10 Easy Tips to Stop Wasting Time and Increasing Your Productivity!

Are you stuck in a loop and keep asking yourself, “How do I stop wasting time?” Have you ever found yourself in a fix where you don’t know what you are doing and feel unproductive to accomplish anything?

If yes then don’t worry. We all feel this way at some point in our lives. Unnecessary calls, text messages or spending a lot of time on social media are few of the things that have been found to common with many people.

If you’re trying to overcome this habit as well as procrastination then you have your work cut out for you. This might not be one of the easiest habits to eliminate, as it can seem quite innocuous. You don’t feel its effects immediately. However, you only realize your loss when you pan out and see its long-term side effects.

Waking up late, getting comfortable for work, and wasting time watching the latest buzz on your phone might seem like a few minutes. But when you add up, you lose countless hours when you could have been productive and working on your goals instead.

You become frustrated and fail to see where you are going wrong and end up in a vicious cycle of misuse even more time than before.

But luckily, you can curtail this with only a few simple steps. But before that, let’s see the reasons for getting trapped in this pattern and how to figure a way out.

Recognize Why You Are Wasting So Much Time. 

Why waste so much time when you have so many responsibilities to fulfill? 

Is it because of distractions? Or is it something inside your head that distracts you from your routine? 

We all have heard that time is money. But how many of us have genuinely worked on the phrase and applied it in real life?

If you want to become someone who stops wasting time, you have to give up on your habits that are responsible for this.

The most common ones that cause this include:

1. Procrastination:

Procrastination is the worst habit that can cause you to stay idle. Delaying your work until the deadline is never the solution. It makes us lazy, unproductive, and at the end of the day, unhappy.

In a study, 94 percent of people said that procrastination had a negative effect on their happiness.

It can either be because we don’t want to put in the effort or we are not ready to face our fears. The best strategy is to kill these thoughts and eat the frog right away.

Though it may be hard and painful to execute this skill, the sooner you begin a task, the sooner you finish it. And with consistent effort, you’ll learn how to stop wasting time.

2. Scrolling on the Phone and Social Media

If there were one thing to be mainly blamed for wasting time, it would’ve been your mobile phone and the social media apps in it. Once you fall victim to the infamous infinity scroll, it can be really hard to stop wasting time.

To see whether you are addicted to your social media, check the number of times you look at your phone each day.

If you find yourself continuously unlocking your phone to check notifications or messages, you definitely have a problem.

To detox yourself from this bad habit, place your phone where it is difficult to get it. Apart from that, you can also use apps that limit your mobile use.

Take a walk or do something productive instead of wasting your time on this trivial device.

3. Multitasking

You might be doing many things at once that might feel like you are making progress, but at the end of the day, you realize that you have wasted so much time.

It’s very much impossible to carry out multiple tasks at a time, and a study has found that only 2.5% of individuals are actually able to multitask without any hindrance in their performance.

Instead of getting more things done quickly, we fail to complete even the simplest of tasks. We become less efficient and are more likely to commit menial mistakes. So it’s better to focus on a single task and take it to completion to stop wasting time.

4. Lack of Organization

One of the most common reasons for lagging behind is the lack of organization. By that, I don’t simply mean organizing your home or office. It’s also about organizing your thoughts and plans for yourself.

When you lack specific plans and goals, you don’t know how to follow a schedule. You feel lost and can become tense at the slightest change in your routine.

So to be organized in the real world, you need to be organized in the head as well.

By not living consciously, you allow yourself to be carried away by the tide of the herd. You become complacent and don’t allow yourself to leave your comfort zone.

To help yourself get out of this rut, you need to recognize your goals and live the life you want to live. Clear your head from the fog of uncertainty and stop wasting time for what you truly value. 

So by living consciously, you’ll spend less time wandering around and more time focusing on tasks important to your objective.

Why Do You Need to Save Time? 

Let me tell you if you spend your life in such a routine. Where there is no timetable or work, you will end up at a certain point where the maximum part of your life is wasted. 

It can be challenging to give up your wasteful activities. But if you know the reward of leaving them, things can turn out way better and more satisfying than before. 

4 Essential Benefits of Stopping Time Wastage

The main aim is to spend every minute living meaningfully. And this can only be achieved if you have a proper plan and act on it rationally. 

When you stop wasting time, you enjoy the following benefits:

1. Builds Discipline

This might sound like a bookish line but believe me. There is nothing in this world that can defeat a disciplined person.

When you understand the value of your minutes, you stop acting randomly and stick to a defined routine. You become more organized and set specific blocks for each piece of work that comes across you.

There is a famous saying that goes; 

Either you face the pain of discipline, or you face the pain of regret. 

Scheduling everything in this balanced way can help you be more productive at work and also enables you to enjoy yourself.

2. More Productive Outcomes 

To see the link between productivity and time, you need to understand a simple but effective concept. The Parkison’s law.

The law states that:

“Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.”

This means that if you have an extended duration to complete a specific task, the longer it will take. This is because you would only complete it when the pressure builds up and the deadline is near.

So to avoid wasting your time, you set an optimum deadline for completion. This way, you neither feel stressed nor linger on the same task.

3. Reduced Stress and Depression

When you stop wasting time and start working efficiently, you shed a lot of unnecessary weight off your shoulders. This saves your day for important things, reducing your mental stress and uplifting your mood.

A statistical report found that 41 percent of people who don’t get enough time to complete their tasks end up getting stressed. 

So, instead of crying over spilled milk, it is better to get up and utilize time in the most positive way possible. 

Learn from your past. Learn from your mistakes and how you used to spend hours and start the right way. 

4. Better Career and Financial Stability 

Who doesn’t wants to get free from the 9-5 struggle or become financially independent?

