If you’ve been a reader of MyWifeQuitHerJob.com since the early days, you probably remember that I used to refer to myself as a lazy piece of c$%^.
Now depending on the person, laziness can have different definitions.
To some people, being lazy is sitting around and watching television all day.
To some people, being lazy is staying in bed and not getting up until the afternoon.
To some people, being lazy is wanting to make a change and not doing anything about it.
But to me, laziness is participating in activities that have absolutely zero long term value.
As part of running this blog, complete strangers often ask for me for life changing advice. And I always say…If you want to make positive changes to your life, you have to avoid being lazy.
If you are unsatisfied with the status quo, think about how you spend your time, because where you spend it will ultimately determine where you’ll end up.
Here’s one among many millionaire success habits that I’ve adopted to achieve business success.
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My Story
When I first graduated from college, I fell into this habitual routine where I would come home from work, eat dinner, watch television or play video games, go to bed and then repeat this cycle day in and day out.
But the funny thing is that I didn’t feel stagnant at all. In fact, I was actually pretty darn happy with my life. I had spending cash, a good job, friends and all the video games I could play. I had no responsibilities whatsoever and I loved the fact that I was not obligated to do anything.
In fact, I spent most of my early 20’s playing video games. And I could do it all day and not feel bad about it.
One of my favorite games of all time was called Civilization and I probably spent well over 6 hours a day playing it at my peak(on weekdays).
Weekends were a different story. Undisturbed, I could easily sit in front of my computer for 18 hours straight! I was an addict and sometimes I even forgot to eat and drink.
What’s Fun Might Be Holding You Back
But here’s what I’ve learned over the years. Satisfaction from fun and entertainment is fleeting and can ultimately hold you back. And if you stop and think about it, most things that are “entertaining” often have very little long term value.
Looking back at my video game habit, what good did I get out of it? One could say that “Civilization” taught me how to be more strategic and improved my decision making skills:) But let’s be honest, it was one big waste of time.
In fact, if I could do things all over again, I would have loved to reclaim all of those lost hours because playing video games had no beneficial impact on my life.
I didn’t learn anything. I didn’t gain any knowledge that would further my career. I didn’t become a better person because of it.
And in reality, it had the opposite effect. I became anti-social. The computer became my best friend. And the meaningless accolades the game presented to me were worthless in real life.
The Long Term Effects Of Time Wasting Habits
We all have our habits and we all tend to gravitate towards leisurely activities. It’s easy to waste time and be lazy. But what would have happened to my life if I continued my all day game playing ways?
I probably wouldn’t have found my wife. I definitely would not have started any of my businesses. And I probably would not have the breadth of knowledge that I have today.
While it’s fun to be entertained, it’s really easy to get stuck in a rut when you routinely participate in activities that don’t have long term benefits, activities where you aren’t learning.
While you might think that a few hours here and a few hours there is not that big of a deal, it all adds up over time. Think about it this way.
A few hours wasted a day for 15 years adds up to well over 10000 hours.
And if you believe in Malcolm Gladwell’s 10000 hour hypothesis, you could have completely mastered a skill during that time!
The thing you need to realize is that even small changes to your lifestyle can have a profound effect on your long term success.
Do you want to look back on your life knowing that you wasted all your time playing meaningless games or watching tv? Or would you rather look back and appreciate all of the knowledge you’ve gained?
What if?…
Unfortunately, I ask myself this question all the time.
What if I spent all of that time reading business books instead?
What if I learned a new computer language or studied the stock market ?
What if I became interested in real estate investing during the boom?
What if I started my own business back when I was younger?
Maybe my life wouldn’t have been as relaxing. Maybe it wouldn’t have been as leisurely. But I would have become a much better educated person sooner rather than later. And who knows? Today, I could have been a billionaire by now.
But as it stands, I wasted a good portion of my time on low benefit and low value activities that added very little to my life. In fact, I feel lucky that I was able to turn things around by making certain changes to my habits.
Making The Most Of My Time
Today, I make a lot better use of my time and I waste much less of it. Don’t get me wrong. I still watch television and I still play an occasional video game, but the difference is that I now set aside some time everyday to learn a new skill or trade.
