Recognizing these killers in our life and work help us to avoid them and make better use of our time.
- The Internet
There is no doubt that it can be addicting. When surfing the internet and watching videos, we lose track of time. Sign in to social media and you can’t sign out. Most of the time we spend an hour online when we intend to spend 15 minutes.
Sure, it helps us communicate easily, reach information we need and order things that we can’t obtain in a regular market. But we exaggerate all it’s advantages and, by this, we become addicted to the internet so that we lose touch with the outside world.
2. Cell Phones
Yes, they have many features — phoning, texting, internet access, social media, email, camera and photo album, music, videos, games and the list goes on and on. This is why they’re called smartphones. However, people don’t know that sometimes those features are over-helping us. We talk on the phone for hours or text every 5–10 minutes and don’t take into account the time we spend. We don’t want to accept the fact that is is not right to talk to a person a lot on the phone or text a lot when we can meet him or her and talk face to face.
3. TV & Media
Though it certainly is entertaining and informative, many studies over the years have shown that TV has the ability to make us “dumber” and media can easily manipulate our mind by filling our heads with subjective misinformation.
Watching too much TV makes us forget about the things we should be taking care of. It makes us lazy and ignorant. I’m not saying we shouldn’t watch TV or look at media, but it’s a good idea to track the time while you’re doing it. Both are common time killers.
4. Negative Thoughts
We tend to spend a lot of time on negative and frustrating thoughts, mostly on our past negative experiences and failures. This prevents us from focusing on our tasks. Also, focusing on negative thoughts can stress and/or depress us.
Think about all the time you spend thinking about things that don’t serve you before you start to do something new.
5. People
We do a lot of communicating with people because of courtesy. Also, there are a lot of people in our lives who are negative or annoying. Those people kill our time, energy and mood.
6. Starting the Day Late
If you look at the success stories of all the great people out there, all of them start their days early.
The man behind Starbucks, Howard Schultz, gets up at 4:30am almost every day.
Richard Branson wakes up around 5:45am to do his early exercise.
Apple CEO, Tim Cook started his day at 4:30am and Procter & Gamble CEO, A.G. Lafley wakes up around 5–5:30am and is at his desk by 6:30am.
If you start your day late, chances are you will feel rushed throughout the whole day. You may eat your breakfast hastily or even skip it. You may get stuck in a traffic jam and arrive to work late.
7. Focusing on the Wrong Thing
Never forget your goals and your targets. Many people have difficulty managing their time because they focus on doing the wrong things.
People will focus on a problem and start blaming each other.
If you want to be productive, you must make sure you are working on things that really matter and things that will move you toward your goals.
8. Getting Distracted
We get distracted when things other than our goals seem more interesting to us. You can be trying to work at the computer when you get a social media notification and you quickly turn to social media to see what’s going on.
As long as you focus on your targets and always keep your goals in mind, it will shield you from distractions.
9. Going Through the Day Aimlessly
Do you know what you need to get done by tomorrow, by the end of this week and by the end of this month?
Most people never have a goal or a target. That’s why most of them go through life without passion or motivation. Successful people always have a clear indication of the outcome that they want. That is why they are able to move forward toward the future they desire.
If you don’t have a goal, how can you tell if you have reached it?
10. Not Having a To-Do List
Sometimes we may get so busy and forget what we need to get done. This is where a “to-do” list comes into play. A “to-do” list helps you focus on what you need to get done. When you know what you need to do, you will always be prepared.
11. Being Too Free and Not Moving Forward
Sometimes you will feel that you are too free or you wasted too much time on unnecessary activities and you are not moving forward at all. This is the time when you need to think about your goals and what you need to get done.
12. Being a Perfectionist
Remember that no one is perfect in this world. We learn the most from our mistakes, not from our successes.
Adopt the mindset of “ready, fire and aim” instead of “ready, aim and fire”.
You don’t have to understand every detail to start. You can start right away and figure out the rest of the details you don’t know. As long as you are always in motion and moving, you will have an edge over people who are always thinking but are not doing anything.
Yes, you need to spend time planning and thinking about your strategies but, more importantly, you need to take action and act right away.
Recognizing the “time killers” help us to avoid them and make better use of our time.
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