Where Did the Day Go? Secret Time Suckers!

You sit down with your to-do list, ready to crack down and get some work done. You know what needs to get done and you are ready to do it. Well, now that you are all set up for your task, might as well check your email beforehand... answer any important emails before you start working. Look! Better answer that new email from your sister. Next thing you know you have been sitting at your computer for an hour and a half and you haven't even started working! It is easy for these secret time suckers to leave you wondering where your day went.

Let's look at a few different "secret time suckers" that you may not even realize are taking up a huge part of your day. Now, you may know about these and realize they are taking up a lot of time, but as you read this article, really think on how much time you spend on these distractions. Next time you sit down to work, set a timer and see how long you are actually allowing yourself to spend on these things.

First, let us take a look at email. Obviously, email is an important part of business and you don't want to ignore your potential clients, partners, co-workers, or family, but that doesn't mean you should be checking your email constantly. More often than not it disrupts your work if you check it too often and leads to spending much more time spent on it than expected. It is far to easy to lose an hour reading and responding to emails, clicking links within emails, and ending up surfing the web instead.

Facebook, Twitter, and other social networking sites can be even worse than email, easily getting you lost within them for hours at a time. Unless your work specifically requires you to be checking these sites, I highly suggest only checking them once or twice a day. If they are your personal accounts rather than for work, try and stay away until break time or after work. Especially with this one I suggest you try timing how much time you spend on it. You will be surprised!

Something many people don't think of as a time sucker but definitely is: phone calls. When you sit down to work, screen your calls and only take very important ones. Everyone else can wait an hour or two for you to finish your task on hand so you can call them back. Phone calls interrupt work flow. Many times it is easy to find yourself off on a tangent during a phone call, doubling or tripling the time the phone call takes as well.

What is the key to all of this? Once you start a task, you should try and work through it with limited interruptions. When you sit down to work, focus only on that task. Try not to let anything distract you. One distraction leads to more distractions and loss of focus. Next time you think about checking your email before you get started, set that timer and see how long it is actually taking. See exactly how much time you are losing and find out exactly where your day is going!