FreelanceFolder: How much time do you waste in a typical day?
Is it minutes, hours, or even more?
The real answer might surprise you. All of those distractions add up. Worst of all a distracted freelancer is a less productive freelancer–and that can cost you money.
In this post, I’ll examine six surprising areas that may be wasting your time. Then, I’ll suggest a strategy to help you avoid them.
8 comments:
While this article is specifically geared towards freelancers, I think that most of its points apply to pretty much everyone, especially students like us. Much like freelancers, we do our work on our own time (outside of class) and thus have the opportunity to be distracted by many things while doing so. It seems like the social media distraction is what really gets a lot of college students. It's so great to have social media sites in order to connect with friends who we are no longer close in proximity to since we are at college. Social media is also great because it helps us to hear about, learn about, and comment on the news of the day. Yet social media can harm us so much because it is such a time waster! Like many of these other time wasters, social media use simply needs to be regulated. Some of these activities are not inherently time wasters and can be good for productivity if used when taking breaks. These breaks, however, need to be regulated as well. It's all about self-control and having a plan. This article makes great suggestions about self-control but, unfortunately, doesn't even allude to how hard it can be to have such self-control. Unfortunately, all of these issues are not so simple as this article makes them seem.
I don't really think that these areas are surprising enough, but still these are important aspects that we have to solve in order not to waste a typical day. As for me, I also waste a lot of time even many hours in a day. After reading this article, I can see that my biggest problem is indecision. I always hesitate to get my work started. This made me to think that the amount of work was too overwhelming for me without realizing how much I have been procrastinating. Also, another problem can be distraction from the social media. This is my biggest source that blocks me from time management. Therefore, without starting any work, I get more anxious about upcoming deadlines, so I try to avoid facing the problems. Though, one thing that I realized that I am not doing is multi-tasking. I have been always thinking that doing many things at one time will decrease the effectiveness, so I kept avoiding doing this. I think learning from this article, I should try to keep the advice in my mind, so that I could concentrate on my work more effectively in the following weeks which are final weeks.
I think this article leaves a lot to be desired. While it does point out some things that are large time wasters in the younger generations in America, it doesn't exactly cover everything thoroughly. The first one that popped out at me was "Remind yourself that most of your worries are unlikely to come true." I highly disagree with this statement. As a manager, I have been trained to think about things that can go wrong. Therefore, I am able to ween out the things that most likely won't go wrong, and instead worry about things that are likely to go wrong. Worrying about not having enough time to finish a project is a legitimate worry if you have classes, rehearsals, and meetings for 16 hours a day. I also disagree with the statement that multitasking is a bad thing. I have been multitasking all my life, and it has helped me develop better time management skills. If I am waiting for an e-mail I can accomplish other work, and then respond when the e-mail comes in. If working on one project becomes slow or I become tired, switching to a different project can help. Watching a show on tv can become more productive if I work on a reading during the commercials. Listening to music can help me focus on work in a crowded room. I think a lot of these points were also common sense. Of course social media is a waste of time. That's why you have to separate the time you devote to different work-related projects and your personal time.
Facebook can suck time down the drain? I never would have guessed. Trying to balance your checkbook while writing and essay while watching TV is a bad idea? Wait, really? These things are totally obvious. I found this to be a rather weak article. Yes, it highlighted issues that many people face when it comes to time management. It did not, however, really offer any solutions on how to fix the issues. As Shannon said, it's not training the reader to have self control, which is an essential thing to have in order to manage time effectively. If you have self control and basic common sense, time management shouldn't be a huge issue.
I completely agree that all of these are big time wasters, especially social media/technology, and indecision. I also think we all need to work on managing our time in better ways but these suggestions for doing so are really kind of pitiful. There are lots of good tips and tricks out there for helping manage time better but she didnt really mention any of them. Just saying overcome you anxiety if its causing you to waste time is really not helpful to anyone.
Back to the social media, I think the whole thing has really gotten out of hand. Whatever happened to doing things in person. I think it has its place in certain aspects of our lives but it really is such a big time waster when you could actually be out there interacting with those people. & for indecision, thats a really hard one especially when its indecision about which direction to take your work. I know I have struggled with that on a few projects, and it has probably wasted some time, but I think my work was better because of it.
Some thoughts. I have realized that I cannot listen to music and do work at the same time; especially writing. I can draft or dig holes but organizing a list of Green page articles? it decreases my productivity by ½. I even took off my headphones to write this paragraph. When I have my headphones on in PTM, 90% of the time it is just to cut out the noise. There is not even anything playing in them.
Indecision and anxiety are only a factor when I have the time. If it is two days out I will worry and be anxious as to how to proceed. If it is due tomorrow, I am rolling, rolling , rolling like a Limp Bizkit video, hands up and hands down.
I had another point but I got distracted checking to see what XOMR put on my facebook . . . Oh wait I remember. I waste as much time as I have. I have done enough tasks that I know subconsciously, how long something will take and I waste all the time but that. Not a great system but it is one that is VERY developed.
I am surprised that Social Media was not number one, but it is a great eye-opener. I suffer greatly from numbers 2 and 3, and although I knew they were time wasters, I realize now how bad they really are. It's important to keep a level head and anxiety levels low especially during stressful times like finals! Otherwise, you are just getting in your own way.
I think the biggest thing this article points out is social media being a huge distraction. Indecision is another huge time waster. People often time will make to do lists but then cannot decide what to do and thus wastes a lot of time. I think it is best to start working on a project and discover what works and what doesn't rather than think about something conceptually. I understand this article being geared toward freelancers but I think all of this applies to everyone. I think that all of these intertwine and before you know it you have wasted 1 to 2 hours.
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