Boost Your Productivity by Eliminating the Mandatory Time Commitment
We all have things we do to take our minds off our busy lives, but some of those things might just be habit. If you can get rid of some of your unnecessary commitments of “my personal time,” you have more time and energy to spend on productive tasks.
Are your “time for me” activities a hobby or just something you do because you have done it before? It could be something that you have been doing since childhood, or something that you have been fascinated by a friend. Be that as it may, Jeff Hayden of Inc. invites you to carefully study your personal affairs in order to free up time for useful things:
I used to play fantasy baseball and soccer. But when I thought about it, I had no idea why. Of course, I could rationalize this by creating a nice break in the week. I could understand that it was a “mental health” activity that allowed me to escape the stress and stress of business life. I could, but it was not true. I just did it because I always did it and when I start every year I don’t want to quit smoking because, um, I don’t quit. (I know this sounds silly, but I bet you are doing at least one thing for the same reasons.)
Take an honest look at what you are doing and see if you have time wasters who are just a habit. If it doesn’t bring you the joy and downtime it should, let it go. This can be difficult because we often feel like we owe ourselves something, but you will have more time and energy to do productive things. You will also have more time to do what you really want to do. Hayden offers a simple test to help you: if you don’t want to do it on vacation, you probably don’t want to do it that much.