These are just some points that come to my mind now:

1- You should like your job
If you like what you are doing then you spend more and more time doing it. You
also have focus when doing it. Otherwise what is the point in staying up to
date? Is it just money? You can earn money more easily in business and you don't
need to spend hours in front of computers!

1- find  your goals
You should know what is your goal. Do u want to be a good developer  or an
analyst or what?
Aim high and start working on it.

2- Read
Read about anything you like in IT. read  patterns, other's codes and works,
algorithms, methodologies,...

IT is one of the things in the world that you don't need to go to uni to learn.
There are heaps to read and you can never finish reading! You just need a goal.
dzone, theserverside, infoq, jroller,dr. heinz, javalobby,... are just a few to
name.


3- Plan weekly or monthly
You need to plan. Set some books to read this month or next week and commit
yourself to finishing it no matter you work  till 8 PM, your are sick, you are
tired, etc. These are all justifications!

4- Spend time on it
software is changing all the time so you have to spend time to keep up with it.
You should accept that as a software developer you should spend more time
reading and working on software compared to someone like an accountant!
You should learn  to stop going to cinema or seeing friends to save yourself some
time. If you reach this point you might have a bright future in IT. This is the
change in attitude.


5- Contribute
As you search anything in Google and find your answer in someone's site, you can
also create your blog, write your findings, help people in forums, contribute in
open source. Let the information flow!

6- Learn new things
Do not just stick to Java. It might die one day. Dare to read and try any other
language or framework.