Time Management Tip #2 – The World’s Biggest Timewaster

In last week’s Time Management Tip we talked about The Rule of 1440 and the fact that your time is limited.

Just 1440 precious minutes per day. Any time wasted is time lost.

The pace of live has certainly not slowed down in the 21^st century and we are all busy, extremely busy and short of time. Because there are so many things we have to do, many of us lose their way and spend too little time on the important things or important people in our lives.

Today we’re going to make a big step in fixing that. The fastest way to create more time in your hectic schedule is simple to cut out some of the big time wasters in your life. That includes people, but will come to that another time.

Because, the world’s biggest time waster is … television.

I can hear you sigh and groan, but it’s true. And to prove it I’ve pulled together some statistics from across the world in terms of the average hours of television people watch per week.

 

Look at those numbers!

They are several years old and things haven’t improved. According to Entertainment Industry Market Statistics (2007), the average American spent 1,962 hours watching TV in 2010. That equates to 37 hours per week!

Sure, of course, you are not an average American.

And probably, you are right otherwise you wouldn’t be reading this. But still those hours do add up pretty quickly, be honest with yourself.

I know that as a society we watch a lot of TV, but really? 37 hours per week?! That is over 5 hours per day, every day of the week, every week of the year. Those 1,962 hours per year are pretty much the same hours as a full-time job!

Imagine what you could do if you could limit that to just 1 hour per day.

That’s still plenty of time to watch news, a couple football games or a few movies over the space of a week. Just don’t do it every day.

No need to cold turkey and ban the TV from the home, but maybe just stop watching stuff you know is crap. Select those programs that are really important to you and kill the rest.

That’s 4 extra hours per day for you to fill with things that are truly important to you – spending time with friends or family – not watching TV! Finally making the time for personal interests, to get that online business off the ground, to go to the gym and lose those few extra pounds.

Whatever is important to you.

And guess what, compared to all the other time management techniques this is by far the easiest and the quickest way to great plenty of free time in your schedule.

So, just do it.

But if you need a bit of help Wikihow have a great article on how to quit watching TV.