Everyone wants to utilize most out of their available time. We all get the same 24 hours to complete our day to day tasks. But very few people know how to avoid time wasters and be more productive throughout the day. So here we’re going to discuss 10 Biggest Time Wasters with other serious issues.
HIGHLIGHTS: In this Article.
- Identifying Time wasting Tasks
- 10 mistakes that kill your time and productivity
- How to save your time and be more productive
Almost 3 months have passed in Lockdown. If you analyze your productivity during this lockdown period, how much productive you were during this period? If you find nothing, then it’s a very serious issue.
But results are never satisfactory. Actually it depends on person to person. Few are satisfied with their work, while others regret wasting their precious time without getting any desired results.
HOW TO IDENTIFY BIGGEST TIME WASTERS?
The best way to identify the time-wasters in your daily life is by monitoring your daily routine for a week or two. Make a list of things you do, what you did in the past few hours, and how much time you spend doing that. Continue this for a week. Finally, analyze your list and find out the problems with your routine.
Check your To-do list. Find out whether you completed your task on time or not. Calculate your progress, check your results frequently to make sure that you are getting the required results, and not only wasting your time.
Usually, an average person wastes 1.5 to 3 hours a day. So, here are a few things which are considered the biggest Time Wasters in your routine, no matter you are a student or an entrepreneur. You must avoid these 10 mistakes that most of the people are making.
1. NOT PREPARING A TO-DO LIST
Most people don’t organize their work. This causes a kind of confusion and stress for what to do and what not to do. So they spend more time thinking about what to do next.
Before you start your day, creating a To-do list is always a good idea to plan your day. Planning is helpful to avoid confusion related to your work. It helps you remember things and track the progress of your work so that you don’t miss any important task for the day. It’s better to prepare your to-do list for the next day before you go to sleep.
Related: 15 Ways To Improve Memory Power.
2. NOT PAYING ATTENTION
You are wasting your time if you are not involved with the work completed. Multi-tasking sounds like a good way to do a large amount of work in less time. But Multi-tasking is ideal for machines, not for humans.
Sometimes, Multi-tasking is responsible for a big defect in your work. It affects your efficiency by distributing your efforts to different tasks so that no task is your perfect task. You become less productive and less efficient. It also affects your mental health. So it’s indirectly wasting your hard work.
So, whatever you do, do your best by focusing on a single task. Pay your full attention to see the best results.
3. NOT LEARNING FROM MISTAKES
Repeating the same mistakes is the biggest time-waster of all time. I don’t understand why people repeat the same things again and again. Most people know that they are repeating the same mistake but expect a different result this time, says a study.
But repeating mistakes can lead to reduced confidence and increased stress. Never repeat the same mistake in the same way.
4. CONSTANTLY CHECKING SOCIAL MEDIA
If you think that having a look at your social media accounts for 5 minutes is not a big-time waste, then you are wrong. Once you open your social media, you are likely to spend 15-30 minutes and those 15-30 minutes become 1 hour. You can easily relate to this situation.
This will break your focus and you will be distracted from your work. If you can’t stop yourself from keeping away from social media sites, then you are having a serious problem. Try keeping your smartphone on silent mode during work. Remember, you need to pay proper attention to your work.
5. GOSSIPING
Gossiping with co-workers and friends is not good during working hours. Gossips not only reduces your working hours, but can create a negative impact on your personality. Gossips sometimes leads to spread of rumors which effects the healthy working environment.
6. WATCHING TV
TV used to be a popular source for information and entertainment sometimes. But now, it’s becoming more and more time waste, at least for someone who has more important work than watching movies (time waste) and reality shows (time waste). You can even stay updated with the latest news on Google. TV is now only a source for entertainment, which students and entrepreneurs should avoid completely.
7. THINKING ABOUT FUTURE (DAYDREAMING)
Planning for the future is important, but thinking and imagining your future unnecessarily is of no use. Many people just dream of a perfect future and don’t work for it. It’s good to dream about your future, but not during work. If you can’t concentrate for a longer time and think about your future stuff, then you are delaying the time for your success. Work on your dreams more than thinking about it.
8. OVER SLEEPING
8 hours of sleep in a day is sufficient for a healthy body. Oversleeping is not only unhealthy but affects your whole day routine. The late you wake up, the late you start your work.
The best time to start your day is 5 AM. This gives you extra time to think, plan, and kick start your work earlier than usual. You get a long day for your work. You get better sleep if you avoid oversleeping.
9. OVEREATING
“Eat to live, don’t live to eat“. Eating too much and more frequently not only waste your time but may lead to an unhealthy body. It makes you lazy and lethargic which affects your work efficiency. Eating three meals a day is enough and also a good way to keep your weight under control.
10. UNHEALTHY HABITS
Unhealthy habits here include smoking and drinking. Is it more important than your work? It not only wastes your time but money too. There’s not a single positive effect of smoking in your life. Total Time waste, money waste, and health waste. What’s left to say.
HOW TO SAVE YOUR TIME AND BE MORE PRODUCTIVE?
- Check the working environment. Make sure that your working environment is free of any kind of disturbance like noise and crowd. Choose a silent place with no one to interact with you. If you are in an office, keep yourself away from distracting co-workers.
- Complete your To-do task on time. Fix a deadline for any task. Keep watching the time and don’t pass any task for later. For this, keep your to-do list small and not bulky.
- Check your progress.
- Start reducing your social media usage.
- Wake up Early.
In the last, keep yourself away from unhealthy habits.
