Don’t sacrifice quality by taking shortcuts to get a half-baked result sooner, but do let it spur you on and motivate you. Carry the strength of that motivation with you even when your financial difficulties have passed.

For some, that desperation is fleeting. Once they’ve built a basic client base, even one that barely manages to put plain rice on the dinner menu, they fall back into their comfort zone.

“We’re breaking even now, at least,” they say.

The best thing you can do is cultivate the motivation that is derived from this desperation and make it part of who you are. You don’t want to keep the desperation that comes with it, of course. That just leads to stress. But self-motivation is one of those key aspects of being a great freelancer, like that other principle about how to be the best freelancer.

Don’t become complacent. Not now, not ever. Don’t get comfortable, and don’t get stagnant. Continue to challenge yourself, grow and explore new places and directions.

Most of all, make the most of the tough times and see the excitement and urgency it provides as a bonus, not a negative, because the sheer adrenaline that has you pulling 23 hour days won’t last forever.

I’m going to tell you a simple concept that has helped me build up great relationships with great clients and put food on the table for my family.

Best of all, you can start doing this today—right now, even.

There are a hell of a lot more factors to freelancing success than can ever be covered in one post. Or even one book.

But here’s one strategy that will get you far. Very, very far. Freelancers have a reputation for having a bit of a fickle streak, sitting at home and doing work only when they feel like it. The reputation exists simply because this is how many freelancers are. Shocking, ain’t it?

And yet it’s so, so easy to set yourself apart and develop a fantastic reputation.

Here’s how:

Provide the best damn service your clients have ever seen, or heard, or even dreamed about.

Go the extra mile in every way and whenever it’s possible to do so. It doesn’t have to take up a whole bunch of extra time; it means doing your best work every single time, communicating quickly, following instructions to a tee, and making up for it whenever you screw up—no matter how small the oversight was.

Go the extra mile, every time.

Yeah, we bitch and moan about some clients and how horrible they are. But you know what? If they’re giving you that much to moan about, drop them—they’re obviously not good for your heart condition. When you provide the best service around, you’ll have satisfied clients who are happy to work with you and, as it follows, a pleasure to work with.

I’m amazed that more freelancers aren’t taking this more idea more seriously, because it’s just so easy to do. If you’re not doing it already, start now or you’ll be crying over missed opportunities for decades to come.

Do I believe in boredom? No, not really, but apparently it’s an affliction that many people suffer from. I have no idea what’s going on in their noggins and I don’t care to experience it for myself, but if you’ve got a case of the bores and can’t seem to shake it, here’s a list of the top ten most entertaining blogs on the Internet (in my opinion).

1. Boing Boing

Boing Boing always has something strange, new, odd and quirky on it. The famed Directory of Wonderful Things is one of the most popular blogs on the planet and rightfully so—it’s not only great if you’re bored, but from personal experience I can tell you that a quick stop here will cure writer’s block pretty much every time. The cross-pollination of ideas and oddities here will set off every creative bone in your body.

2. Neatorama

Neatorama is another Boing Boing-esque site, that tracks the coolest stuff on the Internet and puts it all in one place. There’s a little bit of crossover in content between this site and BB, but enough of the content is different that it’s worth checking out. There’s less steampunk here, more interesting trivia. I’ve also just discovered that it takes ages to load when your net connection has been throttled.

3. Snarfd

Okay, just one more of these all-you-can-eat-cool-stuff blogs, I swear—but Snarfd is too cool not to list. These guys are the best at choosing which of the copious cool stuff out there they share, but unfortunately their posting frequency of late has been quite disappointing. Therefore, I list Snarfd here as a pressure tactic in the hopes they’ll get off their backsides and start writing again.

4. kottke.org

Did I say no more ‘cool stuff’ blogs? Erm. Oops. Kottke.org links to all manner of content on the Internet, sure to cure your bores and waste as much perfectly usable time as you care to.

5. ModBlog

ModBlog is quite NSFW, but I still find it fascinating to see what people will do to themselves. Tattoos and piercings make up most of ModBlog’s rolling chronicle of body modification, but there’s also the odd self-amputation and quite a few suspensions. Only for the iron-gutted. Me, I’ve got a lip ring and an earring and I think I’ll keep it at that for now.

6. Sushi Day

There are heaps of food blogs that go something like this: This is what I had for dinner at McDonald’s. Here’s a photo. How crap is that lettuce?

Sushi Day doesn’t moan about McDonald’s lettuce: it’s a blog with heaps of cool sushi recipes and it even has its own t-shirt. If you’ve gotten bored of spag-bol four nights a week check this site out. Sushi Day’s blogger, Allison, also taught me how to cut sushi without totally squashing the roll. Thank you, Allison.

7. Lifehacker

If you’re a regular reader you probably know that I’m a contributing editor at Lifehack.org, so this might seem like an odd recommendation. Lifehack is fantastic if you want in-depth content, but when you’re bored that’s usually not what you’re after. Lifehacker offers rapid-fire snippets pointing to lifehacks around the Internet. It’ll have you lost in a web-surfing session that leaves you feeling like the middle page of moleskine notebook in the morning.

8. Ctrl+Alt+Del

I don’t normally do comics and cartoons, but Ctrl+Alt+Del is positively funny. When I first discovered it a couple years back I read the entire archive in one sitting and have been reading it ever since. It’s labelled a “gamer comic” but if you spend any amount of time at a computer or interested in tech and don’t like cartoons, like me, you’ll love Ctrl+Alt+Del. And those archives will kill at least one whole day.

9. The *TUTS sites

There’s nothing better than learning something new when you’re bored. Not only is it absorbing and interesting, but you come out the other side with a new skill, one that may be marketable. When you’re bored I recommend checking out AUDIOTUTS, PSDTUTS, NETTUTS, and VECTORTUTS. More of these are coming soon.

Disclaimer: I’m a regular writer at AUDIOTUTS. Which, by the way, jumped from being freshly launched to having over 700 subscribers in just a few days. Awesome!

10. Wordsmith.org

Lose yourself in the A.Word.A.Day archives for a few hours. Like I said in number nine, there’s no better way to kill time than to learn something new. What could be better than embarrassing everyone you know with your far superior vocabulary? C’mon, it’ll be fun to see the look on their faces as they try to comprehend what you’re saying.