The Comeback Chronicles Podcast

Bolt #6: Defeating Time Wasters

• Terry L. Fossum

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We blow the doors off the belief that we don't have enough time to do important things in life and provide practical methods to better use our time and focus on what truly matters.

• Americans spend an average of 38 hours per week (over 5 hours daily) on their phones
• Online content creators use clickbait and algorithms to manipulate us into wasting more time
• Never confuse activity with accomplishment - recognize what actions truly move you forward
• The "big rocks" analogy teaches us to prioritize what's most important first
• Family and close friends should be your biggest priorities - they're who will care when you're gone
• Your health must be a big rock - you'll accomplish more when mentally and physically healthy
• Use the grade school system (A-B-C-D-F) to prioritize tasks by importance
• Track everything you do in 15-minute increments for a week to gain awareness
• If an activity doesn't take you toward your goal, it's taking you away from it

Head on over to Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen, and subscribe to the show. If you're ready to get over your fears, self-doubts and past failures and break through your comfort zone to reach the pinnacle of success in every area of your life, head over to terrielfosome.com to pick up your free gifts and so much more.


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Speaker 1:

If you've been stuck in fear, self-doubt, your past failures and you're ready to break through your comfort zones to finally reach the pinnacle of success in every area of your life, then this podcast is for you. Here's your host, Terry L Fossum.

Speaker 2:

The next bolt we're going to talk about is wasting time. I just don't have the time is one of the biggest fallacies in the history of mankind. In this recording, we're not just going to blow this bolt, but we're going to blow the doors off of the belief that we don't have time to do the important things in our life. You're going to get a method to better use your time and the focus of where to spend it. Let's get started. I have a rescue dog named Thor, thor the Wonder Dog. Thor is part yellow lab, part goofball and 100% intensity, especially if you say his favorite word in the world walk. Oh my God. You could be giving an hour-long dissertation and he could be sound asleep in another room with a TV on, but if you say the word walk anywhere in there, thor will hear it and start going crazy. It kind of reminds me of my teenagers and the word food. But if Thor hears the word walk, he will run and not walk to the front door with his nose right up against the crack of it, seemingly willing it with all of his might to open, open, open. And when it does, the entire world of distractions opens up to him. Look, there's a tree, there's a car, there's a bush Ooh, somebody peed here. All of these distractions come crashing in and then I bring out the ball. Now, when I bring out the ball, nothing else in the world suddenly exists. As long as I have the ball in front of him, you could set off a nuclear bomb right beside his head and he would not notice it. As long as the ball is in front of him, nothing else in the world exists. But if I hide the ball, it's out of sight, out of mind. Suddenly he forgets it ever existed and all the distractions of the world come crashing right back in again, just all of it all at once. And we're the same way, aren't we? As long as we have our goals and our action plan in front of us, we can keep pretty focused. But as soon as we look away from them, the entire world of distractions opens up to us and starts crashing in.

Speaker 2:

We really need to check email. There might be someone trying to reach us with something important. Oh, look at that. One of my Facebook friends posted something. Someone we're following tweeted something very important. We better check that out. And you know what? There's some crazy stuff happening in the world. I better stay informed. I better check on the online news.

Speaker 2:

And before you know it, the morning's gone and it's almost lunchtime, so you really shouldn't start something this close to lunch. In fact, it looked like a coworker was having a really bad day, so I better talk to him and make sure he's okay. I mean, the morale of the group's important. It's also important that everyone likes me, so I shouldn't seem to like. All I care about is working and anyway. Hey, I'm about to reach a new level in my online game, so I really should. You know I can go back to that thing and, oh my gosh, out of sight, out of mind.

Speaker 2:

It's amazing how quickly we get distracted in this fast-moving world of ours. We're constantly bombarded with distractions. Okay, check this out. This is going to blow your mind. It did mine.

