Time Management Tips – Meet the Time Assassins
Do you have enough time for your hobbies? Do you want more time to do things like painting, writing and reading? Do you find that your time actually disappears almost like it’s been killed off?
This “time death” is not your fault! There are “forces” working against you, killing your time, I call these “forces” Time Assassins.
Welcome to the new way of thinking about time management.
What are Time Assassins exactly? Let me expose a few and show you how they assassinate your time.
Time Assassin 1- the news
The news by and large presents global and local events that simply aren’t relevant to you. It pulls you in, why? Because, it’s the perfect time waster. When you have more important things to do, such as “seeing more of your kids” or “reading a book you always want to” the news is simply not important. To evade this assassin stop reading, watching or consuming the news.
Time Assassin 2- the daily commute
How do you commute to work? Do you ever feel the presence of a dark force? Like a shadow creeping over you. That’s the Time Assassin. I spend 3 hours a day in traffic. Add this up over a year and that’s over 30 days of wasted time. Don’t believe it. Believe it.
Don’t Let That Time Go Wasted!
In the car you can:
– Get an “Audio Version” of the book you always wanted to read
– Get the audio version of a course
– Use a voice recorder and create all your mental notes by voice.
If you use Public Transport you can:
-Write an eBook
-Get some work done so you can leave work on time
-Read articles you’ve saved up
-Plan your “To do list” for the day
Time Assassin 3- email
Email disturbs you by popping up on your screen and actually yelling “HEY READ ME!!!!! STOP WHAT YOU’RE DOING”. So you read it, send a few emails back and forward and guess what? Your spare time is has been assassinated. Immediately you find yourself sending email back and forward to people when a quick phone call would have been fine. I lose about 5 mins for every email distraction. Over a period of a day at least an hour is assassinated.
I’ve discovered a secret about email. It’s actually quicker and far easier to just call or visit someone. I know crazy stuff right? I’ve learnt that sometimes people just don’t understand what you’re saying in an email. Sometimes you have to engage in conversation. I turn off the email auto pop ups and limit my email checking to only a couple of specific allocated times during the day.
As you can imagine I have just scraped the surface. Did you know there are many more assassins? They hide in your office, your house, even on your very own computer.
Every time you feel something is wasting your time, you’re the victim of a Time Assassin.
