Time Wasters — What steals your time?
What are time wasters and how should we handle them? Nowadays, this is one of the biggest problems in managing our private and business time. We receive thousands of information per day, which comes to us from all sides. By the way, our ancestors hadn’t got so much information throughout the whole year. One incentive to waste our time is enough. Sometimes people go into a spiral, wasting a couple of hours on nothing.
Time wasters are external and inner factors that cause decline in a productive time. These are all activities which waste our time and don’t lead us to the goal. Additionally, we waste energy and we forget what matters. Furthermore, sometimes we are aware we waste time, some other time we don’t notice that we are in a spiral of time wasters.
These things are obstacles on the way to do essential tasks. What do we do about this? It depends on ourselves. One of the significant things is immediate gratification. We like to choose easy tasks to feel nicely. For example, scrolling Facebook doesn’t demand thinking but it is simply pleasant. It has something in common with the “Marshmallow Test” where children have a choice, receive one candy now or two in ten minutes. Of course, all of us want to get two treats, however, a majority of children choose immediate pleasure.
On the other hand, sometimes we feel awkwardness, anxiety or boredom. In this case, we can’t focus on essential things and we look for something easier. As a result, we take our smartphones out and enjoy ourselves. To understand how time wasters work we ought to get to know them.
Social media
Nowadays, probably the biggest time wasters. Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube, all of them are dangerous for us when we use them too often. Do you know the feeling when you ought to write an essay for an English lesson but you browse social media a couple of hours? When you watch videos on YouTube again and again because of an extraordinary algorithm which shows us interesting clips? Furthermore, Instagram would be worse. Preparing for the next magnificent photo takes away a lot of time, apart from all negative consequences. Hence, people go to feelings like anxiety, irritation or frustration.
TV and streaming platforms
A few years ago I noticed that people turn the TV on even when they will not watch anything. They come back home from work and this is the first action. Nowadays, at the time of Netflix, watching TV series has become an addiction. We can spend all weekend watching TV and, furthermore, eating junk food.
Video games
It has something in common with TV and streaming platforms, however, I don’t want to insult gamers. When I was a teenager I could play half a night because new Heroes of Might and Magic had been released. I was not the only one who neglected homework despite a deadline.
Information and notifications
All notifications which we have on are truly disturbing. When we are focused on something significant and then we receive a notification, we need around fifteen minutes to come back to the previous condition. Additionally, I assume that we receive too much information and advertisements. Do we need information about all discounts or all new posts on Facebook? We can turn it off and check when we really need them. When it comes to notifications, we can use an option like “Do not disturb” during a focused work. It is really useful. On the other hand, we can simply turn off all notifications or delete social media apps from our devices.
Emails
Checking emails a few times per hour doesn’t make any sense. If someone has something important for us, he simply calls us. I think that checking emails twice per day is enough, and when we reply the next day, a recipient will not be resentful. You can read more about emails there.
Multitasking
It is true and science has much evidence that multitasking is useless. We should be focused on one task and do them step by step. We just cannot focus on some things and do them simultaneously. It is a myth that you are more productive when you do a few things in the same time.
Meetings
One of the biggest time wasters at work. In general, meetings are good, however, they should be rather short and prepared. Normally, people don’t know about what they would discuss, as a result, they are not prepared for the meeting. Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, has an untraditional solution. He sends documents and other necessary things to his employees one or two days before a meeting. Therefore, they know about the issue and they have time to prepare for a disputation. As a result, meetings are valuable and time is not wasted.
Recap
In conclusion, these are only a few time wasters which are more popular in my opinion. Everyone should realize and, perhaps, write down his/her own time wasters and try to limit them. On the other hand, all of these things are for people, additionally, we should use all of them. Thanks to that, we are still sane, however, we must remember that everything has a limit.
