How to Stop Wasting Time in 4 Steps

Too many times I’ve sat down and thought about where I would have gotten if I hadn’t wasted as much time as I had.

And honestly, that's a waste of time in itself. And pretty toxic.

But the good thing is that it made me sit down and think even harder. This time about how can I stop wasting time when I need to be working.

And the thinking part paid off as I found a couple of things that actually helped me gradually waste less and less time until I got used to just getting to work and concentrating, not wasting any more time.

So here’s my advice in 4 steps:

1. Learn to catch yourself in the act.

One of the biggest problems with wasting time is that you often don’t actually realize that you’re doing it until you’ve already had a big chunk of time thrown out the window.

You might take your phone in the middle of working, get distracted just for a second, and end up scrolling and scrolling on Instagram, not realizing you were doing something else for 30 minutes.

And you cannot work towards breaking a habit when you don’t realize how often and how much you’re doing it.

So how do you make sure you’re not letting your mind wander off too far when you should be productive?

Mindfulness and concentration. Now that doesn’t mean that you need to start meditating — of course, it would be great, but I’m not talking about that.

Start including little moments in your day to acknowledge what you’re doing exactly, where you are, with whom you are, etc.

For example, most of us spend the time while we are washing dishes thinking of something completely different. Well, next time try to take a couple of seconds to appreciate what you’re doing — the water, the clean plates, the sounds, the smells. Think about your posture a little bit.

Those exercises help with a lot of issues, including easing anxiety and depression, but also work in our case — the more moments you take in your life to be mindful, the less likely you are to waste time without realizing it.

2. Procrastinate the distractions.

The problem of distractions still stands though.

We usually let our minds get distracted when we are doing something not particularly pleasant or satisfactory. Our brain can get a little bored, so it searches for another option to concentrate on — a more interesting one.

That’s why it’s really hard to resist the temptations of all the choices your mind presents to you. Would you want to work… or have a break to stare at the wall for 2 minutes straight?

Well, this is the one time to procrastinate. Many of us are already amazing procrastinators!

You need to convince your brain that you’ll definitely check out this really interesting article after you’ve done your project. That you’ll spend enough time on Twitter later. That you’ll have a break to eat when you need to and not because you’re bored.

Every time you find a new distraction it’s time to yell “Later!” and go back to work.

It does sound harder than it is because the first couple of times it really is that hard. But you do get used to ignoring distractions and it gets easier and easier with each one.

In the beginning, remind yourself exactly that: you’ll do it a couple of times, you’ll get better and more productive.

Just promise yourself you’ll do it. Later.

Make procrastination work for you for once!

3. Determine the time you need.

So you’re up against a task while battling a couple of distractions.

One of the best practices is to figure out the amount of time you’ll need for that task to be finished and realize you can be done much faster if you start now.

You need one hour to write a short article? Tell yourself “It’s only 1 hour. If I start now in 1 hour I’ll be free.”

Or 5 hours for a project.

Whatever time it might take you, putting it in the context of “in this amount of time I will be done” is always helpful and motivating.

“If I procrastinate this task, in this many hours I’ll still have to do it, instead of being done” — I find that this can have an even stronger effect.

All these help you change your mindset in order to be more productive in less time. And don’t waste any.

4. Don’t think emotionally.

Logic, unlike emotions, is a really good friend to productivity.

First, it’s very important to note that there are moments in which you need to pay attention to your emotions and mental health as they are a bigger priority than productivity.

But emotional thinking and reasoning are never a good idea, especially when you are busy.

They are the ones making you give in to distractions; They are the ones making you choose options that may seem good for you at the moment, but are sure to have negative effects on you in the near future.

Here, once again, mindfulness is a great way to handle these situations.

The essence, that is obvious, is that you need to pay attention only to the logical parts of your brain at that second. You do realize that you need to be working instead of doing practically nothing, but emotional reasoning might be telling you that you don’t really need to if you don’t want to. Or something among those lines.

Focus on the things you know and not the ones you feel.

Not many things are an actual waste of time.

These steps were mostly targeting procrastinating or getting distracted, both of which are wasting time for productivity.

But in reality, every single experience, every single conversation, everything we go through on a daily basis teaches us, inspires us, enriches up. Even the random things you’d think are too stupid to teach you anything. All of them are filling you up with thoughts and feelings that always affect your overall views, opinions, etc.

So, in conclusion, I just wanted to say that not every activity that might be considered a waste of time is actually bad for us.

Sometimes we do need distractions, we need to rest from the constant attention and praise we give to productivity and concentration.

But for the moments that do need our minds consumed by work: get used to minimizing distractions and motivate yourself to start and finish what you have to do with little to none emotional thinking.