Overworking is a constant struggle for most people. You start off thinking that you are doing a good job by putting in a lot of time at work, then suddenly it hits you: another late night because you worked until 2am!
You keep pulling all-nighters to achieve your goals and it can quickly become an empty exercise.
Before you know it, you have spent hours upon hours working and barely taking breaks due to overwork. Your body starts to feel the effects later when you take your break – not only do you lack sleep, but you also run out of energy. This could potentially affect how well you perform during the day, which can make things even more stressful.
There’s an assumption that employers expect their employees to be busy, but what they don’t realize is just how much damage this activity causes.
It’s like drinking water after eating junk food – your health suffers. Technically, you’re still hungry, but your body isn’t functioning as efficiently so you eat longer than necessary before passing judgement.
This article will talk about some ways technology can negatively impact time management. We will look into how smartphone use, social media usage, and video gaming influence how you spend your downtime.
I hope you enjoy reading my essay and other related content.
Online shopping
With every passing day, technology seems to be getting better at doing things for us. Technologies like smartphones, computers, and online shopping are increasingly offering more features that save time or eliminate needs we had before.
In fact, according to an article published in Business Insider, “The average person now spends about one hour and fifteen minutes of their workday looking up information.” That’s nearly half of their working day!
And while some claim that this use is wasteful and expensive, I disagree. In fact, I believe it can have the opposite effect. By replacing human interaction with digital media, people lose touch with each other.
Negative effects include reduced social interactions, less meaningful conversations, and even changes in how relationships function.
It also increases stress levels due to the need to source and process information quickly, as well as worry about whether you will find what you’re searching for. All of these factors can contribute to making your job take longer than it should.
Here are eight ways that online shopping negatively affects time management.
1. It breaks down organizational boundaries.
You no longer need to go into a store to purchase something-you can do it all from the convenience of your own home or office.
This can be helpful if you are too busy to make trips or you cannot physically enter a shop because of health issues.
Too much editing
When you are in the editing stage of writing, your mind is constantly moving onto the next thing to edit.
Once you have finished an article or chapter, you need to save it as well as possible before submitting or publishing. If you were able to read it easily, then there is no reason to save it! But if you had to work through some grammatical or structural issues, then it’s important to do so so that you don’t waste time fixing them later.
Likewise, when you are trying to get something published, you will probably be doing several things at once- proofreading, formatting for different platforms, responding to comments, etc.- so it isn’t easy to focus solely on improving your writing.
In both cases, this can create a problem because too much time is spent on the computer performing these tasks instead of doing other things. This could be spending more time with family, friends, or colleagues, or even planning what you will do next.
Online tasks
One of the biggest time wasters for most people is doing things online. You spend hours every day checking your email, surfing the net, streaming videos or games, and performing other activities that feel more like work than fun.
If you’re in business to make money, then this can be fine, but if it’s for the sake of making yourself happy, it’s not worth it.
In fact, I would say it’s downright harmful.
By having so much extra free time, you begin to put more pressure on yourself to do something with it. And sometimes, when you need some down time, there’s just no way to achieve that because you have too many commitments outside of work.
This becomes even more prevalent as your career progresses. Because at the start of your career, you probably had less responsibility, you may have been able to afford to relax about once per week. But now that you have responsibilities beyond just your job, you can’t.
And as we know, quality over quantity when it comes to relaxation.
Too many projects
One of the biggest time thieves for most people is having too many projects going at once. You may be tempted to add new things to your plate every few days, but this cannot help you achieve your goal of having enough time for other things.
Projects take time to complete, which means that there’s not much time left in the day for something else. Plus, if one project takes longer than expected, you could potentially lose momentum and stop working on it completely.
If you feel like you are constantly needing more time due to all the different projects, then it might be time to streamline them or even drop some projects entirely.
Online classes
One of the biggest time wasters for most students is taking online courses. This is very common these days as there are almost limitless opportunities to take education remotely.
Most universities offer at least one course that you can take completely online. Some even offer several! This includes earning your degree, so it’s important to look into this before signing up in a classroom setting.
By taking an online lesson or two, you will save money by not having to go spend thousands on textbooks and tuition. However, there is still need to be made for traveling to a class, living accommodations, and lunch.
There is also the issue of content. Content written for a college lecture may not be available through an online platform, thus limiting what learning materials you have access to.
Technology is distracting
Technorati, or as I like to call it – technology overload. Everywhere you look, people are spending time online. It seems that every person your meet has their own smartphone with them at all times, and most have an account on just about any social media site.
It’s easy to become distracted by all of these new technologies and apps. On average, we spend around two hours per day using tech, which equals up to over 20 hours a week. Add in the fact that many workers are being paid for an overtime shift, and it becomes even more than that.
Distraction caused by technology can be quite difficult to avoid if you work for a company that doesn’t provide its employees mobile phones. You will need to find a way to limit your exposure to tech while still doing your job.
There are several strategies you can use to achieve this. This article will discuss some ways to manage your tech usage during off-hours and how to utilize downtime to accomplish other tasks.
Technology makes us rely on it
We now depend on technology for almost everything, from banking to shopping to communicating to working, making it easy to lose control over what time it takes to use it.
With every passing day, technology becomes more advanced and accessible to average users. This brings an expectation that anyone can access and use it at any time.
It’s important to remember that you should not expect too much out of your computer software or device unless you have trained yourself in how to use it.
Becoming more aware of this will help prevent excessive tech reliance. At the same time, being conscious about how much tech you use is a way to improve time management.