The Time Thieves
I’ve been staring at my screen, a lot. When I say a lot, it is a lottttttttt. You’ll be surprised. Out of my 24 hours time a day, I spent on average 7–8 hours per day staring at the damn phone.
This is a problem. Let’s deep dive.
Breaking it down
First, let’s see how much I spent my time with my phone on a weekly basis:
- On 8–15 Nov, I spent 51h 43m / week on my phone, it was 7h 23m / day on average.
- On 15–22 Nov, I had 12% increase; spending 57h 51m / week or 8h 15m / day.
- On 22–29 Nov, thankfully it dropped to 50h 49m or 7h 15m / day.
It was around 2 days per week. If we make this into one year, it’ll be around 104 days or 3 months! Wow!
But, how do I spend my time?
Screen time is one thing. But, the more important question is: How do I spend my time with my phone? Am I just consuming or am I producing something?
From week 22–29 Nov sampling, here’s how I spent my time:
- 17h 33m (34%) for social app category. 9 h 4m on Instagram, 7h 6m on Whatsapp, 1h 18m on Linkedin. Strangely, for 10h 22m time that I spent on Instagram and Linkedin, I didn’t feel like really socializing. I didn’t get any new friends, didn’t get any insight, and didn’t feel like really connecting with my old friends.
- 15h 11m (25%) for entertainment. 5h 22m for Tiktok, 5h 8m for Youtube, 3h 46m for Netflix, 1h 22m for Viu. Well, Netflix and Viu is my stress reliever. I watch Running Man and K-drama “Startup” to unwind myself. Also, some of the seconds I spend on Youtube is useful. Listening to podcast, and inspiration. But not for Tiktok. It’s just a waste of time.
- 5h 26m (8.5%) in productivity & finance app. Getting some “cuan” (cuan means profit) from investing.
- 3h 4m (5%) traveling. Well, I need this. I can’t really memorize direction and streets in Jakarta. lol
- 2h 56m (5%) shopping and food. Window shopping, who doesn’t love it?
- 1h 6m (1.6%) health and fitness. So I just subscribed to freeletics app for home exercise. Check them out, it’s a nice app that will give you personalized home training at a relatively affordable price.
In conclusion, I spent ~15 hours (25% of my screen time) for consumptive purposes (Instagram, Linkedin, Tiktok), which is bad. If we make this into one year, it’ll be around 32.5 days staring on these platforms.
The time thieves
Have you watched the social dilemma? In the docudrama, it’s mentioned that the social media companies are all competing to get our attention, to get our screen time. As their business model is getting revenue from ads, the more eyeball means the more money that they’ll get.
In my case, Instagram was clearly the winner. I voluntarily give my life, 9h a week (5.3% of my week-time) for them. Assuming every hour I see 10 ads, and for every ad, they got $1. In total, I give them $360 revenue per month, while I got nothing.
For 10h 22m time that I spent on Instagram and Linkedin, I didn’t feel like really socializing. I didn’t get any new friends, didn’t get any insight, and didn’t feel like keep in touch with my old friends.
Productivity mindset
The last and the most important question is: Can I turn these habits into something more productive?
When looking at the positive side, I have 10 hours of free time every week that I can use for something that is more useful. The key is switching from a consumptive mode, into a productive mode in spending my time.
So, here’s what I’m gonna do:
- Creating content rather than just consuming content. I’ll start writing more content in medium, perhaps creating Youtube content, also sharing content that are valuable to my followers on Instagram.
- Learn something. I’ll use the time to learn new things: product management, investing, reading books about life, writing.
- Getting to know myself. My long term plan has always been to start my own business. But, I don’t want to start it just because of the money. I need to be really passionate about it. So I’ll also spend more time getting to know what I want and what I don’t want.
- Find my tranquility. It’s not always about doing something that is useful. I’ll also try to spend more time to do something that is actually entertaining for me.
Conclusion
It’s the man behind the gun. Let’s try to be more mindful of how we spend our time. Focusing on productivity could bring the unexpected results in the long run.
Let’s have a productive mindset.
