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Life is so demanding, we never have enough time to achieve our desires. Most people wish the day could be extended to 30 hours. Even if we do that, we still won’t have enough time because most people live action-filled lives.
We have energy-sapping activities all around us but, without knowing it, there are some people around us who are time-wasters. All they do is sap your energy for no just cause. They eat up valuable time with gossip, idle talk and poppycock. You have to be wary of these folks, otherwise, you’d lose valuable time doing little.
On the average, most people have about 16 active waking hours every day. If you live and work in a highly-populated city like Lagos, with high vehicular density, you’d have to contend with traffic snarls every day as you commute to and from work. Combine this with a gruelling job schedule, the frustration of having to provide water, electricity, security, and other social amenities due to failure of governance, energy-sappers are the last thing you’d want to deal with!
Time-wasters sap energy with their unscheduled visits, long visits, endless talk, frequent demands of financial assistance, irritating telephone calls, etc. Some regale you with tales of escapades, misadventures, lies, spiritual attacks and victimisation, just to win sympathy. Some tell beer parlour jokes as a form of gratuitous entertainment to create relevance for themselves around you.
Normally, time-wasters mill around successful people, especially politicians and celebrities who use them as part of the entourage or as courtiers. They are the ones who massage the ego of the “big man” with inflated platitudes and songs of praise. Anyone who aspires to great heights in life should be wary of this crowd. They add no value to anyone other than harm, dissipation of time, energy and resources. That is why General Obregon of the Mexico Army said, “I embrace critics and fear those who flatter me.”
There are time-wasters everywhere. You see them in families, among friends and associates. Some of them have nothing concrete doing. Many jobless ladies visit offices and constitute a nuisance to fun-loving men, especially “the big ogas” who like to entertain playmates during office hours. This behaviour is irresponsible. Why should you use office hours to attend to private visitors who contribute nothing to your business except to disrupt productivity?
If you’re doing anything in your office other than the job you are paid for, you’re cheating your employer. Any activity not directly related to the job, such as casual phone conversations, chatting on the social media, gossip, or sleeping at work is dereliction of duty. It is a grave misconduct in offices where work ethic is taken seriously.
Anyone can be guilty of time-wasting. A boss who entertains private visitors during office hours is equally culpable because they are wasting the valuable time of their employer. Your employer pays you for the time you are engaged to deliver quality service. If your poor work ethic affects your output, your employer loses.
You often hear people say, “Don’t waste my time.” Nobody wants their time wasted. Another popular saying is; “Time is money.” Do not allow anyone waste your time. Time lost is never recovered. Someday, we’d all give account to God on how we spent our time here on earth. So, don’t waste your time and don’t allow anyone waste your time either. Most successful people maximise their time. Majority of those who fail in life are usually those who wasted their time doing nothing productive.
This write-up is a wake-up call to young folks to buckle up. Don’t be part of anybody’s entourage. Why should you be a mere courtier when you can actually be a king or queen yourself? The difference between a successful person and the one who fails sometimes comes down to how they spend their time. If you invest your youthful energy in something viable, it would pay you a good dividend. If you chose to invest it in nothing worthwhile, you’d reap poverty, lack and failure in due season.
You can’t cheat nature. What you sow is what you reap in abundance. An adage says, “Great minds discuss ideas, little minds discuss people.”
Don’t pay heed to a tattler. Besides, gossip is one of the seven things that God hates. The Almighty resents gossip because it is the character of the devil. Those who gossip only create division, they have no good motives.
It is in your own interest to live an organised life. Don’t entertain unscheduled visits. In this part of the world, many people just barge in on you without notice. That’s wrong! When uninvited visitors come to me, I dismiss them immediately. I don’t allow anyone to steal my valuable time. Time should be properly rationed to enable you produce maximally. Don’t get late to events as most of us do. It is wrong to be late to work. Most people are habitual latecomers. They get late to church, lectures, parties, you name it. They think it is normal. No, it is abnormal. A latecomer is a time-waster of sorts because they tax the patience and energy of those who wait for them. It is a wrong way to live.
Weekend Spice: Every master was once a disaster – T. Harv Eker
Ok folks, have a nice weekend. Stay motivated.
•Ayodeji is an author, rights activist, pastor and life coach. He can be reached for mentoring and counselling on 09059243004 (SMS & WhatsApp only)
