Are You Wasting Hours of Your Work Day?

Written by Ali Luke - 21 Comments
Categories: productivity tips, self improvement

How much time do you waste, every day?

You probably don’t try to, or mean to. But if you work for a typical company, you’re probably losing hours of productive time every single day.

Maybe a typical day looks something like this:

  • You get into the office, make a coffee, chat to the person who sits next to you.
  • You check your emails, and end up getting distracted by a link to an interesting new piece of research in your field.
  • You get back on task for a bit, working on that important report.
  • Phone calls come in, and colleagues stop by to ask questions.
  • You make another coffee.
  • You need to print out some documents, but the printer’s acting up again. It takes you the best part of half an hour to sort it out.
  • During the afternoon, you’re in a two hour meeting. It starts late, then overruns. You don’t really have anything to contribute – you just nod along at the appropriate points.

That’s not an especially exaggerated or unrealistic day – but it involves a lot of wasted time. Interruptions, distractions, problems with computers and other hardware, meetings …  no wonder you sometimes get to five o’clock and wonder what you’ve actually done all day.

So, how can you minimise wasted time, and get more work done?

Look for Obvious Problems

Maybe there’s something clearly eating into your work time. It could be:

  • Traffic is always worse than you expect, so you’re usually late to work
  • A particular colleague constantly distracts or interrupts you when you’re trying to focus
  • Some regular tasks are taking up far more of your time than they should. Maybe they need to be delegated, or you need better equipment in order to cope with them.
  • You take part in meetings where your presence really isn’t necessary.

It’s easy to get used to these irritations in the working day – or to assume that they can’t ever be changed. But if there really is a problem, you need to tackle it. If you can’t do anything about it on your own, talk to your boss. It’s in their interests, too, to ensure that your time (that they’re paying you for) is well-used.

Keep a Time Log

Not all time-wasters are obvious. We’re not always great at estimating how much time we spend on a particular task – so you might think that emails are only taking you a few minutes here and there throughout the day, when you’re actually spending three hours every day in your inbox.

A time-log will let you see, in black and white, exactly where your time is going. Create a spreadsheet on your computer, or use a notebook. List the time in 15 minute intervals, from the start of the day. Mark what you do during each 15 minutes, using  “ditto” marks where necessary.

After a few days, you’ll be able to see where you’re wasting time. Perhaps interruptions are actually eating up a lot more work time than you realised, or maybe you struggle to stay on task and waste time on Facebook or Twitter.

Even if you don’t do any analysis, keeping a time log is useful – it helps you become more aware of what you’re doing (particularly if you’re going off-task!) and can keep you accountable.

Making Changes

So, how can you reclaim the time that you’re losing, and make the most of your work day?

Change Your Hours

By starting work earlier than your colleagues and clients, you can get a head-start on the day before calls start coming in. You’ll probably also avoid rush-hour traffic, making it less likely that you’ll waste time because you’re late.

Alternatively, you could start later and finish later – giving you some time at the end of the day to focus without interruptions.

Set a Time Limit on Emails

If you find that emails are taking up a lot of time, set yourself a time limit. That could mean:

  • Only checking emails after 11am
  • Setting a timer running whenever you open your inbox: allow yourself a set amount of time and stop when it’s over. (I use Tick Tock Timer.)
  • Giving yourself a certain amount of time per day for email, perhaps a total of an hour. Again, you can use a timer – set it running whenever you open your inbox, and stop it when you’re done.

If you’ve ever stormed through dozens of emails in an hour or two after a vacation, you’ll know how fast you can get your inbox cleared when you focus.

What big time-wasters crop up during your workweek? How can you start dealing with them?

Free Self-Confidence Webinar

If you are interested in finding out how you can improve your self-confidence, please join me and Barrie Davenport from Live Bold and Bloom for a free Self-Confidence webinar on Sunday, February 26, at 8:00 p.m. EST (5:00 Pacific). I will be the presenter, discussing a specific technique you can use every day to improve your self-confidence.

No registration is necessary for the free webinar, but please sign up on the Self-Confidence Course wait list to receive an email later in the week with log-in details. (This does not commit you to taking the course but is a way for us to contact you with the log-in and password.)

At the end of the webinar, I will discuss our upcoming Simple Self-Confidence Course which opens for registration immediately after the webinar. Webinar attendees will receive a discounted price for the Course. If you are not interested in the Simple Self-Confidence Course, you are still warmly welcomed to attend the webinar. You can just sign off when she begins discussing the Course.

Sign Up on Wait List Here to Receive an Email This Week with Webinar Log-In Details.

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  • http://www.lumpuckeroo.com/are-you-wasting-hours-of-your-work-day-lumpuckeroo Are You Wasting Hours of Your Work Day? | Lumpuckeroo | Self Improvement – Overcoming Lumpuckeroo

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  • http://hanofharmony.com The Vizier

    Hi Ali,

    I think many people struggle with wasted time. I know I do. There are so many things we could do more efficiently to make more productive use of our time. I enjoyed reading through your suggestions and here are some of the thoughts that crossed my mind as I did.

