Do you constantly find yourself wasting time on accident? Do you subconsciously open Instagram, start scrolling and 30 minutes go by without you noticing?
Well those days are over.
Did you know there are about 3 main reasons why you constantly find yourself to be wasting time?
Let’s look at some root cause for why this keeps happening to you.
In this blog post, I’m going to help you understand why you end up turning to time-wasting activities and how to avoid them so you can start skyrocketing your productivity.
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3 Reasons Why You are Constantly Wasting Time
Not Having a Consistent Way to Plan Your Time
One of the big culprits of that lead to time wasting is not having a plan for your day.
If you don’t plan your day your brain will fall into distractions without you even realizing it. You will reach for ticktock or Instagram just because you don’t know what to do next.
For example, if you don’t have an exact morning routine planned out this may happen.
Your alarm goes off and instead of getting up and starting your day, you grab your phone and start scrolling through social media.
Now you should not be upset at yourself for falling into these distractions because your brain is simply trying to find something to do.
How to avoid:
Plan your days the night before.
Learn how to time block your days. If you time block your day the night before you’ll know you know exactly what you should be doing at each point in your day.
Not Doing Things That You Really Care About
Often the biggest reason you are prone to distractions is because you’re bored.
If you aren’t enjoying what you are doing your brain will try to find something more exciting, like watching Netflix.
Your brain often looks for more enjoyable things to do rather than continuing to do the boring task.
How to avoid:
Most of the time we can’t avoid doing the boring things like cleaning up the house or doing dishes.
However, we can try to make it fun.
I like to turn boring activities into a game. This is called gamification.
Basically you try to bring different parts of gaming into a real life setting.
So make cleaning up the house a game but setting a timer and trying to clean the house as fast as you can.
This adds an element of challenge which your brain will find fun to try and complete.
If your entire life seems to be boring because you don’t like your job, create a vision for yourself that drives you forward.
Make a vision board of what you want your future to look like and how the “right now” boring activity will contribute to that.
Remind yourself of your vision to help you get through those boring activities.
What are some ways you make boring activities more enjoyable?
Not Taking Care of Yourself
If you aren’t getting enough sleep, moving your body, eating healthy, or seeing loved ones you are going to feel sluggish and unmotivated.
This will cause you to reach for the brainless things to do.
Over the past few years, I’ve discovered self-care to be a priority.
For example, if you don’t get enough sleep or healthy foods in your body, you will feel tired while you’re working on a project and not feel motivated to keep working.
Because of this you reach for the brainless activities like Netflix, Ticktock and Instagram.
Self-Care is complementary to productivity.
How to avoid:
Start practicing self-care every day.
This sounds like a hard task but it’s really not. I include my self-care time in my morning routine as a way to encourage me to get up every morning instead of reaching for my phone.
Determine which self-care activities are more important for you.
Maybe you need 9 hours of sleep every day to feel awake the next day. Do that.
Everyone’s needs are different.
Final Notes
If you still aren’t sure why you turn to those time wasting activities, ask your self every day, what would have made this day better.
Really dig deep to find the root cause to why you are wasting time, instead of immidiately blaming the same old distracts like social media.
By being aware of the reasons for reaching for those distractions, you’ll be able to focus better during the day and start wasting less time.
Related Posts:
How to Time Block Your Whole Week
What is Productivity? | The Ultimate Guide to Being More Productive
9 Things to Do Every Month to be More Productive
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5 thoughts on “How to Stop Wasting Your Time”
Thanks a lot for this
Thank you for these tips! I can’t believe how most days seem to fly by, and I think it’s partly because I waste too much time with distractions, rather than getting right to work. I like the idea of gamification, and will try that when I find myself avoiding my work.
Joanna, I love using gamification. Sometimes instead of a timer, I find a podcast that is around the amount of time I want to finish a task. That way I am learning something and checking things off my to-do list.
Yes, I use gamification all the time! Thank you so much for these tips!
Yay! I’m glad someone else has heard of gamification besides me. I love using it!