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Ok, so I have about 50 different things that I should be doing right now but ... well ... you know how it is ... I don't actually feel like doing anything!

That comes off the back of a couple of really productive days when I got a heap of stuff done but today ... well ... I'll do just about anything other than work. I'm not all that fussed on catching up with my reading either ... and there's a heap of that waiting for me.

You don't read much? Really? Then how do you keep up with all the changes that are going on in the world of the Internet? How do you know what developments are happening with the software that you use to get your messages out to your clients?

How do you keep up with all the changes in technology that have an impact on the way people can pay for their online purchases? Do you really just leave it all to your sponsors to work out because the only thing you have to worry about is building and submitting?

Personally I think that you're crazy if you are not paying attention to what is going on in the world around you. There are so many things going on out there that can really have a negative impact on your business and if you're not keeping up with them then, in the blink of an eye, you and your business could be in a world of trouble from something that you never saw coming.

Of course, finding the time to keep up with developments in technology and every other area that might have an impact on you can be hard but finding that time is becoming more and more important.

Perhaps you need to do what someone suggested to me a couple of weeks ago. If you use a diary or an online calendar to manage your time and keep track of all the things you need to do then, perhaps, you need to start blocking out 45 minutes or an hour each day and just use that time to keep up with all those changes.

You could also do something similar to what my partner does. He has a heap of information come in from a whole bunch of sources every day and he spends some time each day just skimming through that information. He doesn't try and read it all, he just skims through it looking for anything that might be important.

If it is important, he reads it; if it doesn't seem to be so important he makes a mental note of what he has glanced at so that he has some reference point to go back to if it does become important later on. Steve is our SEO "expert" but these days he rarely stops to completely read anything that is posted about SEO. Instead he's got his mental filing system set to remember basic things like headlines so that he can go back to it if he needs to.

He rarely does need to go back to anything that is being written about SEO these days because the fundamentals haven't changed in years and, for the level of work we do for clients, everything else is just fluff around the edges.

But there is plenty of stuff out there that is not 'fluff around the edges'. There are changes happening every day in the way our potential customers interact with the Net. Facebook is constantly changing the way it allows us to do things on their platform and coding never stands still either. Those are just some of the things that we really need to keep up with.

The other area that webmasters tend to ignore despite the fact that we are so dependent on it is the hardware that we use. Many of us miss important developments that can make a huge difference in how we work and where we work too simply because we're too busy to pay any attention to what is happening.

Apple announced a number of new things for their phones and tablets this week ... did you catch those announcements? Actually this time, while there were some new things announced, none of them will have a major impact on how we work in this industry but were you paying attention when Apple first released their Ipad Pro?

I certainly wasn't but if I had been listening I would have bought one much sooner than what I did. When you combine the iPad Pro with some of the software that is now offered as a service, rather than a purchase, you can change the way you work quite dramatically.

Now that I have an iPad Pro, one of Apple's genuine keyboards, and Adobe's suite of programs as a monthly subscription rather than a monster download I can work just about anywhere I want. I could have been doing that many months ago but I wasn't paying attention and it took months before I realised what I was missing by not having one.

So don't spend all your time focusing on nothing but the work you have to do to keep your business functioning. Spend some time looking at what is going on in the world around you too because the world is moving on even if you are standing still and paying no attention.