The ultimate guide on how to stop wasting time
In this article, I share with you 18 tips on how to stop wasting time and make the best use of your 24-hour day.
These tips come from my experience as a time management coach and scientific research on the topic of productivity.
If you want to become more productive, improve the quality of your life, and protect your health, I suggest you discover my tips now and apply them as soon as possible in your life.
I wish you a good read!
What causes you to waste time?
There are many things that cause us to waste time. Some people spend too much time watching television, while others waste time surfing the internet.
Others may waste time by reading books they don’t enjoy or listening to music they don’t like.
The main reason why people waste time is a lack of clarity about their priorities.
These priorities depend on the values of each individual.
If a person does not know their values or is not able to prioritize their values effectively, they will not be able to make the most of their time.
This is a very common mistake of people who are always busy but rarely accomplish anything meaningful in their lives.
1 – Learn to say no
For different reasons, many people are afraid to say no to others in the context of their work or private life.
But to take back control of your time you need to improve your assertiveness.
Assertiveness is the ability to express your point of view confidently while avoiding entering into a conflicting relationship with others.
To become more assertive start by expressing your point of view more often in situations where the stakes are low.
Then gradually move on to saying what you think even in increasingly difficult circumstances.
In this way, you will increase your self-confidence and also become more assertive.
If you want to explore this topic in the work context, I invite you to read my article on how to say no at work while maintaining good relationships.
2 – Stay flexible in your approach
Flexibility is one of the essential qualities you need to develop to be successful in life.
If you want to learn how to manage your time better, you need to understand when your way of thinking and acting is limiting you.
Over time you have developed routines that allow you to work more quickly and at the same time reassure you.
But when your habits no longer serve you, it is necessary to find the courage to reinvent yourself.
What has always worked until yesterday may no longer be relevant today.
Flexibility is rightly one of the basic components of acquiring a growth mindset.
3 – Delegate some activities
Many people find it difficult to delegate some of their responsibilities at work or in their personal lives.
But not all activities should be delegated.
Do not delegate activities that match your strengths or inner talents.
The activities you should start delegating as soon as possible are:
- the tasks that require you to use your weaknesses
- the tasks that others can perform roughly as well as you do
- the commitments that take up a lot of your time
- the mandatory tasks that you do not like to take care of
If you don’t know where to start in delegating some of your tasks to others, I recommend you read my article on how to delegate effectively.
4 – Ask the right people for advice
What do you do when you have a problem and need advice?
Who do you ask for help?
Always the same people or only those with real experience?
Often it is the ease that drives people’s choices when they are trying to overcome their difficulties.
This is an unproductive habit that depends on a kind of mental laziness.
So next time you have to face a challenge, stop for a moment and answer this question.
Does the person I am asking for advice really have the experience or skills to help me?
If the answer is no, keep looking for the right person.
The minutes you take to find the person who is right for you will save you months or years of future problems.
5 – Eliminate unnecessary or counterproductive activities
Habits can be useful, useless, or counterproductive.
The same is true for activities that we perform by simple habit.
Do you have activities that you continue to do although they do not contribute to the quality of your life?
Are there behaviors that you continue to repeat even though they have a negative impact on your health, the relationships you have with others, and the results you achieve?
I suggest you make a list of these activities and begin to reflect on what motivates you to repeat them.
Think about the need attached to each activity and try to meet that with more productive activities or simply with choices that contribute to your well-being.
Focus on one activity at a time, and when you have handled it to the best of your ability, you can move on to the next one.
6 – Don’t do things halfway
This advice is useful for everyone and is especially so if you are motivated by starting lots of tasks.
If this applies to you, ask yourself this question: how many of the activities I have started this year have I managed to complete?
If you have completed a few or none, it is time to change something.
Try to create or find factors in each stage of the task that will continue to motivate you to complete it.
Taking care of each task from start to finish will help you achieve your goals faster and boost your self-esteem.
The time blocking technique may help you complete your tasks significantly more often.
7 – Don’t waste time performing unimportant activities
As you probably already know, to achieve your goals more quickly you should focus most of your time and resources on the more important activities.
