Observe and Eliminate Time (Life) Wasters

I'm more conscience of the time wasters in my life lately.

I'm not sure if it started with this Unexploited Life blog, or from reading through Mr. Money Mustache's blog (and being a bit envious), but I've definitely become more observant.

I noticed the dishes piling up (one of my house tasks), the floors getting dirty (joys of a shedding dog! and another one of my house tasks), my to-do list growing, my belly expanding, and my t.v./movie intake increasing!!

Celebrate the small wins!

I woke up!!

I'm starting small but I'm breaking free from my t.v./movie addiction!!

I haven't watched my evening television shows (damn free Hulu and cheap Netflix!) for almost two weeks - and you know what, a huge difference!

I now have plenty of time to keep the dishes clean.  I now have plenty of time to sweep the floors. I have plenty of time...to make my to-do list longer (OK, so I need to focus on my to-do list next). I have plenty of time to workout!

Continue observing!

I still see areas for improvement.

Since my wife wakes up at 4:55 a.m., I should have about two hours of 'at home working' time every morning (except Toastmaster Thursdays)!

So...I started focusing on this in the past few days.

Where do my mornings go?

After countless hours of study and research (ha!), I realized most of my morning time is going to sleeping in (at least laying in bed) and reading online news articles, articles which I again read during lunch and in the evening.

So I cut the news crap out!! (Most of it is B.S. or fear reporting anyways...in my opinion.)

I haven't read any news articles in seven days - again, small wins!

I still check my Facebook and Twitter accounts - which give me all of the big updates, though I have to filter for my contacts that I have similar beliefs with, since most of the posts appear a little bias.

I still catch myself reaching for my phone or wanting to jump online during lunch - this will be a tough habit to break! I did jump on a weather station to see the forecast for this past weekend - not sure if I'm counting that as 'news' or not, but it was definitely needed as plans changed!

I'm still having a hard time getting out of bed.  Yesterday I got up and worked out - crazy!! But then today I lounged around...wasting this valuable time...

Keep the small wins coming!

I'm looking forward to being even more productive with my found time (after observing and eliminating my time wasters)! I'm laser focusing on that to-do list next!

What are your biggest time wasters? How did you (or are you trying to) break the habits?

Yours in exploiting life!
Quinn