But when it comes to working for it, over half of you will leave at once. This is where wasting your time can be a problem. 

It’s rightly said that “a stitch in a time saves nine.” When you learn the art of time management, you put yourself on a path of professional and personal success.

10 Excellent Habits to Stop Wasting Time

If you have reached this part of the article, then I am sure you are determined to change your core beliefs about time.

So without further ado, let’s see how you can say goodbye to your time-wasting habits:

1. Daily Scheduling  

A proper schedule is the best way to stop wasting time. All successful people know what they must do at a particular time in their day.  

To do so, you first need to work out your negotiable and non-negotiable hours. By non-negotiable hours I mean the hours that aren’t flexible, like your work and sleep. 

Once you take these hours out of your schedule, you are left with negotiable time, where it’s up to you how you utilize it. To begin with, you can start to fix your meal times and then fit certain activities before and after this. 

Slowly you can work up to define every hour for the day and learn how to stop wasting time.

2. Complete Your Important Tasks First

The best way to save yourself from wasting time is to tackle high-priority tasks first. If you keep deferring them, you are left with little time to balance everything else. 

Procrastinating and completing trivial tasks don’t give you mental peace like getting the big things moving. For that reason, you should see what tasks fall in line with your goals and projects. And complete them to be as productive as possible.

3. Create and Stick to Self-Imposed Deadlines

Setting and sticking to self-imposed deadlines helps you prevent wasting time. These deadlines help you keep yourself accountable and motivate you to act for a goal instead of whiling your time in useless activities.

Similarly, setting shorter deadlines help you make the most of your available hours. Studies show that setting deadlines in days rather than weeks or months induces a greater sense of urgency in the subconscious. 

4. Beware of Distractions

If you aren’t aware of your distractions, how can you expect to stop wasting time? You should be conscious of where your time is being spent. Pinpoint and curtail the activities that decrease your productivity.

Major time suckers nowadays include scrolling your social media apps and watching the TV or Netflix. According to statistics, an average US adult spends about three hours watching TV daily. Moreover, a steep increase in social media usage is also noted, making daily use of up to 2 hours and 3 minutes.

Next, you should reevaluate yourself and consider why you are wasting so much time on these fruitless activities. Just by being aware of these distractions, you can put your time to better use.

5. Setting SMARTER Goals

Most people waste time because they don’t have a clear direction for their life. They don’t have specific goals or dreams and can’t stop wasting time even if they try to.

If you lack a purposeful life, you are unsure how to allocate your time.

When you can determine what you really desire from this life, you get a picture of clarity in your mind. And to achieve this mission, you need to set SMARTER goals.

Completing these small milestones of your targets makes you more confident and lets you look at your progress objectively. When you see yourself moving forward, you are less distracted by the world and can focus on spending your hours productively.

6. Don’t cut corners.

Don’t cut corners on your schedule, even if it’s the last thing you want to do on earth. If you have a meeting or some other work at 8 am, you should be there before everyone else.

If you postpone or arrive at that task 10 to 15 minutes late, you won’t be able to develop good time management habits. Sticking to this rule can help you prevent wasting your time, both professionally and personally.

7. Reorganizing your Smartphone Apps and Notifications

Normally, people like to keep all their social apps on the home page for easy access. As you jump from one app to another, the cycle of time-wasting keeps repeating. During a survey, more than 50 percent of people complained that their mobile phone kept them from being productive.

So how can we get by this without uninstalling your beloved apps?  

First, you should always keep all the social media applications in one folder and place the folder on the last swipeable page. Doing so will hamper you from opening the apps again and again. 

As far as notifications are concerned. Do not disturb is the perfect option because it is made for time-saving. If you want to stop wasting time, such actions are necessary. 

8. Make a To-Do List

This strategy might sound old-fashioned, but it really works when you want to stop wasting your time.

Writing important things you need to do on your day in a list is an excellent way to keep track of things. You can either use a personal diary or your smartphone for this purpose.

A to-do list helps you organize your limited hours and prioritize important things first. That way, you can get rid of the chores one by one in an orderly manner and have more free space for your hobbies and fun activities at the end of the day.

9. Outsource Tasks if Possible

Outsourcing allows you to buy the time of other, more experienced people for a specific task. If you think you are already productive and think doing a particular job will make you spend more hours on it than a specialist, it’s best to outsource it.

These can be simple tasks like mowing your lawn, cleaning your windows, or setting up different appointments. 

But only outsource if you can afford it. This strategy helps free up your productive hours both in the workplace and in your personal schedule.

10. Adding Exercise and Self-Care to Your Routine

To stop wasting time, you need to be smart with your routine. Fitting self-care into your schedule is the best way to enjoy and feel satisfied after sticking by your daily commitments.

Instead of sitting idly and doing nothing, it’s better to be engaged in activities that help you keep refreshed and alive.

Doing something you love makes you more productive and helps you destress after an honest day’s work. It can be anything you enjoy, like exercising, gardening, reading a book, or cooking. 

There may be many hobbies and activities you loved once but can’t pay attention to due to your work or responsibilities.

Re-explore your lost self and spend your hours meaningfully. These activities can stretch from 30 minutes to one hour in your routine. But they will make you feel rejuvenated at the end of the day.

Stop Wasting Time and Restart Arfesh Right Now!

There is no regret in accepting failure. Everybody hits a moment of realization sooner or later. But after reading all this information, I am sure you are on the right track.

We all are guilty of wasting time. The best ones find courage, reclaim their lost hours and work to actualize their goals. Being demotivated from previous mistakes shouldn’t mean anything as long as you do your best to follow all the above advice.

Just go one step at a time, and you’ll be all set for the next part of life!