What are my biggest time and energy wasters?

I will categorize time and energy wasters into two categories: those you cannot avoid and those you voluntarily waste mindlessly.

1. Those that cannot be avoided and controlled:

• From bureaucracy at work. For me, it’s every Tuesday’s 8 am meeting during which colleagues communicate unimportant matters that can be accomplished through email communications, and talk about department strategies despite that the department has no means to implement them. However, in order to show that I am a good enough colleague, I have to be there.
• registered my car at MVB, renew my driver’s license, and shop for car and home insurance.
• House maintenance: heating & cooling breaks down, roof leaking, GE fridge breaks, lawn mowing in summer, etc..
• Snow shovel so I can get in and out of the driveway for half of the year, as I live in snowy Colorado
• The closest Kingsooper grocery store never gets its price system right. Every time I shop there, it requires at least extra 10 minutes to get the price corrected. Well, I can shop elsewhere, but it requires a much longer drive, and Kingsooper is the dominating grocer in the area. There is no way around it.
• Make appointments and visit dentists twice a year.
• Occasionally check whether automatic payments for credit cards and utility bills are correct.

You can probably add more to this list. Since we cannot avoid them, the best way to go is just to be there, and do it without any complaint or grudge. Without psychological resistance, we can get over them more smoothly and they will drain less of our energy.

2. Those that are under your control but you mindlessly let time slip away:

• The biggest time and energy waste is bothered emotionally by small and tedious things such as those given above, or worse by people close to you, family members, or colleagues. These disturbances can be insidious and most energy-draining. I give two of my recent examples of such kind.
  • A colleague signed up for the event “Get girls interested in STEM”, but planned to travel and hoped I would step in for her. I do not know how to connect with high-school girls and do not want to spend a whole Saturday morning on this event, but rather work on more pressing matters such as revising papers. However, I wanted to be more accommodating as a new member of the department. Thus, I was torn between saying “no“ and” hedging“. This matter bothered me at least for three days until I decided to follow my own will, spending that whole Saturday morning finishing revising and resubmitting one of my research papers,  which will materially affect my career.
  • Through my sister, I learned my aging aunt is in need of a wheelchair.  The last time I went back to China to visit relatives is 2019. My aunt reminds me a lot of my grandmother whom I am very close, but I do not communicate with my aunt regularly.  She does not own a phone, let alone access the internet.  Neither do they contact me for help.  My aunt has six children and many grandchildren.   and I had the contact info of one of her granddaughters. I finally decided to contact her and her mother (my cousin), convincing them to get aunt a walker at least, so she can walk in her house more confidently.   one of her sons is living in the same house with my aunt. They are simply not aware that a walker (not so common in China) will improve their mother’s life tremendously.   Perhaps I did the right thing, but cousins may think I over-reached.   I will help if friends or families ask and it is within my capability.
• Online shopping
  • Spend tons of time searching for information about a product you are interested in buying. For me, this often occurs just before sleep. This perhaps is the worst time eater because any shopping decision made before sleep is more likely impulsive and will result in returning products.  One is often tired by the time going to bed and cannot think straight. Moreover, browsing online exposes me to blue lights that will disrupt my sleep.  Thus, shopping online before bed has two serious consequences： it negatively affects your productivity and mood the following day, and any shopping done may result in having the products returned which is a big time waster itself. You will need to repack the box, seal it, and drive to the nearest UPS store, FedEx dropbox, or USPS to drop the box.
  • shop online and then find out you will need to return them. See above.
• Online browsing and reading on topics that interest me.
  • The most recent topic I am interested in is how jogging can help one lose weight and improve life quality. I thought I am learning tons about jogging and its health benefits. The truth is that most of the information is superfluous. I already know jogging benefits me. What I  need is to build a routine and cultivate a jogging habit. Make sure it energizes me and makes me feel good. If it tires me,  I am overtrained and should reduce the frequency and duration of jogging. If I don’t feel better: my waist is not slimmer and my sleep quality is not better after three months of training. I need to jog longer each time and pay attention to what I eat. 

    Our body is smart, it knows all answers to our questions related to our own body. Nobody else knows better than you about your body, even doctors. You only need to learn how to read your senses and how you feel about your body.  So spending days browsing Reddit or other web social media adds no value, or perhaps you are simply looking for confirmation or encouragement from other homo sapiens.  Perhaps I should seek a jogging pal in my neighborhood. That will be good for my morale as a beginner jogger, and I have a real live human being to communicate with, not numerous invisible online personas.

• Look for my IDs and keys before going out—-solution, find a place near the entrance for them and keep them there.
  Double-check whether you have all that is needed before you run errands. If not, you may need to make multiple trips to accomplish whatever you plan to accomplish.

• Read good books but do not apply what you learn from the book to your life or work.

To sum up, for unavoidable time wasters, we will need to be acceptive, resistance will drain our energy. Avoidable time wasters are due to factors: unorganized life, and digital distraction. To tackle unorganized life, a bit of Marie Kondo will help. Organize your home so that everything has its fixed place in your home. For digital distraction, design mechanisms so that your time spend on it (laptops, pads, smartphones) is constrained to a certain time of the day or fragmented time period, say while you wait for an appointment or a bus or doctor.  Seeing the need, the new iPhone 14 actually reports each week whether your time spent on digital gadgets is increasing or decreasing compared with the previous week.

Make the best use of your time and energy, Chao!