These are the tasks that if performed consistently will enable you to achieve what you desire most.
Sometimes, however, for different reasons, we can lose sight of what is really important.
For example, when we feel under pressure or when we are too tired we have difficulty objectively assessing priorities.
As a result, we may prefer tasks that keep us busy but that practically take us away from what is important to us on a personal and work level.
Therefore, I urge you to develop your awareness of these moments in which you find yourself accomplishing unimportant tasks.
When in doubt, ask yourself a simple question, for example: is the task I am doing really important, or am I just taking care of it because I am trying to avoid another more important task?
Answer the question and act in a manner consistent with your answer.
8 – Take a nap if you need to
To maintain good productivity throughout the day, it is necessary to have rested well at night.
In fact, restorative sleep allows you to improve your level of attention and thus your ability to stay focused on a given task.
Sometimes we may feel the need to take an afternoon nap because:
- we have accumulated some fatigue
- we feel less motivated
- we are more stressed
- we have eaten too much
Clearly, not all organizations promote an afternoon nap after lunch, and perhaps not everyone will be able to apply this advice.
But if you work from home as an employee or freelancer, don’t feel guilty if you need to rest half an hour or even a little more from time to time.
The time you invest in napping will allow you to fully restore your productivity, reduce your stress and improve your well-being.
It will also give you more energy in the evening to fully enjoy your spare time with family or friends.
9 – Focus on only one task at a time
As you may already know, productivity decreases when you focus on more than one task at the same time.
In addition, each time you switch from one task to another you lose time to reestablish the state of focus in which you were previously.
If you have the tendency to switch frequently from one task to another throughout the day, you can follow three strategies.
First, you can simply acknowledge your behavior without judging yourself and simply refocus on your initial occupation.
Then, you can identify moments when your internal dialogue invites you to switch to another activity.
Finally, you can write down your internal dialogue in a notebook in order to reduce cognitive load and stress.
By focusing on one task at a time you will become more productive and consequently increase your self-esteem and self-confidence.
10 – Put aside your perfectionism
In previous articles, I have shared with you several scientific studies that show how perfectionism increases procrastination in many situations in personal and work life.
Perfectionism is not completely negative and involves two components.
The first is having high standards, and the second is never being satisfied with your results.
To overcome perfectionism you must learn to compromise by accepting that you will perform work that is good enough but not perfect according to your standards. This will enable you to avoid procrastination.
Later, you can continue to improve what you have started to achieve a better level of quality.
In addition, you need to learn to give yourself credit for your achievements in order to increase your self-esteem.
With better self-esteem, you will be less affected by the negative effects of perfectionism and will be even more motivated to take action to change your life for the better.
To further explore the topic of perfectionism, I recommend you read my article on how to stop being a perfectionist.
11 – Automate some activities
Have you thought about automating some of your activities?
There are many things that can be automated, here are some of them:
- payments
- the spreading of your social media posts
- backing up your computer
- the partial or total editing of your articles using the benefits of artificial intelligence
These are just a few examples of things that can allow you to free up time every day in your work or personal life.
Ask yourself this question: what can I automate quickly in my work or private life?
12 – Reduce interruptions
Whenever you are interrupted in your work you lose time both to handle the interruption and to re-focus.
As a result, your productivity drops dramatically.
In addition, constant interruptions also contribute to increased stress, and this is something you need to avoid as much as possible.
There are two categories of interruptions: those that come from others and those that depend on you.
To reduce interruptions that are not dependent on you, it is essential to become more assertive asking others to respect your time.
The more you explain to others what is important to you and when and how they can reach you, the fewer interruptions will come to you from your external environment.
To reduce those that depend on you, you must improve your self-discipline and understand why you are not sufficiently motivated.
Make a list of external and internal distractions and decide what you are going to do to reduce interruptions during your workday.
13 – Don’t repeat the same mistakes
If you really think about it, there are mistakes that you keep repeating and that cause you to waste time almost every day.
Think about these mistakes and write them down on a sheet of paper.
