Time is wasting.

“Time is wasting. Time is walking.
You ain’t no friend of mine.
I don’t know where I’m goin’.
I think I’m out of my mind
thinkin’ about time.”
Hootie and The Blowfish, Time.

I bought a new phone last week. I was eligible for an upgrade and my iPhone 7 Plus’ battery had deteriorated to the point that I was lucky if my phone hadn’t died before noon. I had already been contemplating the idea of switching from Apple to Android since March. After weeks of research, many trips to Best Buy to test user friendliness and reading countless reviews on Google, by mid-April I was strongly leaning towards purchasing the Samsung Galaxy S10+. Once I determined what phone I wanted, I began looking into if I should buy it from Verizon or straight from Samsung. Who had the better payment plan? Who had the best protection warranty? Was either company offering any deals on the Galaxy S10+? And then finally before ditching my iPhone for the Samsung Galaxy S10+, I had figure out what data could and couldn’t be transfer from an iPhone to a Galaxy.

A lot of thought and effort went into making this decision. In fact I put more thought into converting from Apple to Android than I did with the majority of my life decisions. I definitely didn’t put this much thought into where I went to college. I accepted my offer to Georgia College and State University before I had even seen the campus. Yet I went to Best Buy two times in one month for the sole purpose of testing out the Galaxy S10+ and then dragged my boyfriend there to be my voice of reason and ensure I wasn’t just getting distracted by all the new bells and whistles the phone offered.

Last year when my boyfriend and I decided to move in together I spent a week, if that, looking into cities that were half way between my work and his work. That same week we discussed our needs vs. wants for our new home and city. I spent the following week compiling a list of possible apartment complexes that fit both our needs and then the weekend after that we toured apartments before signing the lease for our first place together. I spent four times the amount of time researching cell phones than I did researching where I was going to live. What does that say about me? What does it says about Millennials that we spend more time and effort deciding what new toy to buy than the place we call home, the roof above our head? I’ve tried to justify it in my head:

It’s an expensive purchase. It shouldn’t be made impulsively.

Have you forgotten your monthly rent is more than the phone’s one time cost?

It’s something I depend on every day. I have to make sure I’m making the right decision.

Do you not depend on having safe, comfortable living arrangements every day?

I’ve grown used to the way iPhones work. I have to make sure I’ll be able to adapt to Android.

Did you not have to adapt to living in a new, unfamiliar city after living in your last town for three years?

I feel ridiculous knowing I treated buying a new phone as a more significant life decision that required more time and thought than where I went to college or where I currently live. Yes, some decisions do need a little more thought than others, but I wasted a lot of valuable time on a decision that didn’t require it. I knew which phone was the right choice for me after simply comparing the phones’ features.

Maybe you haven’t spent an absurd amount of time on a trivial decision but have you wasted 20 minutes trying to figure out what you want for dinner? Or maybe 5 minutes at the grocery store deciding if you should splurge for name brand instead of store brand? Or 30 minutes at work trying to determine if you should ask for help on a project? Or an hour of your Saturday trying to decide if you should get out of bed and start the laundry?

I’m going to be challenging myself to reevaluate what I consider major decisions and the amount of time I waste trying to make up my mind on smaller ones. I’d like to invite you to do the same. Our time is valuable and these brief periods of indecisiveness add up to a lot of wasted time. What could we accomplish in the time we waste overthinking frivolous decisions if we trusted our instincts instead?

Still trying to figure it out,

Madison