If you want to be more productive and successful, Super Habit #5 is a must. Avoid time-sucking activities. I’m not talking about work or practice-based activities. I’m talking about things like social media, television, and video games.
Of course, there are dozens, if not hundreds of activities that might serve as nothing more than a waste of time. Drinking, gambling, and drugs could also go onto the list, but those are beyond the scope of this article. We’ll stick with a few of the more common screen-based activities.
Electronics Are Time-Sucking
Let’s focus on the digital world for this post. I think you can likely make other connections and apply them to your own life if digital time wasting is not your habit. But here are many people’s top five time-sucking behaviors:
- Too much TV: I’ve never been a big television watcher, but I do go through phases where I spend too much time in front of the TV screen. I remember times in life where I’d be glued to the TV from the time I got home from work until I went to bed. It started out with the news and went until the late-night shows. That could easily add up to 40 hours a week.
- Too much social media: You may have noticed that I’ve cut way back on my social-media presence. The way I figure, I’m never going to amass a huge following anyway. So why waste hours everyday trying to build bigger social networks? But it’s also easy to just waste time scrolling.
- Too many video games: I’m not a video gamer, but I know people who are. Not only can they spend 8-10 hours a day playing video games, they also spend a crapton of money keeping up with their gaming habit. Think of all the other things you could do with that time and money.
- Needless Internet searching: You know what I’m talking about. You get interested in a random fact. Before you know it, you’ve spent an hour reading random stories that have no bearing on what you need to be getting done. You simply waste time going from one topic to the next. This is often a way to avoid or procrastinate more important matters.
- Too much news: We have so much news at our fingertips now that it’s overwhelming. Unfortunately, it’s easy to get caught up with it all. Whether it’s news about our government, a tragedy, or a health crisis, it’s easy to get too involved and spend countless hours watching videos and reading articles. In the end, you wind up wasting countless hours.
Super Habit #5 Can Change Your Life
Practicing Super Habit #5 can change your life. There are so many things you can spend your time doing. When you minimize time-sucking activities, you open up endless possibilities. Here’s a short list of things you could do:
- Write a book
- Spend more time with family
- Exercise more often
- Start a business
- Travel to a foreign country
- Learn a new language
- Practice a musical instrument
- Help the poor
- Start a blog
I think you get the idea. Giving up time-sucking activities gives you more time, money, and freedom to work on more productive activities.
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