I wish I had more time.

I find myself saying this quite often. You would think this meant that I am using the 24 hours I have been blessed with properly, but that’s not the case. You’ll see why after reading this.

Check out the screenshot (from about 2 weeks ago) of my web browser.

From the top left corner going clockwise: Twitter, Facebook, GMail, ING Direct, Ohio University, Facebook (Again), CNN and ESPN. This means I check my bank account quite often. I think sometimes I believe watching each cent will make them grow. Hasn’t worked for me yet, but I digress . . .

Each time I open my web browser, I am greeted with these 8 big squares and the events that unfold are quite predictable. I check out Facebook (why do you think it shows up twice) and probably realize it’s someone’s birthday. I go to their wall to say “Happy Birthday” and then I realize they have put a few pictures up and I check those out and leave a few comments, then I respond to previous comments on my wall etc. Before I know it, 20 minutes are gone. Even a “safe site” like CNN chews a chunk of my time unexpectedly. I find myself going from looking at the top news of the day to watching a video about a barking man, which then leads me to other videos and on and on it goes.

Here’s another screenshot from my phone and the time wasters are there again: Echofon (Twitter for the iPhone), Facebook and Email.

These  screenshots mean one thing: I am begging to be interrupted. The blue Facebook icon is telling me someone wants to friend me, my email notification is singing melodies in my ears and the orange glow from the ING Direct logo is beckoning me to click it.

In the end, I had clear out my history and then I made my phone icons less accessible by moving them away from the home page. In addition, I don’t open my email box for a few hours when I am at my desk and I turn off the sound on my phone for a few hours while at the office. All these are tiny changes, but now it takes more than 1 second for me to visit Twitter and I can usually stop myself before I do. This doesn’t mean I don’t tweet or facebook anymore, but now I do those things when I am ready to go on a break as opposed to responding to every single notification or stimulus. I am fast learning that as good as connecting to people is, it is more important to not let connections become more important than doing the real work. Any good thing can become bad if overdone.

Next time you find yourself wishing you had more time, have you asked yourself if there are small time-wasters that are eating away at your time currently. What about wishing you had more money? Have you asked yourself if you have plugged the money sinks you currently have? It might be time for a good ol’ self-examination.

PS. If you checked out the video of the barking man, did you find yourself also checking out other videos?