The most valuable and increasingly rare resource on Earth is time, yet we often allow things and fictitious emergencies suck our precious and most valuable resource that can only be spent once from our lives. This post is dedicated to increasing your awareness to things and activities that suck the life right out of you. Below you will find three simple steps to kill the vampires in your life to ensure you are able to lead with authority, autonomy, and discernment.
1. Realize that emergencies are rare occurrences
One of the greatest vampires in many folks’ lives are ones that do not truly exist, emergencies. The definition of an emergency is “a serious, unexpected, and often dangerous situation requiring immediate action.” Unless a lion is chasing you in the streets or a loved one is in dire need, chances are what is perceived as an emergency is truly not so. Do not let what others consider an emergency divide your focus from the goals you have set out to achieve. Chances are, perceived emergencies will become less dire with the passage of time and when you circle back the solution will have already been found. Do not let fictitious emergencies take you away from what you have set out to accomplish. Kill the vampire at its source.
2. Understand that you own technology, technology does not own you
The additive effect of emails, phone calls, text messages, Facebook messages, twitter notifications, and LinkedIn, truly kills your productivity if such activities are allowed to demand your time at the will and whim of the technological device that has grown into an additional anatomical appendage. Therefore, transition all of the aforementioned apps from push notifications to where you get to control when each site demands your attention. Research suggests that it takes a grown adult with an average IQ fifteen minutes to get back on task once interrupted. Let’s assume conservatively, an individual receives 30 emails a day, it would theoretically take 7.5 hours of time get back on task should the emails interrupt the daily productivity of an employee through push notifications.
3. Do not watch the news
How often does the nine o’clock news truly add any valuable knowledge, skill, or fruit to your life? Other than weather and traffic reports, much content from the media is either troublesome, has an agenda, or simply does not apply to what you are trying to accomplish. Instead, let the news filter through others from natural conversations. The important and most salient information will rise to the surface and keep you from having to watch the mind numbing programs that rob your time in exchange for little benefit.
There are numerous vampires that threaten your productivity; find the vampires in your life that keep you from spending your time fruitfully and begin doing the most good in the situation you have been given.
-Justin A. Burger, MBA
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