9 ways to take back control of your time

You could spend your entire life on the net doing nothing.

This happened to me just yesterday. I went to LinkedIn to check how my latest post was doing on Pulse. Then I checked the action in the groups.

When I went to the groups, there were some interesting discussions there. So I read one and clicked on the author’s profile to see his credentials. Then I went back to check the email signups due to the post. Then I checked the analytics on my post’s views.

Voila. One hour doing nothing but some knee-jerk response to feel I was on top of things.

Guess what happened an hour later? You got it, the same thing.

So we’re all tempted. (Especially if you have your own business.) It’s quite human really to avoid real “work” and be led away by distractions. Reminds me of college. Studying or a kegger? Ok, who made a good choice on this one?

The internet has brought a magnetic distraction to our desktop. Smart phones have trained us to constantly check in.

A 2013 study from IDC Research says that 80% of smartphone users check their phones within the first 15 minutes of their day. Scarier yet, 79% of adults have their smartphones on them 22 hours a day! How is that possible?

Whether or not you use your phone as a pillow, or try to catch every post on Facebook, beware of training your mind to follow other agendas and distractions.

In the words of John F. Kennedy (remember him?), “We must use time as a tool, not a couch.”

The truth of the matter is that as people, we are pre-wired to focus on what is most urgent as opposed to what’s most important.

Today’s technology gears its models to that weakness. Flash sale sites like Gilt and Zulily, know you’re a captive audience for their product, offer it for a limited amount of time, cater to your FOMO (fear of missing out) by telling you how many more of that item are available, up the urgency by giving you only 10 minutes to decide, and once something’s sold out they still show it but put a slash across it to show you what you’ve missed. Clever, clever, clever. And effective.

Facebook selectively informs you what your friends are up to, who’s commenting on current events, who wants to invite you to something. If you don’t check it constantly, you’ll be out of the loop. And from childhood, who wants to be an outcast?

So what are weak, undisciplined human beings like us to do? Here are 9 tips to take back control of your life, practice better time management and set your own agenda based on what’s important to you.

1) Turn off your notifications. That’s right. Now. You really will live if you have nothing in your mailbox on in screen popups. After time, you’ll find you’re spending less time deleting and managing information, and you’ll like it!

2) Start your day with your own agenda. (Yes, you can check the weather first.) Hone in on what’s most important and do that before anything else. Then set aside an hour to check your email at say 12pm.

3) Work first, for your own business or employer. You can reward yourself with a little screen time gratification, say “gasp” during lunch!

4) Do short-term and long-term goals for your work and for your life. Then ask yourself are you getting real enjoyment and connection from your screen time, or just getting sucked in.

5) Think of your time as a finite commodity. You only have so much. Is this really how you want to spend it?

6) You probably already say you don’t have enough time for things. If you wanted to maketime, what would you not mind eliminating?

7) Track your time (but don’t let this be another time suck!) It’s fun to play with the coding colors on your gmail or Outlook calendar. Once you know the surprises of how you spend your time, you’ll know what to fix.

8) Make a list of 10 event or store sights you like to check and put them in an Evernote note or in a Word doc on your desktop, but do not subscribe to them. When you want to unwind, spend 30 minutes checking them.

9) Turn off your tv. That counts as screen time, too. Haven’t you already seen that movie/show/rerun? Talk to people in person, play a silly game, go for a nature walk. (Ok, I’m assuming people are important to you.)

The upshot? Don’t let your laptop, ipad, smartphone rule you! Make time for your most important work, your most satisfying hobbies, your most revelatory life.

Published in collaboration with LinkedIn 

Author: Nancy Benjamin is the Co-founder and Chief Liberator at Business Rebellion

Image: People walk past clocks at Reuters Plaza in London. REUTERS/Jon Jones.