LDRDocs/Angry Spirits/Time Vampire.md

Person or situation that eats up unreasonable amounts of time, often on a regular or ongoing basis.

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Examples in Story Form

Tom spends a lot of his time walking around every day talking to people about pizza places or asking them questions about pizza.

Other people are annoyed about this because they have other things they need to be doing, and Tom is interfering.

Tom puts pizza menus all over the wall where important notices are supposed to go, so it takes people longer to find information they actually need.

Common causes

1) Misunderstanding or disrespect about someone else’s priorities.

We assume the other person has the time or interest to spend on something they actually don’t, so we keep wasting their time with it or interrupting them to talk about it. We probably believe we’re being helpful or friendly.

2) Information is not fast or easy to find, so we ask about it instead of looking it up.

3) We don’t have a clear todo list or schedule, so we think there’s nothing else we should be doing.

4) We are intentionally wasting time because of misaligned priorities, like if somebody is often talking to a friend on the phone instead of helping do the work.