Speaker 2:

According to a study by Provisional Living, americans spend, on the average, 38 hours per week on their phone. Did you catch that? 38 hours per week on their phone, that's over five hours a day, and we wonder why we're not reaching our goals. Let me say that again Americans spend an average of 38 hours per week on their phone. That's five hours a day, plus Five hours a day. We could stop screwing around on our phones and put towards our goals. But how do we get sucked into such terrible distraction?

Speaker 2:

Have you heard the term clickbait? This is going to be important for you to realize. Clickbait is the catchy headlines people write online to get you to click into their content. An enormous amount of time and money is spent on coming up with just the right clickbait to get you to open it and from there, what you clicked on is recorded. So more clickbait, just like that appears next time you're online, which for some people, is all the time. So people are actually working extremely hard to get you to spend more time looking at their materials. They're actually manipulating you. They're manipulating you and because it's content that's formulated just for us, we keep wanting to see more and more and more.

Speaker 2:

So ask yourself how many hours per day do you spend looking at stuff online? Guess what your answer? It's most likely very underestimated. Just like in weight loss, people overestimate the amount they work out and burn calories and underestimate how much they eat, the number of calories they take in every day. In the same way, we greatly overestimate how much time we spend working towards our goals and underestimate the amount of time wasted every single day I hear so often, I just don't have the time. There's only 24 hours in a day. Have you heard that one before? That's right, there are only 24 hours in a day, but we waste a huge portion of those hours and we don't leave time for the things and the people who are truly important. If we better use the time we have, we could absolutely make progress towards reaching our goals every single day. Okay, we understand we can make better use of our time, but how do we actually do it? Okay, first, never confuse activity with accomplishment.

Speaker 2:

Activities are things that keep us busy, things like checking social media, checking emails more often than necessary, playing online games, researching in quotes on the web and they're not all online. I can't tell you how many times I've had people tell me but I had to clean my desk. I just can't concentrate with a messy desk. I can't tell you how many times I've heard that one. And chatting with coworkers is another big one. The list goes on and on and on. Now I'm not saying to work all of the time I don't think that's healthy but I am saying to recognize everything for what it is. Be honest with yourself.

Speaker 2:

There's a great story to help illustrate this. A professor walked into a classroom one day and went up to a table at the front of the room that had a large bucket on it and several other items, including some large rocks. He placed several of the large rocks in the bucket until they protruded over the top and asked the class have I now filled the bucket? The curious class answered in the affirmative yes, you've filled the bucket. Hearing this, the professor took a smaller bucket filled with pebbles and poured it into that larger bucket, filling in the gaps around the large stones until they reached the top. No, he announced, the bucket was indeed not filled to begin with. I could fit considerably more into it and I have done so. I have now filled the bucket, have I not? The class confirmed Okay, the bucket wasn't actually filled to begin with, but yes, now it is, you've filled the bucket. Fine, said the professor. And then he pulled out yet another smaller bucket filled with sand and he poured it into the large bucket as well, filling all of the space between the pebbles. As you see, said the professor, even then the bucket wasn't filled, but now it is. There's finally no more room in the bucket.

Speaker 2:

The class again agreed, but the professor went on, took another small bucket filled with water and filled the large bucket to the top. Now, what is the lesson, he asked. Several answers came back like there's always room for more. You can always fit more in you like tricking us. All of those are true, he replied. But to get to the main point, let's reverse the process. So he started again with new materials, this time adding the water first, followed by the sand. Okay, no big deal. But as he began to add the pebbles, something began to become apparent. They were almost to the top already with just those items, and by the time he got to the big rocks, there was room for very few. The smaller items had taken up all of the space before the big rocks could be added. Now he asked what's the lesson here? Put in the big rocks first, was called out. That's exactly right. Put in your big rocks first.

