Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Do you fall into the trap of wasting time? Time is a valuable commodity! When you waste your precious time, you’re actually preventing yourself from achieving the things you desire.

Below is a list of the top ten time wasters. If you find yourself spending too much time on these activities, try changing some of your habits so your time can be more productive and rewarding.

1. Wasting Your Worry. Many people will worry until doomsday about every little thing in their lives. This is simply unproductive and bad for your health, mind, and spirit.

• If you have something worrisome coming up, craft a plan of positive action on paper, then let it go. After all, worrying doesn’t accomplish anything positive.

2. Television. We’re a couch potato society! We schedule our lives around our favorite television shows and we spend less time doing more important activities like attending social events that could strengthen our relationships.

• Record your favorite TV shows and watch them during your leisure time, or limit your TV intake to just a couple hours a week.

3. Video and Computer Games. This is becoming such a time waster that gamers are actually developing what is called “gamers thumb,” a repetitive stress injury.

• Set time limits for yourself and your kids and help your kids understand why this is important.

4. Internet time. Are you constantly browsing the Internet, Facebook or Twitter? Are your kids hearing you say, “In a minute,” much too often when they ask you to spend time with them?

• Keep your time on the Internet short and get involved in life. Instead of chatting with your online friends, spend more time with your real-life friends and family!

5. Telephone Chatter. Sure, we like to call old friends and chat, but do you chat on the phone all day long? If you do, you may find that you get hardly anything done all day.

• Keep phone calls to a minimum or set a timer to go off after 15 minutes. This way you won’t feel deprived of a good conversation, but it won’t take over your whole day.

6. Traffic and Commuting. Some of us spend an enormous amount of time traveling to and from work. You can turn your commuting time into productive time!

• Try carpooling or taking the bus, subway or train to work. You can use this time to read, plan your day, complete paperwork, or even relax your mind before a productive day.

• If you drive, you can listen to inspiring and informative CDs or tapes to sharpen your mind each morning.

7. Hobbies. Yes, there are people who are so obsessed with a hobby that they don’t make time to do anything else. They rush home from work to their hobby, even skipping dinner.

• If this is you, schedule your hobby time so you’re not skipping meals, missing time with your family, or cutting into other productive time.

8. Daydreaming. It’s fun and healthy to dream about career ambitions or future aspirations, but when those dreams prevent you from taking action in your life, then you’re wasting time. Avoid getting bogged down with too much dreaming.

• Make a list of your goals or dreams, then take action to make those dreams come true.

9. Meetings. Although necessary, meetings can be one of the biggest time wasters of our workday. If everyone is wiped out from sitting in long meetings all day, productive time will be low.

• If you’re in charge of meetings, set timeframes for them and stick to your stated time.
• Limit the length of your meetings: keep needless chatter and agendas out of the meeting.

10. Planning. If you don’t take the time to plan your day, the important things you need to accomplish may not get done.

• Write down your daily goals and tasks.
• Schedule your day in the order of your top priorities.

There are many ways we waste our time in our everyday lives, but with a little effort, you can avoid time-wasting activities and turn that time into an advantage.