10 Biggest Time-Wasters

You only have 24 hours in your day and when you let go of trying to be superman and just be content with being who God has made you to be, you’ll find your life is so much more peaceful and calm. Time wasters will keep you away from focusing on what’s really important. To free up your schedule, identify time wasters and take action to deal with them. If you want to be a successful person, you’ve got to have a laser-like focus, something that’s harder to do now than ever before. If you want to be a successful entrepreneur, you have to do one thing: Invent, develop, and market a product or service that customers really need or want. If you have big plans later on in life such as starting your own business, you need to do two things: stop wasting your time and focus on your goals.
Following are the 10 most common ways of wasting time.

Know Your Priorities

If you want to be a better manager of your time, you need to determine what your priorities are. Not knowing one’s priorities is the biggest time waster! Know your priorities and you’ll have a road map to guide your behavior.

You live Online

Wasting time on Facebook and Twitter. Playing with apps. Emailing and texting. Buying every stupid little gadget ever imagined. You quit doing all that, you’ll have more time to actually get things done than you know what to do with. Don’t you troll for Twitter followers. If you’re Ashton Kutcher or Kim Kardashian, that’s great. Otherwise, it’s nothing but a distraction - a complete and total waste of time.

Look For a Lottery Ticket

Lotteries are basically just a way of getting money from people who are desperate, greedy, lazy, ignorant, or any combination of these traits. That may sound a bit harsh, but it is pretty much the truth. If you’re after an easy way out, a quick fix, a silver bullet, an overnight viral success, I can tell you one thing for sure. You won’t find it. Ever. That’s just not how this sort of thing works.

Computer & Software Problems

According to an amplitude research survey in the top time wasters at work, computer and software problems is 11%. “Do you want to send this error message”? “Sorry but Windows needs to shut down”. How many times were you moving along through your PC and all of a sudden one of these annoying messages popped up on the screen and you were cut off, stopped dead in your tracks and had to wait for your PC to reboot? If you are like most PC users, it is a lot of wasted time.

Ask People How They Can Help You

It’s a biggest wastage of time, ask the people for help and wait for. Instead of this, ask them how you can help them. Believe it or not, that’s the door opener for opportunity. WIIFM (What’s In It For Me) isn’t really about you, it’s about understanding the motivation of the other person.

Meetings

Meetings can be time wasters if there is no specific reason, agenda and timeframe for holding them. It’s easy to fall into the habit of holding meetings without realizing that some of that time could be spent more efficiently. You’ll save time by clarifying the reason and purpose of a meeting.

Phone Calls

It is easy to spend a lot of unnecessary time on the telephone. Lengthy small talk on the phone with random people. Time is wasted when you lack clarity about the purpose of your activities, and when you are easily distracted. It’s easy to justify to yourself that you’re working hard when in fact what you’re doing may serve no useful purpose. Replace long phone calls with quick texts to people, such as your neighbor who merely needs to know if the block potluck party is still scheduled for next Saturday.

Interruptions

Interruptions, distractions, drop-in visitors, unplanned telephone calls are all potential time-wasters. Schedule “open hours” during specific time frames in order to accommodate those who need to contact you. As much as possible, avoid overlapping different areas of your life. Unless there is an emergency, don’t allow your work and personal life to interrupt each other. While enjoying time with your family, avoid becoming distracted by work.

Network Randomly

Relationships are critical to business success. Networking and schmoozing are key to forming relationships. But randomly connecting with thousands of strangers online won’t help one bit. Be focused about it. And remember: one real, reliable relationship in the real world is worth a thousand online connections.

Not saying ‘No’

Taking on too much adds excessive pressure and prevents you from working at your best. That means everything takes longer; more time is stolen. If you can’t say no, it means you don’t value your time and you are allowing others to choose how you should spend it.

Source : http://www.wonderslist.com