10 Random Things that Waste 10 Hours of your Week
And how to correct them
To make the most judicious use of our time, we often plan out schedules, make use of to do lists and weekly calendars. But when actually doing what we planned, we don’t notice how much time is being taken up by the endless number of distractions we face every day. Even with a well-planned out schedule, there are so many little actions or inactions that distract us from our work and significantly reduce the amount of work that gets done eventually.
I decided to share my personal experience on the 10 small things I’ve realized take up a surprisingly large amount of time from my week. I’m sure you will find this useful.
1. Letting your mess pile up before cleaning
Depending on the kind of work we do, we all make a mess from time to time — we may leave many things arranged, or we may just end up creating a big mess and decide to clean only after it gets piled up. Piling up your clutter could range from leaving dirty clothes on the couch to even letting huge amounts of work pile up before attending to any of them. This is very common with people whose job involve crafts or anything that requires arranging and rearranging from time to time (I honestly belong to this category sometimes, it can be tempting).
You must learn to handle every distraction as it comes in. If you were looking for a book in your shelf and you raided the place so it looks like someone robbed you, make sure you clean that up before you do anything else. Its quicker and much easier than to leave it unattended, make a few more messes again before you clean it all up. It may overwhelm you and eventually take up more time than it would have if you had cleaned up immediately after. Just form the habit of not messing things up in the first place, at least as much as you can.
Check out my article on how you can minimize your messes through decluttering and also get better work done:
2. Cooking Daunting meals (that take up a lot of time and still the same space in your stomach)
We all need cook if we want to eat, or at least get takeout. But this is for those who love being in the kitchen. The fact that you need to eat doesn’t mean you should waste all the time in the world cooking. If you ration the time that you sleep and when you work, you should ration kitchen meals as well.
Nigerian meals can be particularly time wasting (thank God for my freezer!). My advice is don’t spend more than 30 minutes in the kitchen for a meal that you’re eating once and it’s over. On the other hand, if it can be preserved and will last you longer (probably a week), then you can spend maybe an hour or less. And pin this time down on your schedule, no matter how long it takes, so you don’t eat into the time for slated out for other tasks.
3. Multitasking
This is a no brainer, but just hear me out. There are some tasks that need more focus to be done earlier and quicker. Personally, listening to music helps me get some kind of work done faster, like when I’m making crafts or skimming through a mathematics textbook. However, don’t try to do two tasks that need a considerable amount of brainpower at the same time.
Do you listen to eBooks while trying to focus on another important task? I recon you shouldn’t, because you won’t get the best out of the book or what it is you’re trying to focus on.
If a task is so important to you, even if it’s listening to a podcast or an eBook, then you should be able to create time to focus on it and get the best out of it at that given period. If you can’t create such time, then you should consider if it is that important anyway.
One way to create time for such passive tasks is focusing on them while commuting, like in a private car or any other form of transportation. You could also do this when carrying out simple tasks that don’t need much focus, like cleaning.
4. Doing only one task for too long
In order to get a bulky job done at once, we sometimes create a long stretch of time devoted to only that task in one day. But working on just one task for an extended period of time is a lot like the marginal utility curve in economics: it follows the law of diminishing returns.
For every task you want to undertake, you should have a maximum time to do it, after which you have to rest or do something else. This is because your rate of productivity slows down after a while, and it begins to look like you’re just wasting time doing that task.
Learn to stop working when you feel your brain or body tiring out. It doesn’t always mean you’re lazy. Personally, I’d rather be sleeping than be awake and unproductive.
5. Waking up too late or even sleeping too early
Personally, I can’t be fully awake until its 6am, so waking up earlier is a waste of my time. Also, when I sleep later than 11:30, I wake up with a light headache that can be easily aggravated. Both things can make me groggy and lose precious time because I won’t be able to work properly or even get anything done.
In this scenario, you need to know what works for you. Does waking up by 4am leave you sharp and alert the rest of the day? Then do it! Do you feel more relaxed when you wake up by 7am, and that time works for you? Then by all means stick to it.
Do stick to one time consistently though, even during weekends. Changing sleep times usually has a negative effect on our sleep cycle.
6. Reading a book whose information you won’t use
The era of infopreneurship is upon us. Every day you scroll through social media, you see countless ads on your social media feed telling you to register for a webinar or download a book, or sign up for a course.
Please don’t do it, except that resource will teach you something new that you absolutely need.
You need to have that highly selective spirit and not say yes to every bit of information thrown to you. Even though it’s free. Trust me, having that negative disposition is more important than having a positive one, as information overload is just as bad as having no information at all.
7. Forcing yourself to work too late when you feel very sleepy
Penny Lewis, a sleep scientist, emphasized (in her Ted Talk) the reenergizing properties of sleep and why it’s important to get an adequate amount every day. If you don’t get enough sleep, it robs you of your time because you might not be 100% productive the next day.
Also, it can be detrimental to your health in the long term.
Whatever you struggle to do for an hour when forcing yourself to stay awake, you will do it in 10 minutes the next morning and save 50 minutes. So drop the task and get some sleep.
8. Frequent distraction from friends and family
It’s not self-compassion to let your family members always distract you from your goals. The best self-compassion you can ever give yourself is being able to achieve your set objectives in a way that makes you happy. On this note, you need to set the limit to which your friends or family can distract you from your daily work and tasks, or decide if you want to give them that privilege in the first place.
Learn to control external distractions. Your friends won’t like it if you blame them for not reaching your goals or becoming successful. They may not like you now for needing more time to work, but they will still celebrate your successes with you in the nearest future.
“The best self compassion you can ever give yourself is being able to achieve your set objectives in a way that makes you happy.”
9. Frequent snacking
I’m not a nutritionist or dietitian. But I’m sure you know that snacking too often or with unhealthy treats isn’t good for your body. It also isn’t good for your work. But you need to know why.
You can’t get the best out of your work unless you are focused on the one task at hand. And you cannot focus only on your work while you are eating. That’s why we should have dedicated times of the day for meals, so we can eat and get back on track with work.
But when you decide to stretch meal times into work hours, you’re dividing your focus and attention between your work and what you’re munching. Not fair.
10. Consuming endless content
This might be counterproductive, but I hope you get the intended message. Not all blog posts are helpful to you at every given time. Not all videos are important. Not all podcasts should be listened to. Maybe one or two, but 10?
Nah.
There are massive amounts of information everywhere. Identify what you need, consume it intentionally, and move on. No overloading.
Remember, you’re not achieving a goal by gathering information. You’re achieving a goal by implementing that knowledge. And you can never have all the knowledge in the world.
So read a little and work even more.
Thanks for reading!
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