And if you ask my wife, she’ll probably tell you that I’ve taken this new habit to an extreme. For example, instead of reading fiction or short stories, I pretty much only read business books and technical manuals now.
On my last vacation, I took a book along with me called “JQuery In Action”. Great book by the way if you want to learn more about web development:)
Instead of surfing entertainment and gossip websites, I now focus on ecommerce, business and personal development websites.
These habits are now so ingrained into my routine that I don’t even think about it anymore. It’s now a part of my personality.
I’m also a lot more selective about what I do with my leisure time. My kids and family come first and I spend most of time with them. I also focus a large part of my leisure time strengthening friendships and forming new ones.
For the past decade, I’ve had no regrets and it’s nice to look back to see how much I’ve learned gradually over a long period of time.
Small Changes Can Have A Big Impact
So what’s my point? Leisure time is great, but it needs to be balanced with learning. Very few people are willing to change because they want to be able to see results right away. But unfortunately, life does not work that way.
If you want to change your life, you first have to change your habits. And when it comes to changing your habits, you have to look at things with a multi-year time horizon. Even the smallest change today can have a profound effect on your future many years down the line.
It doesn’t take much. Just set aside a hour every day to expand upon your knowledge and learn something new. For every activity that you participate in, decide whether that activity will benefit you in the long run or whether it’s just a waste of time.
And the sooner you make that small change, the sooner you will reap the rewards.
photo credit: Day 37 susivinh pocket watch
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Steve Chou is a highly recognized influencer in the ecommerce space and has taught thousands of students how to effectively sell physical products online over at ProfitableOnlineStore.com.
His blog, MyWifeQuitHerJob.com, has been featured in Forbes, Inc, The New York Times, Entrepreneur and MSNBC.
He's also a contributing author for BigCommerce, Klaviyo, ManyChat, Printful, Privy, CXL, Ecommerce Fuel, GlockApps, Privy, Social Media Examiner, Web Designer Depot, Sumo and other leading business publications.
In addition, he runs a popular ecommerce podcast, My Wife Quit Her Job, which is a top 25 marketing show on all of Apple Podcasts.
To stay up to date with all of the latest ecommerce trends, Steve runs a 7 figure ecommerce store, BumblebeeLinens.com, with his wife and puts on an annual ecommerce conference called The Sellers Summit.
Steve carries both a bachelors and a masters degree in electrical engineering from Stanford University. Despite majoring in electrical engineering, he spent a good portion of his graduate education studying entrepreneurship and the mechanics of running small businesses.
I agree small changes make a huge difference. Having goals is another important aspect to keep you on track to accomplish what you want out of l ife.
Yep. Setting goals is important too, but for me, making subtle changes to my routine usually results in positive changes that I can maintain in the long run.
Thanks for sharing and putting yourself out there Steve. Great post and excellent life lessons here. I’m like you, always focused on reading “practical and substantive” resource materials…Reading some good fiction now and then can be a good thing though!
Thanks Troy!
I actually haven’t read a good ole fiction book in a very long time:)
Oh man, I can’t tell you how much of my life slipped away with video games. And really what do I have to show for it now? But I realized how much time I wasted when I was younger and now I know to stay away (a game here and there is ok just no more all night marathons).
Great point on looking at the long-term value of what you spend your time on!
Hey Glen,
Like you, I have a long list of video games that I wasted time on as a kid. I don’t regret the multiplayer ones because I was hanging out with friends. But man, I shudder when I consider what I could have been doing with all that lost time.
For me this article was perfect timing. A few bad habits have been sneaking into my day and this was a great reminder.
Now, if I could just find a way to get my son who is just like you said were in your 20’s to view things differently. Any ideas?
Hi Pamela,
I don’t have any good answers for you:) I’m going to see if I can instill a little entrepreneurship into my kids early on and see what happens.
This was perfect timing for me as well. I woke up this morning thinking I needed to stop wasting time with non important distractions. Now I realize why this is so important. Your posting just supported my thoughts that I no longer want to waste my time with useless activities. I love the idea of learning at least one new thing each day. Thanks for the insight!
