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What are the biggest time wasters that exist today?

Anything related to matters of the mind

Biggest time wasters

  • Social Media

    Votes: 22 73.3%
  • Reading too many books

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Bad friends/social circle

    Votes: 1 3.3%
  • TV, video games, sports, media in general etc...

    Votes: 7 23.3%

  • Total voters
    30

K1 Lambo

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Here's my list​

1. Social media. Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube etc. HUGE WASTE OF TIME almost all of it, particularly if you're on team consumer, which is like what 99% of society I guess? However, it's not a waste of time if you're producing, aka the 1% of society on social media.

Personally, I think social media is the best opportunity that exists today yet it simultaneously is the thing that's literally destroying society and is turning young men/women into F*cking slaves. Let me give you an example. Yesterday, during a small break at my gym, I was just looking up to see what other people are doing(there was only 4 of us), and all the 3 men beside me were literally staring at their phones for like 4-5 minutes between each set. IT'S CRAZY! And guess what? All of them were skinny lol. Never seen a jacked dude who does that.

Do you seriously think that you're going to beat their algorithm by sheer willpower because you're so smart? HELL NO. These companies spend hundreds of millions of $ each year on the most elite programmers, psychologists and neuroscientists that exist to KEEP you glued on these apps as much as possible. For example, I only have messenger and Instagram on my phone as my social media apps, because I use them for my business daily. Also got YouTube but that's purely for educational purposes.

2. Books. Yes books! Before you make a bad comment, allow me to explain. Books are entertainment. Most books, in fact all books are just information, nothing else. Most people who read books ONLY read books to read them, or pretend to actually do something(I'm guilty of it myself!). You know, it's the guy who read the Millionaire Fastlane 15 years ago and he's still the same, working at Walmart for minimum wage etc. I've seen some posts here too where a guy read that book 10 years ago and he's still in the same spot? Something is wrong here...

Books are kind of like a mental masturbation.Your brain thinks you're gaining something when you learn something new BUT it's just a dopamine hit. Another action fake.

When I was 19, I read all the old school books like the Intelligent Investor and all these "best-seller" business books, and none of them really changed anything for me. I think most of them are very overrated. Thanks to @thechosen1 who commented on that one thread. What used to work "traditionally" in the 50s and 60s is not going to work in 2022.

There are some really good reads obviously like the Millionaire Fastlane/MJ's other books, rich dad poor dad, think and grow rich who will give you some practical advice.

That being said, I think books are very valuable once you're already in the game, making your moves BECAUSE now you can adjust your trajectory and optimize your strategy to make it better. TAKE ACTION FIRST. Send some cold DMs/emails, approach the hottest girl in your school, workout for a week or two, try to program a small puzzle game etc. Which leads me to:

3. Consuming too much content.
Thanks to the @fastlane_dad for opening my mind 3-4 weeks ago from a short talk with him. Yes, consuming too many gurus is bad. One says you should not only follow up with prospects 3 times, the other says you should follow up a MINIMUM of 10 times EVEN if they're clearly uninterested. Oh by the way, just got this ad from another guru who said that you should never close at the end of the presentation! How clever!

I'm not saying you should never consume, just that too much is a bad thing because it will mostly lead to inaction.

4. Looking for the "magic" trick to X. When I first got involved into entrepreneurship seriously 2 years ago when I was 20, I always looked for the best trick/hack to make people respond to your messages/emails or whatever. THERE IS NO TRICK or GIMMICKS. Life is all cause and effect.

5. Action faking. Very guilty of it too. You're spending hours building your website before you even have your first customer or "playing business" by looking professional on LinkedIn. You're thinking about the color of your Bugatti when you're at step 1 etc. Or doing other things that will not really move you forward in your business because they're more convenient like having a whole bunch of spreadsheets, planning too much and so on.

Any others you can think of?
 
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Damien C

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I am going to have to say pornography, sex and news. Who doesn't love a good shag? After it's all over I can't help but feel like I've lost a lot of energy and vitality. I try and think about whether the action I'm taking will pay off in the long run. Going for a run, eating something healthy, firing off an email - yes.

As for news, news is to the mind what sugar is to the body - it's toxic and poisons you, makes you scared. I'm not made of money, but i'm sitting pretty and have a fair bit of runway / liquidity. In fact, I just chucked my job in to pursue new opportunities on my own. The media will convince you it's all going away over night and that you should lock yourself in your room and not try!

As rational as you *think* you may be, you're going to be impacted by news if you consume it, and not in a good way. If it's noteworthy, somebody will tell you about it pretty quickly and you can go and look it up then.

What worked well is changing my DNS so that news.com.au would redirect to fastlaneforum or mindbodygreen or some other growth mindset website. I think I'm going to do this again - and this time on ALL of my devices. News has slowly crept back in and I really don't like what it does to my mind.
 
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BizyDad

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Reading or writing threads like this. It might feel helpful, but this is simply focusing and expanding on the concept of wasting time.

Which is a waste of time.

Especially because we already have that epic "biggest action fakes" thread.

The judgement points at me too. I'm here chatting it up instead of writing the ads I should be writing rn. What can I say? I sought distraction...

Start, read, or write threads that focus on the positive, not the negative.

Start, read, write about the right actions, not the wrong ones. Progress threads. How To's. That kind of thing...

Ok, gotta go write these ads now.
 

K1 Lambo

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Reading or writing threads like this. It might feel helpful, but this is simply focusing and expanding on the concept of wasting time.

Which is a waste of time.

Especially because we already have that epic "biggest action fakes" thread.

The judgement points at me too. I'm here chatting it up instead of writing the ads I should be writing rn. What can I say? I sought distraction...

Start, read, or write threads that focus on the positive, not the negative.

Start, read, write about the right actions, not the wrong ones. Progress threads. How To's. That kind of thing...

Ok, gotta go write these ads now.
We're all guilty of it brother from time to time. I think all people, not just entrepreneurs, have done some sort of action faking in the past.
 

Johnny boy

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I do all of these.

The biggest waste of time is following bad advice/making bad decisions.

It'll cost you ending up in a shitty job with a shitty wife. Decades wasted.
 
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Andy Black

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Shiny object syndrome.
 

mikecarlooch

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If I could go back in time to 10 years old I would never allow myself to touch social media as a consumer. That’s how much time it’s wasted for me. Currently in recovery mode for my attention span
 

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