Then, next to each mistake jot down why you made it and what prevents you from changing.
You will find that many of your mistakes depend on:
- bad habits
- the challenge of using your emotions effectively
- the difficulty communicating well with others
Choose one mistake on the list and decide what you can do to eliminate it over the course of this week.
Then, plan the actions you need to take on your to-do list and on your agenda.
Do what you can, keep doing your best, and handle the other mistakes.
14 – Plan your day in advance
I had already talked about the usefulness of this tip in my article 13 scientifically proven tips to become organized and more efficient at work.
Planning your schedule in advance at night before bedtime is important if you want to stop wasting time at work and in your personal life.
This is a new habit that will help you save at least an hour a day.
Why?
First of all, by planning your day in advance you will be able to start working immediately because you will not have to spend time thinking about where to start your work.
Next, planning your work will allow you to prepare in advance everything you need to perform your tasks to the best of your ability.
Finally, organizing your activities in the evening before you go to sleep will act as a kind of mental preparation that will facilitate the execution of your tasks.
15 – Take stock of your day
Here is one more productive habit that will help you make more and more time for what really matters in your life.
At the end of your day take five minutes to assess whether you were productive.
Focus first on the positive aspects and then on what you can improve.
Choose a problem that you can begin to solve quickly.
Act on it, evaluate the effectiveness of your actions and if necessary change your approach until you find what works best.
I recommend starting with small changes to strengthen your motivation and self-confidence.
Then, you will be able to handle increasingly complex problems.
16 – Link each activity to a goal
This strategy is simple but very effective at the same time.
One of the main reasons why people do not achieve their goals is because they waste time on activities that take them away from their objectives.
The first step is to define your goals. If you do not know how to go about this, I recommend you read my article on how to effectively define goals.
Of course, these goals must be consistent with your values. Otherwise, you may waste time trying to achieve a goal that will then give you no fulfillment.
Then once you have defined your goals for the current year, make your to-do list, and before planning the activities in your agenda, check whether each activity is helpful in achieving your goals.
If it is not eliminate it. Make no excuses and plan in your agenda exclusively what really matters.
If you do not, you will again end up with a busy schedule. As a result, you will definitely be busy but not very productive.
17 – Eliminate your unproductive habits
How many unproductive habits do you have?
One, 10, 100?
Each of us has a few. The important thing is to identify them and figure out what you can do to improve your life.
In this article, I will just talk about two very common unproductive habits.
The first one is smartphone addiction, which mainly affects a young audience.
If you just let your phone control you, you are losing and will lose several hours every day.
Another widespread problem is the fact that many people sleep less and less or have poor quality sleep because they suffer from sleep procrastination.
Since sleep is an important factor for the ability to concentrate, if you do not change your habits you will not only be less productive but in addition, your behavior will have negative consequences on your health.
18 – Overcome procrastination
Procrastination is the most common way of wasting time and doing nothing to change your life for the better.
I have written several articles on procrastination and invite you to read them to learn more about this topic.
In particular, I recommend reading 10 outstanding tips to stop procrastination and 11 tips to beat procrastination at work and at home.
Very often procrastination depends:
- on a fear
- on perfectionism
- on the intrinsic difficulty of the task to be done
Why do you procrastinate?
Once you have identified the reason, it is important to identify what motivates you to take action.
When you have found what motivates you to do something to change your situation, keep looking for other, stronger motivations until you find the one that will enable you to overcome procrastination.
Conclusion on how to stop wasting time
In this article, I have shared with you 18 tips to stop wasting time, improve your productivity, achieve your goals faster, become more satisfied, and improve your well-being.
If you are interested in the topic of productivity, I invite you to discover all my articles on productivity.
If you are looking for tools to improve your time management skills, I recommend you read my article on the best time management apps.
To take advantage of the expertise of a time management coach, write to us using our contact form or call us by phone or on WhatsApp at +33 6 69 46 03 79.
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Read this article in other languages
Français : Comment arrêter de perdre son temps : 18 conseils à tester rapidement
Italiano: Come non perdere tempo: 18 consigli da mettere in pratica da subito