Imagine that you are given $86,00 every single day.
The catch is that you cannot bring forward or carry over any of it. You can spend it all, but whatever you have left over from your spending that day is removed and you will never get it back. The next morning, another $86,000 is deposited to your account.
What do you do? You spend as much as you can! Of course, using this bounty to improve your life would be the best use of it.
The thing is we all get 86,000 every day. Not in dollars, but in a far more valuable resource – time. Every day we all have 86,000 seconds to spend and not a second can be deposited or withdrawn to or from tomorrow.
But, just like the money we have, far too many of us waste our time on things with little to no value.
Here are a few ways that people waste time.
Daydreaming
Thinking about the future is something that we all do, but not all of us do it in a productive manner.
If you are working towards a big goal and you spend some time to visualize yourself achieving that goal as a way to stay motivated, then that is a good use of time.
However, if you spend your time daydreaming about winning the lottery and/or living the good life without doing anything to progress towards that vision then you are just fantasizing and wasting time.
Thinking About the Past
I’m sure you have had this happen to you, as it has certainly happened to me.
You are doing something and suddenly you start thinking about an embarrassing or otherwise negative situation from your past. I don’t know why our brains love dredging up these old events that we would rather not revisit, but it does.
Learn from your past, don't live in it.
The past must be integrated, it cannot be wished away, but it also should not be allowed to devour the future.
Today is tomorrow's past, don't spend it reliving yesterday.
Striving for Perfection
Are you a perfectionist? Is nothing ever ‘good enough’ for you?
Perfection is probably not even possible, but trying to get there will certainly take a lot of time. The Pareto Principle, or 80/20 rule which states that 20% of the input creates 80% of the result, can be applied here. You can achieve a high standard (80%) of work quality using only 20% of the time that ‘perfection’ will take.
You can get so much more done if you don’t chase perfection and, instead, accept ‘good enough.’
You don’t even need to apply this to all things in your life to realize huge time savings. Try just being ‘good enough’ in the smaller and less important tasks of the day so that you can focus your efforts into making the big, important task the best that you can.
Conclusion
Your time needs to be considered the most precious asset that you own. Even small daily time savings will add up.
Consider that just 5 minutes per business day for a year will add up to over 20 hours. That’s 2 and a half 8-hour days! Half a week back from just 5 minutes per day.
Pure gold right here on this post!
People don't realize that since the day we are born the clock starts ticking and every minute is precious!!
I especially loved the perfectionists part, i was once like that, trying to make everything as perfect as i could, i only wanted straight A and if I couldn't get them i wouldn't even go to the exams, it was impossible! Since i started making things "good enough" i've found i can do a lot more! And, in my opinion, a lot of good enough make perfection!
We should never stop going forward, the past is only important because it teaches us the lessons to have a better future!
Dreams are only dreams until we accomplish them, to accomplish them we need to work for them... because, like my mother likes to say, "nothing falls down on your lap from the sky" (is there an english expression for this? maybe money doesn't grow on trees...)
Hmm, maybe the English would be "You don't get something for nothing"?
Yes, it's more or less like that, my country has some of the weirdest expressions i've ever seen
Yes, no matter how much we have but we are not utilising effectively then you will fall with losses because some people just spend the numbers and not value, means if people spend value then before that they will list of all those stuff which is valuable for them in that way they will spend.
You've said right and that is, we should dream to motivate us but we should not follow the Over-dream aspect because that will push us towards the stagnancy.
No one is perfect because perfect word is created by human beings and human being is not perfect at all and whole world is imperfect, so we have to concentrate on dedication and we have to strive hard no matter what work we are doing.
Wishing you an great day and stay blessed. 🙂
Thank you so much, @chireerocks
Welcome. 🙂
The problem i have found with what i used to categorize as time wasting was the actual need to revitalize my body, my heart and my mind.
This is not to say that i spend all my time productively, i just spend it all doing something. Sometimes that is playing mental games, because i just don't want to sit still.
mental games are amazing, as far as I know the greeks were the first to kind of lay off and think about things, got us lots of good results, things that are pretty fundamental to life, well the first we kind of more democratic about it, even with slavery to back it, it wasn't just the king and the priests that could read,
So about the mental games, that's pretty important for the vitality of the mind, I'd probably agree more with you, but I do think those getaways into the past/present/future come from lack of engagement or inability to handle the situation, that or plain letting yourself be bored.
