Get to know your chronophages

Think about your hobbies

Your hobbies are, of course, what brings joy and variety to your life. But have you ever thought about how long your hobbies take up?

When I tried to calculate my chronophages, it turned out that my most active chronophage is my favorite music. It was because of her that I was late for work a couple of dozen times, for meetings with friends, and once I almost missed the train - I listened to my favorite songs so much that I passed the station stop.

Oddly enough, my second chronophage turned out to be such a useful activity as reading. I love to read from early childhood, at school and university I arranged reading hours for myself in boring lessons and couples. Now, when this wonderful time has passed, hours for reading have to be stolen from sleep. I often notice that I can sit up with a book until four in the morning, when I have to get up at eight.

Let's find out if your hobbies are a rewarding hobby, or if it's a chronophage that needs to be spent much less time.

Take a piece of paper and divide it into four columns.

In the first column, write down all your passions and hobbies.

In the second column, list all the benefits that these activities give you (you relax like this, it helps your self-education, so your mood rises, etc.).

In the third column, write down the time you (on average) spend on them per day, week, month.

Admire the resulting painting. If you understand that your hobbies do not interfere with your work and your other important affairs in any way, then you are a happy person, since your hobbies are not chronophages. If, on the contrary, you see that your hobbies take too much of your time (and not only free time), go to the fourth column.

In the fourth and most important column, you will need to reflect on the topic of how to drive your hobbies into a certain time frame. Set yourself clear boundaries: read (watch TV shows, play video games, etc.), if it's a weekday, two hours before bed, for example. For each deviation from the time norm, "write yourself fines": if you played computer games 30 minutes longer today, tomorrow you will play an hour less. The carrot-and-stick method, as you know, works very effectively on a person.

Understand if you know how to say no

The inability to say no is one of the most hostile chronophages. Just remember how much time you spent because you were afraid to seem impolite and subscribed to something that you had neither the time nor the desire to do.

Getting rid of this chronophage is easier than it might seem at first glance. To do this, you do not need to come up with mythical urgent matters or hide from pesky friends, acquaintances and colleagues.

Take a piece of paper and draw your day. Yes, just draw: you will spend these eight hours at work. Paint over them with a colored felt-tip pen and write the word "work" in large letters. But these eight hours (ideally) you will spend on sleep. You still have eight hours in reserve, which you seem to be able to spend at your discretion. But that was not the case: remember about the morning preparations, about the time spent on the road … the list goes on for a long time.

When you draw your entire day, it may turn out that you only have about an hour of free time. I think you will not be very happy with the prospect of spending these 60 minutes not on yourself, but on the affairs of another person, who, if you remember, has the same 24 hours a day as you do.

The next time someone decides to load you with their own affairs, feel free to show them your art. In most cases, everything becomes clear to another person from one glance at your "life picture" and he will not insist on his request.

The desire to be in time for everything, everywhere and now

… not the best aspiration. We are all to some extent perfectionists, and absolutely all of us want to demonstrate to other people our importance, significance and indispensability. Tackling several things at once, we forget that our possibilities are not limitless. We think it's cool to do so much, but in fact, we show a very big weakness - not being able to plan and prioritize.

Of course, in life there should always be room for spontaneity and surprises, but work affairs are something that should still be planned clearly and in advance. Determine what is more important to you and what is not so important. Do not deviate from your plan when you start completing tasks.

You are your most important chronophagus

Have you noticed that very often you yourself are wasting your time? You need to sit down and write this report, and instead you come up with other "urgent" tasks. Yes, the procrastinators of all of us are very, very good. Here are seven simple tips to curb your innate human ability to procrastinate forever.

Chronophages that you can't get rid of

Such time eaters include, for example, traffic jams and queues. They are inevitable in our life, and we cannot influence them in any way. But we can benefit from the time that has to be spent on these chronophages.

Are you in a traffic jam? Call your parents you haven't visited in two weeks. Sitting in line at the district clinic? Take a seat behind someone and go out to get some fresh air. There are many options.

Time is one of the most invaluable human resources. Try to use it to your advantage.