![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.scotthyoung.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/05\/WastingTime.jpg\" "\\"The")
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If you want to enjoy life and accomplish anything meaningful in it, productivity matters.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve met quite a few people who feel overwhelmed constantly by their workload. Even in cases when I know I\u2019ve had relatively busier period in my life with less stress. That isn\u2019t to claim I\u2019m somehow superior\u2013I\u2019m definitely not.<\/p>\n
Simply that it\u2019s unfortunate these people didn\u2019t know some of the strategies<\/a> to get more done so that they could have an hour or two without stress at the end of each day.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve also met opposite cases, of people who get more work done in a month than I do in a year. These are entrepreneurs whose businesses skyrocket while mine plateaus, or learners who dominate a subject when I merely dabble. While I\u2019ve struggled to reach moderate goals, they crush progress on far more challenging ones.<\/p>\n The reason I write so much about productivity is because of these two cases. The first, where a lack of productivity results in stress and misery. The second, where an excellence in productivity results in becoming tremendously accomplished.<\/p>\n However, as much as I write and think about getting more done, I\u2019ve really begun to ask myself the question: should I be wasting more time?<\/em><\/p>\n When I started thinking seriously about the question of where the heck all my time was going, my first answer was to eliminate time-wasting activities.<\/p>\n My idea was that if television, video games or random web surfing were occupying a lot of my time, without adding a lot of value, one way to become more productive would be to eliminate them.<\/p>\n For awhile, this strategy worked. I\u2019ve successfully gone month stretches without television of any kind<\/a> (and as of this article, I haven\u2019t owned a television in three years). I\u2019ve also shrunk my net time to just 30 minutes each day<\/a>. I cut, eliminated and squeezed out many time-wasting activities from my life.<\/p>\n After several years of this, I can say that if you need to be more productive, this works. No, you won\u2019t perfectly apply all your reclaimed time onto your biggest goals. But when you can no longer waste time on Facebook chat or channel surfing in the evenings, you can often get more done or at least spend your free time on more interesting hobbies.<\/p>\n The danger of this approach, however, is it forces you to think of every activity you do in terms of impact on your work. Instead of just enjoying spare time, you analyze it obsessively, constantly asking yourself whether its valuable enough to justify the time spent.<\/p>\n Although I\u2019ve been shifting my approach over the last couple years, the real killing blow to the strategy of eliminating time-wasters was, for me, moving to France.<\/p>\n As I wrote previously, my life has been much slower paced than it was in Canada. Biking instead of driving, cooking from scratch instead of from can and plenty of walking. The interesting finding was that, on an individual basis, I find it hard to justify many of the slower ways I\u2019m now living.<\/p>\n It\u2019s hard to justify spending 30 minutes to prepare a meal which could be done in 5 for similar nutritional value and only a little less taste. The time-waster elimination mentality sees those extra 25 minutes as being completely frivolous.<\/p>\n However, I\u2019ve found that the slower lifestyle, with numerous time-wasting opportunities, is actually far more enjoyable than my faster-paced, higher-stress lifestyle was in Canada.<\/p>\n That, by itself, isn\u2019t a revelation. Who wouldn\u2019t want to live a slower-paced life in the south of France? I\u2019m sure you (like I was) have tons of work which doesn\u2019t give you that choice.<\/p>\n What was really surprising for me, wasn\u2019t that I enjoyed the slower life more, but that I actually got a lot more done<\/strong>. In the fall, I had been doing sometimes up to ten hours of class per day, in addition to running this business, exercising and enjoying the Erasmus parties.<\/p>\n During that stretch, I would have been doing at least as much work as many times in Canada. Despite this, I was still living a slower life and I actually accomplished more. My business income tripled during this period, and I made significant progress on my goal to speak French.<\/p>\n The shift for me was realizing that time-wasters weren\u2019t the direct issue. Work was. If I was getting all of the work done I had planned, it shouldn\u2019t matter what I do after with my time.<\/p>\n The mentality that caused me to eliminate television or question whether I should go to a party may have made me a little more productive. However, by scrutinizing my free time, I was paying a heavy price. That price was forcing myself into a chronic state of busyness that was exhausting but didn\u2019t accomplish much more work.<\/p>\n For difficult or creative tasks, there is an upper limit to what you can accomplish in a day. I can only write about 3-4 hours per day, even if I have unlimited motivation and focus. After about the 4-hour mark, quality drops and I can\u2019t write meaningful sentences.<\/p>\n I believe the same principle applies to a lot of work. That there is a maximum useful upper limit. Trying to obsessively eliminate time-wasters from your day in order to work more often backfires.<\/p>\n If I can only write for 3-4 hours constructively, then eliminating more time from my life so I have 8 hours to write wouldn\u2019t help. The intelligent move is to try to focus myself so that those 3-4 hours are insanely productive. Eliminating or squeezing my free-time to allow more space for work won\u2019t help much and it will make my free-time less enjoyable.<\/p>\n My current approach to productivity is simply to not look at the time-wasters at all. Instead, I need to be focused on only two questions:<\/p>\n Instead of asking whether I was spending too much time surfing the internet, I should have been asking myself when <\/em>I was surfing the internet.<\/p>\n The problem isn\u2019t time-wasters in general, but when <\/em>you like to waste time. If you\u2019ve decided ahead of time that you need to be working on a project, then you shouldn\u2019t be on Facebook.<\/p>\n Work when you\u2019ve decided to work, and don\u2019t let any activity (time-waster or otherwise) intrude on that.<\/p>\n At the same time, this means not working when you\u2019ve decided to relax. And, perhaps more importantly, not applying the same mentality to your relaxation time as you would with work. The question should be: \u201cwhat do I feel like doing?\u201d and not analyzing whether cooking the 30 minute meal is more wasteful than the 5-minute reheat.<\/p>\n Unlike the first strategy, this one is open-ended. You can always do more to get more from the time you do work. If you\u2019re running a business, delegating or outsourcing a key task is one way you could easily maximize your working time.<\/p>\n But some of this process is mental too. Because even if you aren\u2019t wasting time during your work, you may end up wasting time simply by not working effectively. I\u2019ve had moments where I start and stop article ideas for 30 minutes before finally settling on what to write. By restructuring my writing process I can avoid this trap.<\/p>\n In work, where every second is devoted to getting a result, it makes sense to label some tasks time-wasting and others not. But, in life, the result is the process and the same philosophy of minute-counting and value-squeezing often destroys the very experience you wanted to have.<\/p>\n I\u2019m curious about the readers here. Have you taken steps to become more productive?<\/strong> If so, what route did you take\u2013did you try eliminating the \u201ctime-wasters\u201d or did you take one of the alternative approaches I listed here? Please share your thoughts in the comments<\/a>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\nShould You Bother Eliminating Time-Wasters?<\/h2>\n
The Alternative Approach to Productivity (That Involves Wasting More <\/em>Time)<\/h2>\n
How Can Wasting More Time Result in Getting More Work Done?<\/h2>\n
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Alternative Productivity Strategy #1 \u2013 Don\u2019t Let Work and Free-Time Mix<\/h2>\n
Alternative Productivity Strategy #2 \u2013 Maximize the Time You Do Work<\/h2>\n