Speaker 2:

Now, perhaps you've heard this story before or perhaps you've already made the analogy, but I find it's one that bears repeating to remind us every day. We all have the same amount of time in every day. The question is what we do with it. If we focus on the most important things first, then we can fill in the gaps with those things that have lesser importance, then lesser, then finally time wasters. But if we do the time wasters and less important things first, we don't leave enough room for the things that are truly important. That's when we feel like there's not enough time of the day to get to the things that are most important, because we filled our bucket first with everything else. So let me ask you and this is a real question, think about this one what are your big rocks? What are the most important things in your life? Okay, let me be real with you once again. If you only talk to things you'd like to accomplish, you have your priorities way screwed up. Wow, didn't expect to hear that from like a motivational guy. Huh, listen, this is important. This is yet another place where I believe, differently than a lot of people out there in this realm, this is important.

Speaker 2:

When you die, your accomplishments, they're not going to care. Your job isn't going to care. Your job isn't going to care. Your stuff isn't going to care. Your toys aren't going to care. Your money isn't going to care. Your fans and followers? Well, they will for a few short moments. Then they'll go on to someone else.

Speaker 2:

When you die, you know who's going to care your family and close friends. That's who's going to care your family and close friends. And yet all too often we get so wrapped up in accomplishments that we forget that our most important accomplishment of all is the difference we make in people's lives that we care about the most and who care the most about us. Your big rocks must include spending time with those people. They absolutely must. That's the important thing. That's your big rocks. There's never been a person on their deathbed who wished they'd spent more time at the office. They do wish they'd spent more time with their family and close friends. They'd spent more time with their family and close friends. Prioritize time with the people you love. And, speaking of your deathbed, that brings us back to your next big rock your health.

Speaker 2:

If you work yourself to death accomplishing things, you're still dead. Take care of yourself mentally and physically. You'll accomplish more if you're healthy, both mentally and physically, and you'll have a lot more fun doing it. So take care of yourself. Schedule in you time. Yeah, actually schedule it. It's a big rock.

Speaker 2:

Now. Next in the realm of big rocks can be the accomplishments you really care about, the things you really want and even need to get done more than anything. Then you can decide what your pebbles are, and so on. Now, to help you do this, I've got an exercise for you. This is what I call my grade school system of prioritization. It's a simple A, b, c, d and F system. Hey, it's something we're all familiar with and it's something we can relate to. So here's how it works. Prioritize your activities with an A, b, c, d and F. So take the time to write out a lot of what your priorities are. Write them down on a list and you're going to actually give them a grading system like this.

Speaker 2:

A priorities are your big rocks. These are the most important activities that you must do on a daily basis to help you reach those goals that are most important in the world to you. You don't just make these a goal, you make them an absolute. You will absolutely do these every single day. In fact, you'll complete all of your A priorities before you'll allow yourself to do anything else. If it's not an A, it doesn't get done until all the A's are completed.

Speaker 2:

Now, when you've completed everything on your A list, then you can move on to your B's. The B's are lesser important tasks that you want to be done today but don't have to be done. You don't have to answer every email that's sent to you. If the house isn't perfectly clean, that's okay, you're going to have to be done. You don't have to answer every email that's sent to you If the house isn't perfectly clean, that's okay. You're going to have to prioritize which of your goals you want to be done and which need to be done to get you where you want to be. C items are those that may be on your to-do list, but it's not that critical at all. They could actually be done tomorrow. It's interesting If you stick to this plan, you'll find yourself getting more C-list items done that you would expect to, because you're wasting less time and getting more done.

Speaker 2:

The D-list items are those that are on your long-term list. They need to get done sometime this month or sometime this year, but not right now. And F well, those are the time wasters and get this. These are actually okay. Let's say you've reached all of your A, b and C list priorities. You still have some D list priorities, but you're making progress on those as well.

Speaker 2:

Every once in a while, cut loose, go crazy, do an F list thing. Hey, reach that next level on the silly online game. That's okay. Gossip with your coworkers, a little Sleep in a day, or take an extra long lunch. Now, don't get me wrong. You don't do these every day. You really shouldn't do them every week, but every once in a blue moon, enjoy a guilty pleasure and feel good about it.

