Time thieves and time sinks

I’ve written before about how important time is to me.

One of my relatives asked me this Christmas what I wanted and without a second thought I said “time”.  Don’t give me sweaters or boxes of chocolate, or whatever just give me more time to do what I need to do.

Of course no one can give us more time.  All we can do is organize what we have and use it as best as we can, exploiting it for all it’s worth.

My tablet computer updated some applications the other day and I noticed one of the updates was for a big time thief.  Oddly enough it’s a game about time management.  The game “plants vs zombies” is nothing more than a time management and decision-making game.  You have to organize your time as best as possible and use your resources wisely or else suffer the consequences.  Ironic as the game itself prevents people from organizing and using their time to the best of their abilities.

The thing is that even though it’s a simple-minded game and doesn’t take much effort it takes up time and you really can’t do anything else while playing it.  You can’t do work, you can’t think, you can’t read.  You’re stuck in a single activity and it’s not a particularly productive activity.

Some time sinks you can’t avoid.  Work, sleeping, exercise.  These are fixed in my life and I can’t avoid them.  These activities require some concentration and I can’t really multitask while doing them but I don’t really mind as they are beneficial to me in some other way.

But other time thieves I can avoid or sort in such a way that they don’t harm my everyday activities and long-term goals.

  • Social media.  I keep this minimized and off to the side as possible and I am also trying to reduce my time on it and use it sparingly in my off time.
  • Movies, play, sports events.  I don’t plan to cut these out but I am being much more selective as to which of these events I go to.
  • Books, art work, this blog.  Only on my off time and on scheduled times.
  • Games and television.  For the most part I am past these, especially television.  Games I still enjoy but I have less and less time for them.

Apart from this I am also evaluating all my daily activities to see which I can take advantage of and turn into multitasking opportunities.  Every second is going to count from now on.

Which reminds me I need to delete that little time thief off my tablet.

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