What is the first
thing you do when you wake up?
Every day.
The very first thing…
In posing that question, I considered the answer myself. At first I thought: go
to the bathroom... then probably eat breakfast, get ready for class… But it didn't take long before I realized that I'd be lying if I said those are the very first things I do.
The real first thing I do with my day, before I even leave my bed, is reach onto my night
stand and check my cell phone.
9:15AM – 2 text messages, 1
voicemail.
I listen to the voicemail.
It’s mom asking me what day I’m coming home for Thanksgiving. I check my texts
– one from a friend I was studying with the night before, another from my
roommate telling me to look at the article she posted on my wall.
9:18AM - I click on
Facebook - 4 notifications.
Sarah has posted on your timeline.
Melissa mentioned you in a
comment.
Conor invited you to his
event.
Brian and Carmen like a
link on your timeline.
Before looking for the article,
I notice a friend’s picture from last night on my news feed. I click on the
album and scroll through a couple photos.
After a few clicks, I get
back to my wall. I see the link. It’s an article about University of Maryland college
students. I read through some of the article until I’m interrupted by an email
notification.
9:29AM - I click on Gmail
- 5 unread messages.
One is from work. An
employee is requesting that someone cover her shift this weekend. I reply
to the email volunteering to take her hours. Another is from management prep.
It’s the schedule for the upcoming conference.
9:37AM – I click on my
iCal to add the events.
Suddenly I notice that its
9:37AM.
I was supposed to be out
of bed 25 minutes ago. I jump out of bed (now its time for the bathroom) and run
to the bathroom. I quickly brush my teeth, wash my face, and put on my clothes
for class. I run downstairs to grab a bagel. Three of my friends are sitting in
the kitchen eating cereal. One asks me a question, but I don’t pay
attention because I’m too busy thinking about the quickest route to class.
I run out the door and
begin my trek to campus. On the way to the business school, I pass my old roommate from freshman year.
She’s so excited to see me. I stop to give her a hug, but unfortunately I don’t
have time to catch up. I notice the disappointment in her eyes as I sever our conversation…
When I finally made it to
class, I thought about that look in her eyes. I realized that I had missed an
opportunity to reconnect with an old friend, solely due to my lack of time management.
I realized that that instant had an effect on both her life and my own, and
even though it was something small, it made me see a big picture.
One exercise in time
management is to write down each activity you do throughout the day. Even the
small stuff, like getting ready for class or checking emails. Lay it all out
on paper so you can clearly see a mapped out image of your day. Have you ever
heard of calorie counting for people who feel they have too much weight? Well
this is the minute-counting version for people who feel they have too little
time.
So I tried out this
exercise. I wrote down each step of my day. And what I found was that the
reason I “don’t have time” for certain things I’d like to do in life, is
because I have too much time for things that really don’t matter to my overall happiness…
Introducing Web 2.0.
Let me tell you what I
mean by "too" much. I mean 4 whole hours of Facebooking (mostly looking through
pictures of close friends, who are also available through the magical portal called reality, and looking through news feed of people I probably haven’t or
will ever speak to), checking e-mails, checking the weather, online shopping,
watching videos, reading articles…
And I am not alone.
The global online
population is 2,095,006,005.
The global time spent
online a month is 35 billion hours, which is equivalent to 3,995,444 years.
The global internet user
spends 16 hours a month online, while the average American internet user spends
32!
People spend 22% of their
online time social networking, 20% reading content, 21% doing searches, and 19%
checking emails.
More than 56% of social
networking users have used social networking sites for spying on their
partners.
More than 1 billion search
queries are made on Google per day.
There are 4 billion views
per day on YouTube, and over 60 hours of content uploaded every minute.
More thatn 250 million
tweets are made per day, and more than 800 million updates are made on Facebook
per day.
Now I have
figured out where a huge chunk of my time has gone. Perhaps the influence of
Web 2.0 and digital media has added to the challenge of work-life balance...
I don’t expect this to
change. I don’t expect people to stop using the internet. After all, you are
reading this blog through Web 2.0…
However, it may be time to
become conscious of how many hours we are spending in front of our computers, our smart phones, our ipads, and take a look at whether that time is taking away from things we'd like to be doing…
So I have one more question:
How would you choose to map out your day if all of the time spent on the internet was
e r a s e d...?
