Time management…do you know how much you are wasting?

Something that dawned upon me recently.
I am wasting so much time…especially online.
Since I am working on my goal of making a full-time living off the internet, I spend close to 10 hours a day online…but of those 10 hours I spend at least 3 hours messing around, listening to music, sitting on facebook or doing something equally inefficient.

I do it because I like to take a break from working. Being creative can be quite demanding at times:) It’s just something that makes me wonder, there are so many things in life that we spend time on or with, that just have zero effect to building our future. We are the sum of all our experiences, even the time-wasting ones, but what if we could be a better sum by using some of our time more efficiently!

When I was a kid, still in school, I spent countless hours watching cartoons and playing video games!
Seriously…if you add up all those hours, collectively it may just be close to an entire year I have spent doing that. Sure it was fun and entertaining, but it hasn’t really taught me a skill, or at least not something I can go out and actively use. I would have liked it if there was somebody who could have told me about internet marketing or stocks during that time, because chances are that I would be making good money by this age already. Warren Buffet started playing with stocks when he was as old as 12!

Innovation and technology primarily stems from lazyness.
Or you can also say “striving towards the most energy efficient”.

WHY IS A SOAP BUBBLE ROUND?
I remember this from the movie K-Pax with Kevin Spacey, and the answer is simple, a sphere is the most energy efficient form, there is no energy wasted in mantaining corners.

This is why we invented the wheel, because carrying or pulling something along the ground just cost tremendous amounts of energy. However, so many people keep doing things in an inefficient manner because it is a habit, and they cannot see it from a different angle. I don’t remember where I saw it, but it was on some TV show with Ben Stiller, and he had this perfect appartment, with a beautiful bedroom. On his bed was the most expensive linnen you can imagine, and around 20 beutiful expensive pillows. One day he flipped, and realised that every night before he goes to bed he has to unpack the pillows, and in the morning put them back on his bed again. He works this out to cost him 4 minutes a day, which means 28 minutes a week, which is 242 hours over 10 years…wasted on packing and unpacking pillows.

This brings me to my point, if you do not manage your time, and set goals for yourself, you can easily spend way too much time doing totally unneccesary things! Certain chores around the house, you know how fast you have done them before, so set a goal and that is what they must be finished in every time. Everyone has the right to spend their time in their own way, but I certainly would rather spend 10 days on a vacation in Hawaii than spend 10 days packing pillows, or opening gates, or doing double work.

When you have some free time, make a list of a few goals that you want to achieve every day/week or month. Don’t set them too high, but set them just a bit higher than the level you know you can do without a problem.

Some of my personal goals are:
Go to gym twice a week, run 4km at least twice a month, play piano and drums once a week, practice my dancing minimum 1 hour a week, write 2 articles a week for UpgradeReality.

That way, even if I do spend time on unneccessary things, at least I will have achieved a number of goals I am happy with. Then if I am still not happy, I must just set my goals higher:)

Happy goal-setting!