I can’t stand being at a doctor’s office. Yes I know. There are magazines and there are other people there, but most of the time, they’ve been there longer than you or just as long, and are not interested in anything you have to say.
Bored waiting in line? Just bring 3 college guys with you and pretend to forget they exist. It works!
Unless you’re 8-years-old and you like to compare health attributes, most of the people would agree that waiting around in a doctor’s office is a crazy waste of time. I am here to help you stop wasting your life and give you five productive ways to make these waiting times work for you so you can get more done and make your life count.
1. Have A Book Always Ready
Whether this is the Kindle app on your Smartphone, an actual Kindle, or gasp a paper book, always have something useful and skill-building oriented that you can consume during these waiting down times. Don’t set yourself up to waste your time with trashy magazines. Use that time to discover things that will benefit your life.
2. Have Audio Books Or Podcasts Ready
The library in your local area, will allow you to check out audio books. There are also tons of podcasts available on topics that you’re interested in. All of these things can be either put on an MP3 player or your Smartphone, and you can have them ready to go, no matter where you’re at. Chances are your phone is always with you, so is the learning if you keep this in mind.
3. Have A Website Research List
This is a little harder to do unless you have a Smartphone or a Tablet that you like to carry around all the time, but chances are there are a ton of useful sites that you’re interested in checking out but you just don’t have the time to.
I have collected a list of articles that I want to read but are really important this very second, so that any time I have down time, if I don’t have a book or something else available, I can go check out these websites, take some notes and then be done with it and check that off the list and see how I can implement that learning in my life.
4. Write Some Articles For The Web
Unless you’ve done this, this can sound pretty daunting. But if you have a Tablet or a Smartphone again, or a pad of paper, you can at least detail the top five bullet points that you want to talk about, or maybe even just the subject headlines that you want to discuss, just to get you started later.
If I am completely alone, I can dictate an entire blog post in under five minutes and have a 500-700 word post in that time frame. Start thinking about what you can get done in the time that you’re waiting.
5. Learn From Your Analytics
This is more applicable to those that have online businesses or do things online. Though there are actual real-world analytics and data that you can dive into and figure out ways to optimize, I am going to talk about the web analytics here. This is the “Hey, I have been blog posting for a year. Let me see what is actually getting read,” and go from there.
If you dive into the numbers and you see that only two of the eighteen topics you talk about are actually getting read by other people, well, maybe you need to stop talking about those other things and just talk about those two things. Focus down and get more done in those, and you’ll get more out of it.
It’s Time to Turn Waiting Into Winning
It’s time to be more productive with the waiting times that you experience. Always have a book ready. Always have some type of audio learning ready. Have a website research list available. Consider writing some articles, and learn from the data and processes that you’ve been through. If you do these five things, you will stop wasting your life and grow.