The Most Effective Ways to Waste Time
There is a fine line between leisure/entertainment and wasting time. It’s different for everyone but the context is the same for all situations. When your leisure/entertainment get in the way of the things you REALLY need to be doing (ie looking for a job, improving your skill sets, working out), you are effectively wasting your time.
Here’s a few of the biggest culprits. Tread carefully when dealing with the likes of below:
1. Watch Television / HULU
TV is great. You can keep up with current events, learn, and see what’s “in” in the world of pop culture. Unfortunately, it’s easy to lose track of time when your deep into the plot of one of your favorite shows. I’m not one to take drastic measures and say get rid of the tube, but definitely have the presence of mind when you’re watching too much. It’s far worse when you’ve just discovered a new show on HULU and begin chain watching it until you fall asleep at your computer. I’m guilty here. I just started watching SG-1. I know, it’s 10 years old! To my defense, MacGyver is cool.
2. Live on FaceBook
I have a friend that is a professional FaceBooker. He spends upwards of 6-7 hours easily on FaceBook per day. I can’t blame him since the creative geniuses at FaceBook have embedded crack cocaine into the coding which have made it extremely addictive. Out of 350 million users, half log into their accounts EVERYDAY. It’s definitely important to keep in touch with people in your network, but know that you’re not helping yourself when you’re commenting all over someone elses profile page.
3. YouTube
Like FaceBook, you can aimlessly spend hours on end flipping through pages of cool and stupid videos.
4. Playing Mafia Wars / Farmville / Similar Games
The founder said himself, he created these games and scammed you to keep them alive. Let this article from The Consumerist and this video do my articulating for me.
5. Succumbing to bad habits
To name a few: smoking, disorgnization, and losing crap.
Smoking – The act of smoking can take anywhere from 5-10 minutes. You do it because it’s comforting, reduces stress & anxiety, and to fit in (for some). Assuming you smoke 2 cigarettes a day, that’s 70-140 minutes a week wasted killing your body.
Disorginization – Rationalizing disorganization to some means having a constant reminder that there is work to be done. As long as things are messy, there will always be a need to get up and do something. In the end, it just equates to spending more time finding stuff. If you are claiming you have a “method” to the madness, try being organized. In that case, you won’t need a “method”, you’ll immediately know where everything is at.
Losing crap – I’m not going to lie to you when I say I lose my keys, wallet, or phone at least once a day. I hate it that my short-term memory is as long as Ruben Studdard’s singing career. It seriously is a waste of time when you lose crap.
6. Taking long showers
Everyone will have their own definition as what a long shower is and is not. Just as long as you’re productive in the shower shampooing, lathering, soaping, shaving, douching, etc you’re fine. However, when you find yourself just standing around with the water spraying in your face or the back of your head you need to GTFO. Not only are you wasting time, you’re wasting water and stripping away the oils that keep your skin moist and pleasant. SOURCE
7. Overeating
When you overeat, you’re adding extra calories that you eventually have to work off. That transfers into longer or extra exertion in all of your activities, more time at the gym, or more time at the doctor when your unhealthy diet catches up with you.
8. Checking Email
Checking email is a chore we love to hate. Can’t live with it and we can’t live without it. Unfortunately, work-life productivity starts at the “inbox”. Try checking your email as soon as you get to work and once after you get back from lunch. Restrict yourself from checking right before you go to bed because you’ll end up spending more time trying to satisfy the needs and requests of others while trading off your precious sleep time.
Are you good at wasting time? What are you most effective ways of time wasting do you partake in?
Ha det! (Norwegian)
Photo Credit: Steven Depolo
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[...] The Most Effective Ways to Waste Time | The Zen Capitalist [...]
Working for someone else is the biggest waste of time.
Matt´s last blog ..Breakthrough! Accelerating Technology Cracks Cancer Code
FaceBook has F’ed my life. Seriously!
tnx
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I think I have some sort of motivation problem. There are things I want to do, good ideas in my opinion and the opinions of others, but for some reason I can’t get from the idea stage to the action stage.
I find excuses to waste time on things that aren’t as important, meanwhile letting my ‘brilliant idea’ slide. What do I do to get these things done? Do I need to see a psychiatrist or something to find out why i am using this bizarre form of sabotage?
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I want to know about the best online or dowloadable games and some sites to download them from.Please help otherwise I will be dead form boredom.
Not for the faint of heart, this adorable and deplorable site contains photos of animals with captions below berating them for being so charming and delightful.
You hit the nail on the head with your selections! I can’t tell you how many times though, I said to myself I am going to take a quick shower and end up spending 20 minutes.
My wife always complains I waste too much time on my pitbulls. There’s just so much distractions nowadays that easily hook you into wasting tones of time.
Someone actually answered in one of my other questions that by posting that question I made them waste 30 seconds of their life, but they spent at least as much time answering that way as they did reading it, when they could have just read it and moved on.
I think I have some sort of motivation problem. There are things I want to do, good ideas in my opinion and the opinions of others, but for some reason I can’t get from the idea stage to the action stage. I find excuses to waste time on things that aren’t as important, meanwhile letting my ‘brilliant idea’ slide.
I prefer to do blogging in my free time and listen to music.
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i am wasting my time by taking long showers and pretending for sleep on the bed.
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The post is really helpful.I wasn’t able to waste my time..lol.
Honestly there is no easy way.. The best way to get results is eat right and exercise. The Bow flex is pretty good! do cardio and strenght exercises and you will see results. It takes hard work so remember beauty hurts! lol. Good luck
Great examples!!! I have seen all of those things in places I’ve worked and places I’ve visited.
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