3 Time Sucks Killing Your Productivity

Many business owners feel like they wish they had more time to accomplish more. If you feel like you don’t have enough time in the day already, it doesn’t make sense to spend time on things that kill your productivity by taking you away from your work and ultimately slowing your progress on your goals.

Here are 3 time sucking applications that probably hurt more than they help:

1) Instant Messages

DMs, PMs, texts, Slack messages, etc. are all great for quick communications but they, unfortunately, make it easy for people to interrupt what you’re doing. You feel obligated to respond and before you know it, 21 minutes have passed. Take advantage of ‘do not disturb’ modes or built-in notification settings to help you silence these pings and stay focused on your work. Do you best to only respond at set timeframes to stay in a productive workflow. Once you get interrupted, it’s harder for your brain to get back in a grove.

2) Email

The same goes for email. It can potentially suck you into wasting time. Turn off notifications and try to only check your email in the morning, afternoon, and shortly before you end your workday. This allows you to not feel pressured to get back to someone right away, or go down the rabbit hole of reading a new newsletter, or even start shopping because you saw a special sale.

3) Social Media

For most people, this is a given. We all know social media can be a great way to keep in touch with people you admire and love, but most likely 99% of the content you’re exposed to is derailing you from your focus. Viewing pictures of someone’s summer trip is exciting. Checking what your favorite influencer is up to is interesting. Being snagged by an irresistible ad. But then you get lost in hours of scrolling. You have a life to live and impactful work to create! Again, set some limits and strive to stay within them.

Bonus tip – consider limiting the number of ‘friends’ that you have. Does anyone have 500+ REAL friends? Are the connections you have genuine and serving you in a positive way?

Life is short! Focus on what you want to get done each day and avoid letting things steal away time that you could be spending on making your dreams and goals come true!