The
6 Biggest Wastes of Time We Regret Sooner or Later
24hours in a day, 365 days in a year. Time is the same for everyone, no
matter who you are or where you are. So why is it Steve Jobs or Elon Musk seem
to accomplish so much more in the same time frame? Apparently I am not the only
person who seems to be stumped by their super-human capabilities. There are
hundreds of articles available just documenting their day to day activities.
As the CEO of this company, I wish to learn
the secrets to their success. Then I will be able to utilize them for the good
of my own company. To get this knowledge, I’ve read every article available
covering their work ethic, daily schedules, and the like.
After reading 100
articles I began to see a pattern: they only do things that make meaningful
contributions to their future. They practice
their skills so that they become better, exercise daily to keep themselves fit
and healthy to better lead their company, read excessively to expand their
knowledge and strengthen their minds. You hardly find them doing things that
don’t serve a greater purpose. Doing things that don’t serve a greater purpose
is like chewing gum, you chew constantly, but it never makes you full and tires
out your jaw.
Making the most of your time is about what you
choose to do.
Before completing a task, you need to ask yourself how valuable the task
is to your future. How will the completion of this task leverage your life?
Will it make you a better person, or help you to achieve your goals? If the
answer is no, then consider where your time may be better spent.
For example, socializing is not a waste of
time, it’s vital for our mental health. But the value that we create from
socializing can vary immensely. You can spend time with close friends to
strengthen bonds and lift your spirits by being around like-minded people.
You can also spend time with people you aren’t close with simply for the
fear of missing out (FOMO). A lot of the times, it ends up that you
weren’t really missing out on anything and you could have spent that quality
time somewhere else.
Always remember it is the intention that
matters. Do you know why you are doing something? You’ll be
surprised that most people almost never ask themselves this question.
Once you are able to understand your own
actions, you will realize we engage in pointless tasks constantly that are just
time sinks. Now that you know the difference, you can focus on meaningful
tasks.
We do a lot without realizing they are just a
waste of time.
1. Working hard to avoid our problems
Imagine there is a line in front of you and
you have to cross it. You find it difficult to do so and instead of crossing
the line, you walk from one end to the other, juggling along it. But no matter
how far down you walk, if you never try, you will always stay behind it.
This is like approaching a problem. You can
try to avoid it, but the problem will remain the same. In the end, you end up
working harder than if you just faced the problem to begin with. Worse,
avoiding the problem just ends up causing bigger problems down the road.
Time is precious. No matter
how hard you try to avoid an issue, it still exists, and eventually you will
have to face it.
2. Talking about our emotions, but not solutions
Expressing emotions is important, and its
natural to express your feelings. That’s what makes us human, but it is
more important to think about your intention.
Are you in the habit of just expressing your
emotions over and over again without thinking of actions to solve the issue?
This seems like a temporary release of negativity, but the negativity
will come back because the underlying problem is still there.
Instead of simply expressing emotions,
realize how and why you feel certain way to help you reflect and understand
yourself. Understanding the “why” will let you figure out the “how” and “what”,
empowering you to make changes to your actions. Expressing your emotions
constructively can also help others understand you better— but after you
express them, remember to take action towards a solution. Otherwise you
might start to sound like a broken record.
Emotions can give you the power to push
through to make changes, or they can dominate you and trap you within a cage.
In the end it’s your intention that can help you break through.
3. Arguing for the sake of winning
You are trying to decide on a concept at
work, and you think that your idea is the best. Your coworkers have ideas on
how to make the concept better, but you just talk over them to keep expressing
that the concept is perfect the way it is. The back and forth goes on for
hours, and in the end everyone just gives up and loses interest. You may have
gotten your way, but you have lost everyone’s respect.
As we get older, we begin to realize there is
not always a right and wrong answer. Everyone has their own perspective, and
one single story can take on many sides. There’s no point in arguing to try and
make people see things your way, especially if you refuse to see theirs.
Do you even know why you are arguing in the
first place? Arguing in general
won’t help your situation, and winning the argument won’t benefit anything but
your ego in the end. All that will come out of it are hurt
feelings, and perhaps damaged relationships.
4. Far-fetch your worrying
Worrying about something that hasn’t happened
is like waiting under an umbrella on a sunny day waiting for the rain. It’s
normal to worry about something important to you. But over-thinking will
never benefit you. It will make you feel anxious and panicky, which only
makes matters worse. Have
you ever heard of self fulfilling prophecy’s? This is a sure way to
make them come true.
Imagine you heard a rumor that upper
management is thinking about downsizing. Immediately you assume that your job
is at stake, and start over analyzing anything that could cause you to get
terminated. You nearly make yourself sick with worry, when it is only a rumor.
No one has gotten fired yet, and you don’t even know if it’s true. And yet you are
destroying yourself over something that hasn’t happened.
Worrying within a reasonable scope helps you
prepare for incidents that may come up and the solutions for them.
Prepare enough so that you know you have control over the situation, and
there is very little reason to worry.
5. Allow yourself to stay with the wrong person
Being with the wrong person is like trying to
feed dog snacks to a rabbit. No matter how much you try to give, the other
person just won’t be interested. The
sad truth is, if you are not what that person really wants, you will never make
them happy no matter how hard you try.
Your partner seems to have lost interest.
They spend most of your time together glued to their phone, scrolling through
Instagram. You notice that they like a lot of pictures of the opposite sex,
people who look very different from you. So you try to change. You try to look
like the people in the pictures to win their interest back. Instead of winning
them over, they break up with you because you’re not the person they fell for.
Of course you can try and change yourself to
be the person they want, but in the end you will just end up losing yourself.
And more likely than not, they still won’t like you back. You’ll lose sight of
who you are, and have to put all of the pieces back together again to gain a
sense of self. And this hints us to the last thing that isn’t worth our time.
6. Living your life to impress others
Imagine you have met someone new and you
really want to impress him/her. You pretend
to agree with all of their ideals in order to make them like you. They catch on
to your ignorance and lose interest in you. If you had instead shared your real
interests and engaged them into a discussion about that instead, they may have
stuck around.
You can’t please everyone and being a people
pleaser is pointless. The more people you try to make happy, the more people
you will disappoint. What may end up impressing one person, could severely
offend another person. So really, there is no point in trying to impress
anyone. You are just wasting your
efforts and time on people who were never worth it in the first place. Focus
on yourself, and work on yourself to be better. This investment in yourself
will eventually attract others to you.
Time is limited,
and our most valuable asset. You should treat time like an investment. Make
sure that the tasks you invest your time into now will give you a return in the
future.
Leon Ho
http://www.lifehack.org/614922/the-6-biggest-wastes-of-time-we-regret-sooner-or-later?ref=mail&mtype=newsletter_tier_2&mid=20170731&uid=687414&hash=707e797f7e757e6d794c856d747b7b3a6f7b79&utm_source=newsletter_tier_2&utm_medium=email&action=click
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