Average people invest in money, Rich people invest in time. Have you ever wondered, why time is so important? Well time is the most previous currency of this universe. Whatever we do in our daily routines or in our lifetimes, is directly or indirectly associated with time. When you give some beloved one a gift, you are actually giving a part of your time to that person. This may sound crazy but this is true. You bought that gift with money, you earned that money doing some business or job and you actually spend your time at your work to get yourself that money earned. When you talk to friends on phone, when you spend hours chatting, when you do window shopping, when you sleep, when you surf the internet, in every perspective you are investing your time either for the good of your future or for regrets. One should be very careful while spending time on anything or with anyone. Here in this article we will talk about the top time wasters of business people and even every one of us.
1) Don’t do $10/hour Jobs.
I have a question for you, do you want to keep doing the $10/hour jobs for yourself for the rest of your life? No? Then why are you spending too much time on this right now. What I mean by these $10/hour jobs is that there are tasks in our lives which cost us less money as compared to our time. For example you may get your car serviced by someone else and spare yourself for some better task as per your aptitude. You may pay a little and get your dry cleaning. I am not suggesting that you should not do any of your daily task by yourself instead I am saying that you should decide whether some task is critical for you to be done yourself or you may get it done by spending some bucks. In this manner you may be using someone’s services helping him improve his business and in parallel you may get time for handling more important stuff for your business.
2) Don’t Blame
This is a business killer habit. Get this thing out of your mind as quickly as possible. With blaming nothing is achieved instead your employees or coworkers get upset and unwilling to work with you. As a leader learn to accept failures and try to solve situations. You may start your day at 9 AM with some problem at your desk, you may start blaming someone for the problem, their inability to do work properly, making the whole environment of the workplace unpleasant and then finally concluding that your business day is over without getting anything done and creating some more problems for the next morning. Instead contrary to above, you may start your day at 9 AM with some problem at your desk, now you may counsel the responsible people, talk to them and offer your services to get the business out of the problem and get your ship going great on the tides again. Just remember blaming settles nothing.
3) Worrying about going out of business:
If you keep thinking and worrying about going out of business then you probably are getting much closer to actually getting out of business, every passing moment. As a business owner or manager your job is not to worry about going out of business instead your job is to think about improving your business with hope in your mind that things are going to work out. Too much thinking about failure makes a person willing fail and accept it. Remember one thing in life, you only fail when you accept that you have failed. Instead of worrying you should be focusing on making your network strong, making your product more viable, getting and processing feedback from your customers, focusing on sales and everything which is associated with the improvement of the business.
4) Constantly thinking about what your competitors are doing.
Constantly thinking about what your competitors are doing is a great way of letting them win over you. Instead of worrying about your competitors you should focus on your own product, considering feedback of your own customers, networking with people, asking them for feedback, asking them to help you to further improve your product. I am not saying that you forget about your competitors, instead worry about the quality and service of your own business first and then go for comparison.
5) Turn off your mobile Notifications (Just Keep Important).
First of all promise yourself to be loyal to your business. In your business hours, you should be just focusing on your business. Mobile phone notifications are a big distraction now days. You start a day and random notifications from Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Instagram etc. start popping. I personally don’t keep even Facebook messenger and twitter on my phone. You may keep them in phone if your business involve these apps critically. If you really want to focus on your stuff, then turn your phone notifications off. Just keep very basic Messaging Apps which are critical for your communication. You may always check your other notifications after business hours.
6) Constantly hiring new people for new positions because you are not willing to pay
Constantly hiring new people for new or regular positions and firing old employees for reasons that you are not willing to pay and you are not willing to give increments and incentives to your old ones, wastes so much time of the company. Consider example of a personal assistant of a CEO, she require time to understand the mindset of his boss, to know all the operational procedures of the company, to know the personality and likings of boss. Employees develop relations with the management and Executives and these things take time. After all this hard effort and time if you decide to drop people for non-genuine reasons then you are actually wasting all the time, value and someone will have to go through all of this effort again to reach that level.
7) Constantly thinking about people who left you.
Don’t be over nostalgic about the people who left you during the course of time. Someone who left you, left for his/her good. Your job is to focus on your work and current people who work for you. Stop overthinking about past and prepare for your future competitions.
8) Spending time on Social media. (Newsfeed of Facebook)
Stay away from social media guys, I repeat stay away from social media. This is the biggest time waster of all. You better keep some punishment for yourself like 20 pushups or 20 pull ups in case you open social network newsfeed during your work hours. Seriously. Newsfeed of Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn are all full of stuff which does not matter. Really that stuff does not matter. Some celebrity said something to someone, some company bought another company, someone sued someone, something happened there, something goes wrong there, guys come on, focus on your own business. Make real connections with people, make real connections with companies, with your clients and people who matter to you and your business.
9) Wasting time with Office butterflies.
Office butterflies are the people who just for no reason comes to your office and waste your time talking about useless stuff. You may keep a separate place in your office to talk to them and when they are done with it, ask them to leave because you have many other important things to do. Always keep your business at first priority.
10) Too many meetings
Meetings are an important part of an organizations but just too many meetings are dangerous for productivity. Meetings should have set goals and target outcomes which should be described before meeting starts otherwise meetings becomes useless. Some meetings are just to discuss nothing. It is better to avoid those meetings if you can on your will.
11) TV- Cancel TV Shows
Just remember one rule, if you know two or more than two current playing television shows, it means you watch television too much. This also applies to the seasons which are very popular these days. Consider my advice and cancel your shows. If you want to watch on holidays otherwise you are not following the promise of sincerity with your business which you made with yourself.
12) Taking calls from friends during business hours
Very important to keep concentrated on the business. Avoid taking extra calls from friends and even family during business hours. If your wife keeps calling you to ask for dinner’s menu or for telling you about your little sons activities for every moment then you can never stay focused on your job which you are supposed to be doing. If it’s your friend calling, reject the call, if he would be in real emergency then he would call again or even thrice. These habits seem ridiculous but believe me, business require hard work hours and empires are not built in a day.
13) Chasing the big fish
Chasing the big account that you think will change your life instead of pursuing small sales is another killer for company. It wastes so much time making plans and chasing big fish. It’s not bad to chase big fish but it should not be on the expense of your regular or small sales. Normally pursuing big deals takes so much energy and time of the company and usually they end in failure but by then company has already lost focus from regular sales and it can cause a havoc for the company. You may keep a check on big fish but keep checking your regular sales because they act as the life support for the company.
14) Reading the wrong books
Well this one is an interesting one. Usually people don’t read books, but when they do, sometimes they get derailed and start reading wrong books. You should always choose books wisely. Books like love story novels and other useless fantasies will not give you anything to progress. Consider reading books about finance, business, economics, religion, stuff that builds you and your character towards a responsible citizen.
15) Too much Partying
Here is the fun part. If you are interested in too much partying and too much vacations, days off from work, early off times then you are putting your best achieve your business goals. I am repeating again, business require very long and hard work hours to reach a recognizable state.