I'm writing about this topic because I just started a new exercise designed to help me avoid wasting time. I started this exercise earlier today, so I can't tell if it works well long-term. But I can tell you that I’ve already pinpointed a couple of activities that I hope to permanently discard!
I didn't wake up this morning planning to do a
time study. I simply felt frustrated when I realized that I had already wasted
about two hours of my day. I didn’t mean to waste the time, but combining an
unscheduled time slot with a lack of purpose and ‘time-wasting” sprouted like a
weed.
I know that I must act purposefully for my time and effort to contribute to my long-term goals. It’s frustrating to realize that I’ve fallen short of this objective.
Fortunately I turned this frustration into some positive action and discovered an article that shed some light on this common struggle. The article I found was written by Bruce Kasanoff and I immediately set out to follow its contents. I think you’ll benefit from this as well.
A Highly Effective Way to Avoid Wasting Your Time
"Here's a simple way to potentially save hours of your time each week, by investing a total of about five minutes.
First thing in the morning, take a piece of paper and write a column of numbers representing each hour from the time you wake up until you go to sleep. For me, the list would start 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 1 and go all the way back to 12. (So far, you have invested about fifteen seconds.)
For this single day, at the top of every hour stop for 20 seconds and consider how happy you are with the way you spent your time. Did you invest it wisely? If the answer is yes, don't write anything.
But if you wouldn't repeat the way you spent the last hour, next to the number representing that hour write a few words that describes what you did. On one of my lists, for example, at 3 o’clock I wrote "pointless to talk with Ralph; doesn't listen," meaning that it was a waste of my time to meet with him.
Stick with this exercise all day; it takes very little time, just the discipline to stop every hour for a few seconds. But at the end of the day, you'll have a list of activities you wish you avoided. If the list has more than one or two items, you might want to continue the practice for a while.
If you make this a habit, you'll soon start to spot patterns. It will be easier to recognize ways in which you are wasting time and effort, and you'll do a better job of avoiding these.
You can also use this technique across an entire department to help all involved make better use of their time. To avoid offending people, I wouldn't suggest pooling the results. You can simply introduce the test and allow people to draw their own conclusions."
If you decide to implement this personally or within your office, be sure and let me know the results. And, I certainly hope that reading this WorkPuzzle edition won't turn up on your list of things to avoid!
Question: Have you developed any personal tactics for keeping "time-wasting" under control in your life? If so, let us know what you've learned.
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Editor's Note: This article was written by Dr. David Mashburn. Dave is a Clinical and Consulting Psychologist, a Partner at Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle.
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