People today lead extraordinarily busy lives, or so they think. When people explain to me how busy they are, I come to one of two conclusions, the person is either one of the most successful people in the world, or they have very poor time management skills. As you can imagine, the later is most common.
The problem is, people are never bored anymore. Does is sound strange that I think it's a problem that people aren't bored? People aren't busy, they are just occupying their time with shit that doesn't need to be done. Today, there is no down time. While you wait for food at a restaurant, you are face down, staring at your phone. When you finish up with dinner, you stare at a TV. Before you go to bed, you stare at a tablet. When is the last time you were bored? It doesn't happen. There is always a Facebook post to like, a tweet to read, a show to catch up on, but none of it matters does it? This shit eats up your time, so that it seems like you are always doing something, when you are really doing nothing. If you went to work, and focused 100% on your job, didn't surf the web for your next holiday, check how many likes your shit got on Facebook, or look up what dumb thing Trump said yesterday, how long would it take you to finish the work it normally takes you 8 hours to do?
I understand that in this day and age there is a reliance on technology, and some people are required to be on social media for their jobs, but I think it's over done. I recently got my real estate license, and met another realtor that was constantly on Facebook. He said if it takes longer than 15 minutes to respond to someone on Facebook, don't bother responding because they have moved on. He had a huge following on Facebook, with thousands of people keeping up to date on his daily activities. He posted videos, how-tos, market stats etc etc. But I found it strange that if he didn't respond to someone within 15 minutes, it was a lost cause. How could that be? He is trying to sell houses. Did they buy a different house in that 15 minutes? Later I met another realtor that had no Facebook account. He said "Facebook doesn't sell houses". That can be taken a lot of different ways, and all of them are correct. The realtor with no social media presence was more successful than the one that lived on Facebook. I have a company manage my Facebook page and promote my listings and my name. I have never got a deal from Facebook. Who would do business on Facebook? Time to buy a house, better check Facebook? Time to order some office supplies, better get on Facebook? Need to hire a new employee, lets look on Facebook? Yes, people will check your identity on Facebook to see if you are a decent person, but if you don't have an account, that probably won't stop them from hiring you, and if it does, don't work there. The point I'm making, is I know two realtors, one spends his day responding to Facebook questions and is "super busy" doing that, then he needs to generate leads and sell houses, the other is generating leads and selling houses. The Facebook realtor is busier, the non-facebook realtor is successful because he does what matters, not what fills his time.
Back to being bored being good. Go back 100 years. What did people do when the work day was done? No TV, no internet, no Facebook, twitter, pinterest. You had time to think. You could sit down and think of the best way to apply yourself, think of a business plan, think of a solution to a problem, think of where you want to go with your life, think of how to educate yourself. When you were done thinking, you could do those things because you had time.
Try for one day, after work, shutting everything off. TV, internet, phone. What are you going to do? Whatever it is, it's better than any of those things. Maybe you go for a walk, or go to the gym, maybe you read a non-fiction book, maybe you meet with a friend, maybe you plan your next day, month or year, maybe you pack a healthy lunch for the next day instead of eating fast food again, maybe you start a meet up group. Whatever you do, it will be more productive, stimulating, educational and healthier than staring at that screen again. Now compound this over days, months and years. The time you spent "busy" in front of a screen can be leveraged into you being a better you. You ever meet someone that is truly busy. They run a business, run marathons, volunteer their time, speak at seminars, manage a number of properties, and still have time to be awesome parents. They maximize their time. Check their phone, I bet you think they have a thousand apps on it so they can manage everything and be connected. Wrong, they don't even have Facebook, or instagram on there. Look at people like Jesse Itzler. He runs ultra marathons, has started multiple companies that he has sold to the likes of Warren Buffet and Coca Cola, has written multiple best selling books, is a keynote speaker, managed musicians such as run DMC, and seems to have spare time. How? He doesn't usually carry a phone! He focusses on the task at hand and sets time blocks for when he will use social media.
People don't better themselves because they are too busy. If you took even just one hour a day of your time back from social media, pinterest, and TV, and spent it learning, or formulating a plan for the next day, or the rest of your life, or working out, or eating healthy, or a combination of all of those things, you would be 365 hours worth of better person in a year. And at what sacrifice? Not seeing some post your cousin made showing the trip they went on? Not knowing how game of throwns ends? At then end of the year none of that will matter, but being smarter, healthier and being able to manage your time better will have an incredible impact on your life.
Put social media on your desktop computer only, and make it necessary to enter the password every time you log in. If it's important, you will go to your computer and check in, it it's not, you won't. Having this shit at your fingertips in your pocket is why you are busy. You're busy getting nothing done. If you have Facebook on your phone, you aren't busy.
