Ways You’re Wasting Time Instead of Doing What You Need to be Successful

It’s important that you attach value to your time. How you use your time has a huge impact on your ability to succeed. Increasing productivity and using your time wisely means you will have more time to do things that matter to you, like exercising, spending time with family and friends, having a hobby or pursuing other projects.

Set yourself up for success by cutting these time wasters from your life, and you may find you have more time than you realize.

Multitasking

Trying to do more than one thing at a time actually diminishes your productivity. The human brain isn’t designed to multitask. Your brain has to slow down as it switches between tasks, and this makes you less efficient.

All things email

Email may be one of the biggest time-sucking black holes. Every time you get an alert that you have a new email, your concentration is broken. Then there’s responding to pointless emails, or trying to find the right email in a disorganized inbox.

Social media without a purpose

Social media can be a huge distraction when you use it for personal use, but it can also be a time suck when you’re using it for legitimate work purposes. When used effectively, social media can help boost your business and increase sales or marketing reach.

Second, stop obsessively checking your social media activity — this goes for business and personal use. Constantly checking your news feed or looking to see how many people are following you is eating away at your focus and your time.

Pointless meetings

Meetings are indispensable for sharing information and making important decisions, but they’re often seen as a waste of time because they aren’t used effectively. The problem is not just the time spent sitting through pointless meetings; it’s also all the time it takes to prepare for a said pointless meeting and sending and reading emails about the meeting. Make sure meetings have agendas and a moderator who will keep them focused.

Disorganized work environment

There’s a good chance your disorganization is wasting your time by making it difficult to find anything and making you look unprofessional to boot. It’s time to declutter your workstation. When everything has a place, you’ll be able to quickly retrieve the information you need and move on to the next thing.

Too much socializing

There’s nothing wrong with socializing with colleagues; no one wants to spend the entire day in silence. But if you aren’t careful, it’s easy to lose valuable work time interacting with co-workers.

Refusing to seek clarification

You get handed a big assignment. It’s a great chance to show off your skills, and you’re confident you can kill it. You dive in, but slowly you begin to realize that you’re in over your head and are not exactly sure what the final product should look like.

However, instead of seeking clarification by picking up the phone or sending an email, you press on. You tell yourself that you’ll figure it out. This is a serious waste of time because you’re letting pride get the best of you. If you have questions or are unsure how to proceed with a task, put your ego away and get the information you need to be both productive and effective.

SOURCE: Deep Patel