How to Break the Habit of Wasting Time!
- Take a deep breath.
- Ask yourself: What does this activity do for you?
- Then ask yourself: Is this what I want?
- Take another deep breath.
- What really matters?
- Do exactly that.
If you want to break the habit you have to start doing what matters.
For that you have to first get out of your head a little bit, which is what taking a deep breath does.
If you are overthinking something you will just get stressed again, causing you to run to whatever habit you feel comfortable in; which is usually your time-wasters.
Become aware of what you are even doing after that.
Most of the times we just get lost in the activity.
One video turns to half the day, one episode turns into one season, and one round of your favorite game turns into an all-nighter.
Become aware of what you are doing and ask yourself what benefit this activity has.
Then figure out if that is what you really need.
Sometimes you do need a break, a little bit of fun, or just some distractions.
Of course! We all get stressed out and a little overburdened at times.
But do not let it take over too much.
Now this will already take a lot of self-reflection and control to even get to this point, so take another deep breath to re-focus.
And then ask yourself what really matters to you.
What do you really want?
Not just what do you want now, that will mostly lead to the immediate gratification, but instead what do you want overall.
Then do whatever gets you closer to that overall goal.
That, in essence, is the best way to deal with time-wasters.
It is, however, something that requires a lot of self-awareness and self-control, meaning you will not be great at this to start out with.
Which is why it is crucial that you take all 6 steps at first.
Take the deep breaths to make it easier on yourself and really take this step by step.
Later on you can cut out steps 1–3 as you take yourself and your life more seriously.
But until you get to that point keep bringing your actions to your own awareness.
It will not take long before you automatically decide to do what’s best for you over what you want to do, which will lead to a richer, more fulfilled life in your future!
Originally published at www.quora.com.
