Thursday 13 – 148th Edition: 06/05/2008
13 Ways To Waste Time
1. Television
The average American adult, according to A. C. Nielsen, watches five hours of television a day (in 1990), and that the television is on at least eight hours a day.
2. Chattering on the cell phone
Time-filler conversations, that just pass the time, are a large time waster for people. (You wouldn’t believe the stuff I’ve heard people talking about during my train ride.)
3. Text-Messaging
I once was in the car with someone who was texting while she drove. (A practice I asked her to either stop or let me out of the car. She stopped, but looked grumpy. Stay off the sidewalks in her neighborhood!)
4. Unimportant Emails
How many times have we opened stuff ‘just to see what it is?’ This is the modern world’s version of junk mail.
5. Online Chat
Again, not actual conversations, but time-filling chatter.
6. Procrastination
Wasting time putting off important projects is a big one.
7. Not Setting Goals
I’ve met people who have no goals. They just wander through their lives, without any purpose. Boooring!
8. Inefficiency
Instead of grouping tasks in order, we waste a lot of time running back and forth, making too many trips when running errands.
9. Disorganization
We waste a lot of time looking for routine things. Keys, wallet, purse, etc.
10. Busywork
We’ve all done it – the easy projects that make us look busy, so people don’t know we’re not really working.
11. Unmindfulness
Acting on autopilot. We lose a lot of opportunities by ignoring the moment that we’re in.
12. Trivial Concerns
Rather than giving our attention to what truly matters to us, we waste our time getting excited over things that don’t matter – celebrity relationships, gossip columns, etc.
13. Not Taking Ourselves Seriously
I’m not suggesting a humorless existence. I am suggesting that we decide to make ourselves and our highest values and goals the driving purpose of our lives. Spending time on the people and activities that matter to us would benefit us far more than wandering around the internet and gossiping about unimportant things.
Happy TT!
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Hmmm? What’s the other end of the spectrum from auspicious? (Because I laughed like demented monkey at the end of this post, I did, I did.)
I am BLATANTLY guilty of numbers 6, 7, 8, 9, 12 and 13. Which, as I read them, are the most difficult to overcome.
I am beside myself with joy, I tell you.
Help me, doctor. Help me. 🙂
Yikes Noony, I’m too scared to put down the ones I am guilty of…but this is a good reminder that if we are not getting stuff done, there are reasons. 🙂
With the exception of texting, I’m probably guilty of all of these. You left out my biggest time waster, which is rereading and rereading and rereading my favorite books.
Yep, I recognize a lot of these. If not in myself then in people I know.
TV is the biggest time sucker. I don’t have cable. If I did, I’d be at least half as productive as I am now. The internet too . . . but I am unwilling to give that up. =D