Speaker 2:

The trick is to make sure you don't do it too much and, again, most people do it way more than they think they do, so how do you know for sure? How do you know how much time you're actually spending on your A's, b's, c's, d's and F's? All right, here we go. There's a roll up your sleeves time. There's a gut check time, because I've got an exercise for you that you might not like at first, but when you do it, you find it's going to be one of the most powerful exercises that you can do to stop wasting time and prioritizing your life.

Speaker 2:

I need to emphasize this because I'm concerned, honestly, that you're not going to do it. Okay, listen again. You want me to be honest with you, right? You're listening to this so you can get through the things that have held you back in the past. You didn't pay good money, so you could just go. Well, that was nice. You want to change? Right. You want to improve, you want to move forward in a better way? Well, that's going to take some work. It's not just going to happen on its own. Just because you decide you want it doesn't mean you're going to get it. You're going to have to work for it. You're going to have to take the steps necessary to make it happen. Even if they're not fun, you got to do them.

Speaker 2:

So here's your exercise for this section. For at least an entire week, you need to write down everything you do in 15-minute increments. That's right. Everything you do in 15-minute maximum increments. Wait a minute. You might say You're telling me not to waste time, but you want me to take the time to write down everything I do. That's what I call a colossal waste of time. That's right it is. It's a short-term sacrifice for a long-term gain. I promise you it's not a waste of time. And, by the way, attorneys do this every single day. They bill in 15-minute increments, so they attorneys do this every single day. They bill in 15-minute increments, so they're writing this down every single day. So you're going to spend a little time now to complete an exercise that's going to save you hours and hours and hours and hours.

Speaker 2:

In the future, this one exercise could actually be the difference between reaching your goals and failing. Why is that? Because it's going to focus you for an entire week. For an entire week, you're going to be focused on doing the things you really should be doing. Now here's another fun part about it. I'd like to say that another benefit is that it's going to show you how much time that you've been wasting. But to tell you the truth, because you're focused on it, you're not going to be wasting so much time. Just watch. Instead, you're going to notice how much more you're actually getting done, even though you're taking the time every 15 minutes to write it down.

Speaker 2:

Now, why is it so important you take the time right now to analyze everything you do? This is important. If it doesn't take you toward your goal, it's taking you away from your goal. Let me say that again If it doesn't take you toward your goal, it takes you away from your goal. And why is that? Because you only have a certain amount of time each day to reach your goals. You only have a certain number of years, and those years start screaming by and are gone before you know it. Anything that takes away that time takes away your ability to achieve those goals. Here's the funny thing the more you do this, the more you're going to feel better about yourself.

Speaker 2:

Think about it for a minute. How do you feel when you finally get something done you've been wanting to get done for a while? It feels pretty good, doesn't it? Especially if you've been putting it off or feeling like you really wanted to get it done but you could just never seem to get to it. It keeps nagging and nagging you, doesn't it? Until you finally have that sense of relief and accomplishment when you get it done. Until you finally have that sense of relief and accomplishment when you get it done. What if you could feel like that each and every day? What if you could set those big rock goals and check them off as you did them? How would that feel? And if you could spend less time with time wasters, how much more do you feel like you could get done? How much more quality time would you spend with family and close friends? How much more could you get done on that goal, that dream that was feeling like it was out of reach. Okay, let's make it happen.

Speaker 2:

Take the time to write out your grade school system of prioritization. What are your A items, your big rocks? What are your B, c, d and F items? What are your A items, your big rocks? What are your B, c, d and F items? What are your time wasters? Each and every day, fill that bucket of yours with your big rocks first, followed by your pebbles and so on, and enjoy the amazing success that comes with it. Listen, you have one life on this earth. Don't just take action. Take the right action. Reach your goals, whatever they are, and make it count. Blow that bolt.

Speaker 1:

So that's it for today's episode of the Comeback Chronicles. Head on over to Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen, and subscribe to the show. If you're ready to get over your fears, self-doubts and past failures and break through your comfort zone to reach the pinnacle of success in every area of your life, head over to terrielfawesomecom to pick up your free gifts and so much more. We'll see you next week on the Comeback Chronicles podcast.