TOP TIME-WASTERS

And how to avoid them

“The bad news is, time flies. The good news is, you’re the pilot.”— Michael Altshuler

These days everyone says that they don’t have time, even those things that we once did easily become difficult to squeeze in the 24 hours we have daily. This lack of time becomes all the more troublesome when studies and exams are in full swing. But, time has always been constant — with 24 hours in each day and seven days in a week. What has changed is the way we are using our time. We are either trying to do a lot of things or are giving too much time to just a few things, with the result that we often end up with little time for what we want to do or should be doing.

There are so many things that suck away our minutes and hours, keeping us busy, or so we feel, and eventually leaving us too exhausted to do important tasks that we should be doing. These are time-wasters, things that keep us occupied but don’t make us accomplish as much as we should. Let’s have a look at them:

1. Lack of planning

To execute any project successfully, you need a good plan. Consider each day as a project, plan what needs to be done when. You can plan your day in your head, with timings for most tasks and deadlines for accomplishing them. If there are extra activities, tests, exams, matches or an outing coming up, plan ahead for those days by seeing how you will squeeze in time for these things too.

2. Lack of organisation

While it may seem that planning and organisation are the same things, they are different; organisation means the way you keep your things and the method of doing your tasks. An organised person keeps things in proper places, well-sorted and arranged. And after using anything, he or she keeps it back in its place so that time is not wasted in searching for it in the future.

3. Procrastinating

We are all guilty of this, just sitting there and thinking of all that we have to do, while the clock ticks away. Eventually, we do get up and do what we are supposed to do but we have wasted so much time trying to delay it. And we may not even do it well, because our heart is not in it. If we behave this way each time we are faced with doing what we don’t enjoy much or don’t want to do at that moment, procrastination becomes a habit and the biggest timewaster.

4. Guilt

When we don’t do things that we should have done, we tend to feel guilty about it and become inactive out of guilt. What’s done, is done, don’t waste time thinking about. Guilt is not something to waste time on; instead, it should make you more determined to do better next time.

5. Unfinished work

We usually start a lot of things but fail to finish any or most of them. Many of us pick up a subject to study and leave it half-way when we get struck in a problem or get bored, and start something else. But by the time we come back to what we were first doing, we will waste time getting focused and into the rhythm. So finish what you start, unless it is something that is not important and urgent.

6. Social media and gadgets

Once we start staring at a screen, hours pass so fast and before we know it, we have not done a zillion things that we should have done. We need to remind ourselves that people lived without social media, messages, gadgets and online games in not a very distant past. We can at least set timings for these so that our schedule is not disrupted too much.

7. Not being able to say no

We can’t do everything or please everyone all the time. So, we should stop trying to do so. Because we can’t say no to someone when they ask us to do something, we often end up sacrificing our time for their benefit.

8. Not putting up boundaries

When you are busy doing anything important, explain to others that you need to concentrate and finish your work. Tell your friends you are busy at such and such times so that they don’t call you up or come over to play. A “Please don’t disturb me now, I am busy,” is a very simple way to get around the problem of interruptions.