Hey Barbara,
Great to see that you settled down on a niche:) Looking forward to taking a closer look at your site and thanks for the comment!
Heh, always nice to hear someone else was as addicted to Civ as I was! (I can only cringe at the amount of time and money I wasted on playing chess tournaments for 10 years. ) I think most people (with at least average intelligence anyway) eventually fall into an unconstructive rut, then realise something’s gotta change. The only problem I find these days is that it’s impossible to be constructive 100% of the time because even my brain needs a little bit of time off each day. Before I go to sleep each night I first read a non-fiction book in whichever interest strikes my fancy and only then watch a sitcom and read a non-fiction book until my brain officially fizzles out. The rest of my time is put to good use!
You played Civ as well? Great game eh? I think it’s impossible to be constructive all of the time. For me, I just make sure that I at least spend 30 min – 1 hour everyday on something worthwhile. After all, it all adds up over time.
Steve,
Excellent post and insights. Thanks for sharing your personal story – I can certainly relate to the days when I was younger – very carefree and lazy! I’ve recently changed all of that and I know my family and I will be much better for it.
Thanks again.
Thanks Karman,
It’s pretty crazy what having a family and kids does to us.
Thanks Steve. Will check out JQuery in Action. Do you have a list of other books you have read and recommend?
Well said. DUDE I used to blow SO MANY HOURS playing diablo 2. My buddy and I would pull all nighters playing that game… I’m so glad the new one sucks. It was a hidden gift.
Haha, the same happened to me with a game called Runescape.
I used to spend countless hours on it and they ended up releasing an update which pretty much ruined the game for a lot of people including me and that finally resulted in me quitting.
Hello Steve!
Thank you for sharing your story with us! For me, it seems like things are being reversed. When I was younger, I did not have much and it seemed like I was working harder. The more I have, the lazier i get and less risks I am willing to take.
I will take your advice and will change one habit at a time.
Teodora
I used to be addicted to Pharaoh, and the boyfriend was addicted to Civ. Between the two of us..man, we wasted a lot of good time. Don’t get me started on the Sim games by Maxis… But that’s in the past (well, mostly) and here I am now, and I’m so glad I found your website to help motivate us! Well, I cheated: I drifted over from Retire By 40 after your guest post.. 🙂 This is going to be a great resource for the boyfriend and I from now on. We are starting some blogs within the next few weeks, understanding it is NOT a get-rich-quick deal, but rather, to document some pretty neat and off the natural path things we are doing (I think people will be interested and find it helpful), as well as hold ourselves accountable for…..starting a small business! It has all been so very confusing surfing the internet and seeing a bajillion articles about a trillion things, but your blog is not only extensive in research and resourcefulness, but the personal experiences really help me feel that we also can do it (and you write things for the simple man, not in technical jargaon that goes over my head). On of our blogs will actually be a documentation of our small business journey and how we started from not really knowing anything, whatsoever. But we thought, “it sure would be nice if someone out there went through this and we could just sort of follow along and make adjustments where we need to” and BAM! We could be those people! So thank you very much for providing this website because I know we’re going to be using it a LOT. (We’re starting a farm, which is not something 20 and 30 year olds are really striving to do these days, and we get a lot of weird looks for it.)
Ack. I forgot all about this game SimTower that I used to play as well:) Anyways, I’m glad you found me and thanks for the kind words
Very good point about time management over the long horizon! If we know where we are going in the long run, then it is easier to choose what to spend time on. I wasted too much of my time without a clear long term plan.
“If you want to change your life, you first have to change your habits.” This about sums it all up. If there were ever a Tweetable to share this would be it.
Steve you nailed it. Inactivity and the insatiable appetite for instant gratification are terrible traits that can eat your life away. Start today and make small accomplishments towards your end goal. A cocoa tree takes 3-5 years to yield its first crop. Great post.
Jonathan
Thanks Jonathan!
I agree. A great post.
I used to play Civilization as well. Not as much as you, probably, but I was totally immersed in internet exploration for years. In my case I was lost in the ocean of information as nearly everything was interesting.
As my purpose was to learn, I had to give it strict constraints. Only then, with a direction and purpose, a conscious choice, life has become an interesting path.
