Oh, so it's just the feel-good BS everyone is already aware of. Thank you for saving me the time.

Perhaps you may want to seek some novelty and challenge yourself to think creatively and do things the hard way... by reading the article, recommended by someone in your affinity network.

The elaboration on those points is the interesting part.

They appear to have mistaken "increase your capacity to do cool stuff" for "increase your intelligence."

how is one supposed to network when you work in a 9-5 job in a company no one gives a shit about.

The article says you can network via social media or in person. The goal is to know more people so you may be exposed to more collective experiences, viewpoints, and intelligence.

It's mostly about increasing the size of your filter bubble.

What do you want to do? Tech related? Find a meet-up or hacker space or make one. Something more physical like a sport or physical activity? Join a rec league, find a cycling group, join a gym, find groups that go hiking/climbing. Community involvement? Attend city council meetings, find out who's active and talk to them and find out what they do and where.

Host lunch and learns at your office. Go to a public speaking club before work or after. Join some meetups. No one at any of those care about what company you work at.

9-5? Damn, you have a lot of free time.

You meant non-job time, right? There are other inevitable time sinks.

Everyone has time sinks. Just about everyone over the age of 22 works at least 8 hours. 9-5 are lighter hours than anyone I know excluding those who are shift workers. I don't know anyone with a white-collar job that gets off before 6, and many start before 8. I work some of the lightest hours of people I know at 9-6:30. We all find time to network.

So what kind of networking do you do? Go to company happy hour? Freelance? "Connecting" to people on LinkedIn?

New grads/young professionals track me down regularly asking for "career advice" (a job). People my age/older email me about potential job opportunities. Coffee with either of them is pretty effortless given that both of them will typically come to you. Meetups[0] after work usually start at 7. I probably get to about 3 or 4 a month which is plenty to build a superficial network outside of my immediate friends and family. I don't have children. Even if I did though, trading 2 nights a month my significant other for personal/career networking isn't all that unreasonable. A friend of mine runs a meetup and he has 3 kids.

I sleep 7 hours, I'm at work/commuting 11 hours. That leaves me with 30 hours on weekdays to divide however I please (obviously there are other basic sunk costs like basic hygiene and eating). I've found that once I quantify the time I have in life, it's a lot easier to notice when it's available and be productive with it. I'm really not even one of those super motivated people. I just like to be conscientious of my free time.

[0] http://www.meetup.com/

Make use of the 5-9?

Admit it. You don't have kids - right?

Having kids does not exclude you from having a social life. Even one night a week to go to a local meetup would be great for improving one's network.

That was not included as a constraint.

That said, I do have a kid, and while he definitely represents a huge draw on my time and attention, I still manage to make and maintain technical connections outside of work.

Depending on circumstances, "we have kids of a similar age and both work in tech" is an easy instant connection.

Maybe look for other work? Try other angles on life?

Follow people on twitter, etc.