Which again, usually does good, I don't know how you could have an abstract mind and form all the theories without being distracted by the fantasy and letting yourself go with it, that's how innovation comes I'd say, taking a new look at a old problem and seeing past it.
That's a really great article man; applicable to everything! I too am guilty of all of those "transgressions", and can testify to the efficiency of changing ones lifestyle so as not to be guilty of them anymore.
Equally important, if not more so, is the effect that such a lifestyle change has on your state of mind: i.e. your mental health and your outlook on life.
Ultimately if you keep committing the "transgressions", you'll be making it very difficulty for yourself (perhaps impossible) to ever be happy!
We all have to try and identify things we can improve, but we all have blind spots. So ask someone that knows you to list all the things you do well... and then what you don't do as well too.
I'm afraid of the results! It's a good idea though, I think I'll give it a shot!
One of the things I probably need to do is spend less time on Steemit. I pass a lot of hours here.
What would you like to do with your time? Make it happen.
I'm going to have to keep thinking about that. It's not an easy answer for me, but I'm sure there's something. I still have time, but I'd like to get moving on it. Thanks for the encouragement.
It's funny, even some leisure items are feeling like a waste of time to me now. I still like to have my fun, but sitting in front of the TV watching a baseball game for nearly 4 hours feels like a waste of time to me. Oh how my perspectives have changed.
Yeah, watching sports has always been something I don't 'get.'
Going to the stadium and watching the game live is perfectly fine. It is an experience. Lesser, but still understandably an experience, is having a big game party with friends and family with plenty of food and drinks. That's a fun time too.
But sitting and watching a game for hours alone? Never did get that. I'm not a sports guy, but why not wait until the game is over and just watch a 2-minute highlight reel of the best plays instead? Seems a much better use of time.
well if you grew up with that "yoga" maybe that's your only way to relax, some people are living their routines and they don't see past that, some get complicit, some content, some "happy", sometimes you see that highlight "live" and you can talk about it later with your buddies.
That's most people's Western Dream life :)
I'm more a fan of doing, I used to play Starcraft "professionally" as in I took a few years off to lay off life's hurdles and do something I like and wanna get good at, something interesting and new, challenging and different.
I might be divulging a bit, but I can't really imagine myself doing something different, I kind of can't think, basically I would be a different person, basically I can't imagine myself to be a different person, moral of the story :D actions matter over words
.. People change, some don't, life goes on, live with it
no morals, no stories :P
I'm kind of happy I didn't watch TV, documentaries are fine, sports are fun here and there, I suppose I'm too hyper to stand drama series, I couldn't stand commentators, mind you the Starcraft ones are great for the most part, even there after a year it was getting repetitive,
maybe I'm still a kid and I like stories
I don't daydream much, But I am guilty of the other two. Today I saw an ad for a pizza place and regretted spending money there 6 months ago for a minute! And I have so many unfinished projects! All because they are not good enough, when I know that if I just hit publish, others will be helped :(
Pizza wasn't good, I take it?
lol - It was horrible. Thai people have no conception of pizza whatsoever! The cheese is awful here, they use ketchup for sauce, and give you more ketchup (10 packets) and dried oregano on the side. No parm. Think wonder bread for the crust. At least I made oregano oil later.
After my weight loss, pizza is not really something I want anyway, but I had a weak moment. It used to be my main food for years since it was cheap and came to the door. Three pizzas for $10 would feed @bxlphabet and I for days.
Your comment is helping me!
I'm so glad to read this. We both need to get things done!
We Sure Do!! Following YOU!!
Love this, especially striving for perfection. They say perfection is the enemy of achievement.
Big, important things are worthwhile to spend extra time and attention on. The little things? Probably not.
So True!!
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@getonthetrain I just started to Day Dream while Reading this........Maybe it's just my Dementia..............
Oh no! You must at least remember where all your silver is buried :D