Wasted Time – How to Bust it

Time is your most precious asset, and this article includes some tips on how to avoid wasting it. So let’s take a closer look at Wasted Time – how to bust it.

In one of my earlier posts, I explained that procrastination or wasting time is the reason so many people today are unable to achieve their goals and gain financial freedom.

Many people dream about a better job, working from home, or just having financial freedom yet they don’t know how to manage their time.

I think I have mentioned that I’m involved in helping people to pass the GED test so read my review of GED practice tests and classes. The GED is a high school equivalency test for people who didn’t finish high school but now are looking for new job possibilities and would like to continue their education.

The first step in this process is to get prepared for the GED by taking preparation classes and GED pre-tests. Sadly, many people waste their time and never get their GED certificate so here is how to bust time-wasting.

The first step to dealing with this problem is awareness. Awareness will allow people to begin to think about self-control. Self-control and personal development are the secrets to success in achieving your goals such as a GED diploma. This plays also a crucial role in the process of mergers and acquisitions. Development and self-control are key decision-making skills when it comes to assessing cash flow performances in business.

The following example shows how personal development will assist you in the one thing that will help prevent wasting time – goal setting. Keep in mind that that’s not the same as Exposure. In a social experiment quoted in Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely, students in a class were split into three groups:

The first group was allowed to set their own deadlines for their assignments they had to write down their deadlines in advance. The second group had no deadlines at all except they had to have all their work in by the end of the term.
The third group had deadlines given to them with no negotiation.

Which group performed the best? The group that was given firm deadlines did the best. The group with no deadlines did the worst and the students that set their own deadlines came second. Maybe it has to do with “The Myth of Generation Einstein” (that’s how Generation Y is sometimes referred to in the Netherlands), but I think this is pretty general.

The message for people who want better careers is clear, even if you have no imposed deadlines on you then imposing your own is best. Working with no deadlines is a recipe for failure. If, for example, want to be a writer, set a tight schedule and stick to that. Then, you’ll achieve the success you’ve been dreaming about for so long. Then again, so many successes came only after so many failures…

Could a large part of the reason people stop pursuing their GED be that they fail to realize how irrational their behavior is? They are unaware of how little self-control they are exercising. In fact, even when this is pointed out to them some people still choose to ‘wing it’. They see this form of planning as being too close to a ‘job’ and they resist it. However, the rational thing is to develop a business plan, review it and then make small corrections.

REPENT AT LEISURE

Changing careers usually include some form of ongoing training and should focus on improving your personal development so that you, as a young student or young professional, may be able to advise any company if you wish. Part of that personal development should also focus on, and reward, Leadership Skills and how to become an expert in your field.

The power of emotion over decision-making. In the same way that buyers behave irrationally, there is no reason to believe that we as leaders always behave rationally. In fact, social experiments have demonstrated an irrational yet predictable pattern of behavior. This may be associated with the common student belief that businesses could be doing well if they are doing good!

People were asked a series of questions about what they would do in certain social situations. In the cold light of day, their answers demonstrated they would always take the rational decision. However, when those people were in situations where their emotions were high, their actual actions were completely different from their predictions.

In fact the higher the emotion the further away from their predicted response they moved. The relevance of this for teachers is decision-making regarding students though it is clear that the teacher is not the center of education. If a member of your classroom does something that negatively impacts other students then you may feel annoyed. As a result, you may also feel the need to want to criticize the person immediately.

From the above experiments, the best course of action would be to write down your initial thoughts and then sleep on them for a night. Then the next day re-read those initial thoughts and you will probably find that you will want to ‘tone down’ your response. After all, also you want to be seen as a recognized expert in your field, don’t you? This proves the truth of a slightly different version of an old adage, ‘decide in haste, repent at leisure’.