---
title: "117: Plugging Time Leaks to Honor Commitments"
id: "5764"
type: "post"
slug: "time-leaks-commitment-117"
published_at: "2022-11-23T02:49:45+00:00"
modified_at: "2022-11-23T02:53:34+00:00"
url: "https://johnpoelstra.com/time-leaks-commitment-117/"
markdown_url: "https://johnpoelstra.com/time-leaks-commitment-117.md"
excerpt: "You might find it easier to honor your commitments by eliminating the things that waste your time and energy. Here's how to do it."
taxonomy_category:
  - "Podcast"
taxonomy_post_tag:
  - "commitment"
---

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# [117: Plugging Time Leaks to Honor Commitments](https://johnpoelstra.com/time-leaks-commitment-117/)

You might find it easier to honor your commitments by eliminating the things that waste your time and energy. Here’s how to do it.

[https://media.blubrry.com/johnpoelstra/content.blubrry.com/johnpoelstra/JPS117-Plugging-Time-Leaks-Commitments.mp3](https://media.blubrry.com/johnpoelstra/content.blubrry.com/johnpoelstra/JPS117-Plugging-Time-Leaks-Commitments.mp3)

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## Highlights

- Time leaks are things that eat away at your commitments and increase the possibility that you will not honor them
- [Straight-Line Leadership: Tools for Living with Velocity and Power in Turbulent Times](https://www.amazon.com/Straight-Line-Leadership-Living-Velocity-Turbulent/dp/0996203524/) by Dusan Djukich
  - “What you have committed to, up to now, is revealed by what you have produced or failed to produce”
  - “Involved with” vs. “committed to”

- What gets in the way of honoring your commitments?
- What do you do or where do you go when you have 15 or 20 minutes between meetings?
- Reducing time leaks adds time back to your day
- Having large blocks of time without clear intentions or guard rails
- Committing to do certain things in a given day
- What things are you doing that aren’t giving you anything back?
- Managing Slack by turning off the presence indicator and closing it for an hour as an experiment
- Decide what you will say “No” to in a given week to help you plug a time leak–make them small and doable
- Unsubscribe from all those newsletters
- Disable the notifications on your phone or simply power it off
- Where do you go when you are bored or seeking to soothe yourself?
- Where do you find yourself without knowing how you got there?
- What’s the biggest mindless activity that you do in a day that consumes the most time?

## Credits

- [Original photo source](https://unsplash.com/photos/aiyBwbrWWlo)

#### John Poelstra

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November 22, 2022

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