Civ was the worst game possible. I did quite poorly in college that semester too:)
Great post! I wasted so many hours/years of my life playing video games but now I have the opposite problem though… I rarely play video games and when I do I can’t play for more than 20 minutes because I feel guilty. I guess it’s a good problem to have! Lol.
I haven’t played games for a while except for a short addiction to Candy Crush but I’m over that now.
I look back on all the time I wasted practicing basketball and baseball. If only a high school education had taught me some of the things I’ve learned from Steve.
Really? I don’t consider sports a waste of time at all:) Basketball and athletics is how I bond with a lot of people. But I can kind of see what you mean.
Thank you for this wonderful post. It is very eye-opening. I also can’t wait to share this with my two teenage sons. More power and God bless!
Of the various good habits I am trying to ingrain in myself, perhaps the most consistently and deeply rewarding is reading this blog. Never fails to shed a little light on my path. Thank you.
Nicely written Steve, and thank you for inspiring and motivating people. I never got into video games, but I used to binge-watch TV series back when Netflix would mail you DVDs. Alias Season 3, all in one weekend.
Do you feel having kids influenced your decision to stop wasting time? When my son was born, I had less time than ever, but my motivation to be successful went way up. As a result, when it was reasonably feasible to start working on improving myself and growing my website (e.g. he started sleeping through the night and I got at least 6 solid hours of sleep), I devoted most of my time to these activities.
I made more progress in the four years I did this with about 1/10 the free time I used to have, than in the preceding 15 years pre-kid when I had all the time in the world (even though I had the false perception that I was too busy).
Do you feel you get more done in less time, too? Just curious 🙂
Steve, thanks for being so candid! Great advice, especially when you mention 30-60 min daily. That is totally doable. I personally fell into the trap of “someday” when I have more time to do such and such. As you can guess, there never was a perfect time, and as a result, years slipped by. Big regret.
Great post. My biggest time waster has been reading fiction books.
what a great post again, first i learned what online commerce was on this site and i have gone through some of the rudiments to create my own Amazon powered Affiliate store website, you can check it out here at http://www.greatfittings.com and now i have also learn’t how to be positive with my life habits. All i will say here is no more than to give thanks to Almighty God for bringing people like you to me at this point in my life. Keep it bro, may the Almighty God bless you and your lovely family and to give you more grace and strength to keep the good work going… Amen
Wow Steve, great article. One of the most refreshing i have read this week. I am exactly with you on this- time lost can never be recovered.
Personally I don’t play video games as I think they can make life pass me by so fast. I use my train journey and spare time to read articles like yours , Neil Patels’ and search engine land, watch and ppchero to learn more about digital marketing and entrepreneurship.
Thanks for this refreshing piece.
Wow, you N-A-I-L-E-D I-T, STEVE! As an admitted gamer myself…I was terrified that if I checked out from my games and hobbies that weren’t serving me in the long-term, I wouldn’t be having fun anymore. But you know what? I find blogging and my business the funnest part of my life now. The games will always be there, but I realize now I played them so much because I was filling a void that my business took care of.
You rock. Thanks for posting this. It really resonated with me.
http://www.thedriftingdesk.com
Great article. I kinda follow the same philosophy except I need to be a little organized with my time.
thanks for sharing.
AF
I’m torn between agreeing with you, and arguing that leisure time is a “necessary evil” and shouldn’t be seen as wasted time. At the moment I’m in this mode where I feel like I’m wasting time if I’m not doing something productive, and I feel like I’m slowly going insane. I don’t know how to just sit back and relax anymore… I’m always “on” and I don’t know if it’s a good thing.
I am turning 25 this year and have decided that this is the year I get my financials in order! I stumbled upon your blog yesterday and am loving it so far. Thanks for sharing all your experiences and anecdotes. On the subject of books, do you have books that you’ve read and would highly recommend? Whether it’s on business or web development, it would be great to know what they are!
Goal setting and time management works really great! Make a schedule and try to really follow it. You will see that after the end of the day, you have accomplished more than what you expect. If you make this a habit then sooner or later you will be able to manage your time effectively even without a schedule. By the way, thanks for this very informative article!