20 Time Wasters in Your Day

” Time is what we want most, but what we use worst.” William Penn. We all have the same 24 hours a day, 1,440 minutes a day. Once these precious minutes have gone by, there’s no turning back the clock. They are gone forever. The clock keeps on ticking.

Time is a valuable commodity! When you waste your precious time on time wasters. You are depriving yourself of achieving greater things. You spend so much time at this time wasters that you do not have time for what is truly important-Time for yourself, family, friends, self-development, and working on your goals.

Below is a list of 20-time wasters. Suppose you find yourself spending too much time on these activities. You need to sit down and audit your day. And then craft a plan to change your habits so your time can be spent on more productive things.

20 Time Wasters in your Day

1. Not planning. If you don’t take the time to plan your day. The essential things you need to accomplish may not get done.
Write down your daily goals and tasks the night before. Have a planner, a notebook. Schedule your day in the order of your top priorities.

2. Worrying. Many people will worry until doomsday about every little thing in their lives. This is simply unproductive and detrimental to your health, mind, and spirit.

If you have something worrisome coming up. Plan accordingly. Plan your countermeasures just in case when you are confident that you have a plan. You do not have to worry anymore. After all, worrying doesn’t accomplish anything positive. As Winston Churchill said: ” Let our advance worrying become advance thinking and planning.”

3. Not delegating. You want to do everything yourself that you waste doing the small things when you should be focusing on accomplishing the important things that only you can do.

4. Doing Errands. Plan your errands so you can do them simultaneously, like doing your mail on your way to the grocery. Going out multiple times a day is a waste of time, money, and energy.

5. Watching Television. We love watching tv. We schedule our lives around our favorite television shows, and we spend less time doing more important activities like attending social events that could strengthen our relationships.

Record your favorite TV shows and watch them during your leisure time. Just limit your time watching TV intake to just a couple hours a week.

6. Playing Video and Computer Games. This is becoming such a time-waster that gamers are developing what is called gamers thumb, a repetitive stress injury. Set time limits for yourself and your kids and help your kids understand why this is important.

7. Being on the Internet. Are you constantly browsing the Internet, Facebook, or Twitter? Are your kids hearing you say,” In a minute,” or “Hold on” often when they ask you to spend time with them? Or are you always looking and scrolling at your phone? Keep your time on the internet short and get involved in life. Instead of chatting with your online friends, spend more time with your real-life friends and family!

8. Talking on the telephone. We like to call old friends and chat. But do you chat on the phone all day long? If you do, you may find that you get hardly anything done all day.
Keep phone calls to a minimum or set a timer to go off after 15 minutes. This way, you won’t feel deprived of a good conversation, but it won’t take over your whole day.

9. Traffic and commuting. Some of us spend an enormous amount of time traveling to and from work. You can turn your commuting time into productive time. Try carpooling or taking the bus, subway, or train to work. You can use this time to read, plan your day, complete paperwork, or relax your mind before a productive day. If you drive, you can listen to inspiring and informative CDs or tapes to sharpen your mind, uplift, and motivate you.

10. Not doing things in batches. If you need to create your business Facebook or Instagram posts. Plan and do your weeks post one time and not daily and schedule them to post accordingly. If you need to take pictures for your different posts. Plan and take all the pictures you think you would need for your posts for the next few months.

11. Daydreaming. It’s fun and healthy to dream about career ambitions or future aspirations, but when those dreams prevent you from taking action in your life, then you’re wasting time. Avoid getting bogged down with too much dreaming. Make a list of your goals or dreams, then take action to make those dreams come true.

12. Meetings. Although necessary, meetings can be one of the biggest time wasters of our workday. If everyone is tired of sitting in long meetings all day, productive time will be low. If you’re in charge of the meeting, set time frames, and stick to your stated time. Limit the length of your meetings: keep needless chatter and agendas out of the meeting.

13. Checking and responding to your emails throughout the day. Set a time once in the morning and once more in the evening to check your mail.

14. Not taking breaks. When you are tired, you slow down. You work less efficiently, and your mind is not as alert. Take a break, even just a short 2 minute walk outside just to change your environment a bit can do wonders to your alertness and energy level. You do more in less time because the break has now rejuvenated you making it easy to think, focus, and perform the actions to meet set goals for the day.

15. Eating out. Plan your meals, and have your food ready so you do not need to go out, rush to eat, and waste time waiting on your food. Having ready meals enables you to go outside, eat. and enjoy the food, the outdoors, and even socialize, rather than spending that time driving and staying in line.

16. Not using dead times. While you are waiting in the doctor’s office, waiting in line in the grocery, bank, restaurant. Use this time to do small tasks like checking your email, jotting down notes, making short phone calls. Do not just stand there and be idle and do nothing, or people watch.

17. Not knowing when to multitask. Know that you can only multitask when trying to do mundane tasks like doing your laundry while cooking. Avoid multitasking big tasks because you cannot focus, making its completion longer.

18. Handling small tasks first. Brian Tracy said,” If you have to eat two frogs, eat the ugliest first. This is another way of saying that if you have two important tasks before you, start with the biggest, hardest, and most important task first.”

19. Not using online services. Do not go to the bank to deposit money. Take a picture of our check and deposit it online. You do not need to go to the library to pick up your books, check them online, and borrow books by downloading them.

20. Not taking advantage of technology to help complete your task. Use recording devices to record your notes. Use speech to text conversion applications. Have your files on your computer so you can access them anywhere, anytime. Use templates to facilitate putting thoughts to paper in a shorter time. Use scripts and checklists. Use face time, webinars for your business. Time and distance are not barriers no more. That is possible with technology. There is so much free technology available that can make the completion of your to-do-list easier and faster.

Audit your day for Time Wasters

There are many ways we waste our time in our everyday lives. But when we take time to assess and identify and exert effort to alleviate this time wasters. You can avoid these time-wasting activities to have a happy, pleasant, productive day, and live a balanced life.

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