You can read it anywhere. To reach your goals you must have a plan. Moreover, you should stick to that plan. But you have probably also read that you should be able to be flexible. All of it is excellent advice. However, most of us fall short when it comes to managing time this way.
Why do we do this? After all, if we want to achieve any success, the plan that we have so carefully laid out for ourselves does include planning our time so that we get the tasks done on time for the next step. Yet this is were we fall apart.
The Traps
The Internet is used for almost everything these days. However, have you paid attention to how much time you spend goofing off online?
- Web surfing
- Hanging out on Social media sites
- Checking your email over and over again
- Playing online games
And even if you are not using the Internet, there are these technical time-waster:
- Watching TV
- Spending time sending and answering text messages
- Chatting on the phone when you know you will see that person in just a few hours
- Playing off-line computer games
There are time traps that doing involve technology at all. . . well, very little anyway.
- Doing the laundry as you want something specific to wear
- Doing errands every day
- Fixing meals that are not planned
The last three time traps I mention probably need some clarification.
The Clarifications
I do my laundry every Monday. It is a habit burned into me from childhood and it still works well for me. By doing my laundry once each week, I have made time for other tasks during the rest of the week. Moreover, I usually do not have to do as many loads because I have enough laundry of one type to make a full load. Doing laundry as you want specific garments is going to mean more loads and spending more money on laundry supplies and water.
When I was a young teenager, there was a family of six who lived next door to my family. They were incredibly nice people but the mother was a victim of her own time. Every day, after her children went off to school, she would go some place in her car. She may be gone two hours or just fifteen minutes, but she did it every 
day. On top of this she was going some place in her car right before lunchtime (usually gone about twenty minutes). In the middle of the afternoon you could see her get into her car again. This time was about the same as this time spent in the early morning. Why, in the world, she would not combine errands is still a mystery to me.
You may not think the last one is a time waster but it is. By planning your meals your trips to the grocery store do not take as long, nor are there as many trips. Some meals take longer to fix. By planning them, you can do other tasks while your meal is cooking with out fear of it burning.
In Closing
I am sure if you put your mind to it, you can find other time traps in your world. By planning tasks, combining tasks, and just plain getting rid of those time wasters, you will find more time for the goals you want to reach, do a little juggling of time so that you accommodate others, and even have some time for yourself.
What is your biggest time waster? How do you combat it?
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1st image: Matt Feifarek | 2nd image: John Morgan
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