    Keep a Time Log

    I personally apply this tip. Being aware of how I spend my time helps me to discern the pattern and to take steps in advance to correct the problems that arise. For example, I am usually lethargic after lunch so I try to schedule mundane tasks that do not require too much brainpower until I can work it off. That means I usually check my emails and stuff.

    Change Your Hours

    I personally find that the earlier I work, the more I can get done. It seems as if that my most productive hours are earlier in the day. As the day wears on, I am more prone to distractions around me.

    Thank you for sharing this article. It is important to know how we use our time. :)

    Irving the Vizier

  • http://www.zerebria.com Nacho Jordi

    Your description of time wasters brought me bitter memories of my office days… the printer, the dirty consolation of the coffee machine… Besides, I was in a particularity dysfunctional office (2 hours and a half for dinner, go figure!).
    So to your list I would add a tragically common time waster: incompetent bosses.
    How could we solve the problem of incompetent bosses? :)

  • http://www.transformationalmotivation.com/ M. A. Tohami

    I’ve personally tried the time log technique before, and it works! It is an eye-opener. You can’t imagine how much you’re going to learn about your habits and your autopilot way of living. I highly recommend it.

  • http://www.balancedworklife.com/blog Bryce Christiansen

    Time allocation is such an important topic for getting the most out of your day.

    Last month I discussed this topic in detail. I really like how Jeffrey Gitomer put it. “It’s not about time management…it’s about time allocation. It’s how you choose to invest vs spend the 16 tro18 hours you have every day.

    http://bit.ly/fdlxOw

  • http://www.downtownprintwear.com Dan Leavitt

    The best lesson I ever learned on time was Parkinson’s Law. As soon as I began limiting the amount of time I had to complete projects I found my productivity went through the roof.

  • http://livingthebalancedlife.com Living the Balanced Life

    I currently work from home now, but previous job gave a me a lot of flexibility, but also a lot of responsibility. I found I needed to batch tasks together, emails, phone calls, reports, strategy sessions, etc, to help me be more productive and get more done!
    Great list of tips!
    Bernice
    Eating for Balanced Living

  • http://www.motivationalmemo.com Peter G. James Sinclair

    When I hired a business coach he had me note down everything that I did throughout one week and record how I spent my time. By simply recording everything it clearly revealed the areas that I could improve in ‘me’ management. I fixed what needed fixing.

    It’s not a bad to do this once or twice a year – just to give you a ‘you’ management check up – because we all have the capacity to let things slip.

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  • http://www.selfimprovementedge.com Anass Farah

    I think that in an average day (no counting week-ends), I waste two to three hours. My main problem is the time I spend in front of computer, going from one article to another, trying to find the best book in self improvement to buy it, or just surfing in forums, trying to find the latest tips and free guides to bring more visitors to my blog.

    My second problem is this: I’m a theory addict, thought those last months I’m trying to fight this, I still read a lot, I know that the perfect knowledge and time didn’t exist but what makes me doing this Is my fear of the pain that I will feel in the journey of doing what I really want to do :D

    I think that starting my day by doing the most uncomfortable things, that are usually the most important for me, will be the solution to my problem, but also reframing my mind so even if I’m failing I would say “That’s just more experience I’m gaining”.

    Ali, thank you for this really fantastic article :D

    Anass Farah

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  • http://mazzastick.com Mazzastick

    Time management is a skill that can be learned like anything else.We have to prioritize what is most important first. This can be a challenge when you work for somebody else though. You can’t help meetings that tend to productivity wasters.

  • Letitia

    Keeping a log is a time waster in itself, and you might be too lazy to do it. Instead, I suggest a beautiful (and free) product that worked perfectly for me: RESCUE TIME.

    It logs all your computer usage time and lets you categorize your activities, analyze spent time and compare to your goals and others.

    Hope this helps!

  • http://blog.hiredmyway.com/ Wesw@hiredmyway.com

    Hi Ali, This post couldn’t have come at a better time!

    I’ve made it my new year’s resolution to work on my time management skills and improve my productivity during my work day. I’ve found that using a time log has made the biggest, most immediate difference. I not only log the time I spend on tasks in 15 minute increments, I also give myself an allotted time to complete a task. This one-two punch has worked wonders for me.

    I’m looking forward to trying some of your other suggestions listed here as well. Thanks!

  • http://www.attackyourday.com Mark Woods

    Ali,

    Great post, I agree with what you say and particularly like your suggestions around keeping a time log, seeking out the obvious problems and treating email as a visitor so we don’t get stuck in jail. Here are two thing I do. I schedule time to process email on my calendar, 10, 1, 3, and 5. When I am done processing and taking care of the RED’s I close it down and move on.

  • http://www.arinanikitina.com arina nikitina

    I will definitely note all the points here and then have it on my FB status. LOL! Some people just don’t see life as a pursuit, and waste a lot of time FB’ing, huh? Well, there are some things we can only write about and hope would be taken very well. But personally, it takes discipline to unhook yourself off the net and really be productive. That discipline can come clearer if one knows what he or she wants out of life, especially if they have mapped out how to get to the goals they set. But yeah, there are still times when I really wanna just tell people straight out, “Have you counted your unproductive hours lately? You’re on FB a lot!” LOL. Of course, I wouldn’t do that. Mom would say, if there’s a better way to remind people, choose it over meanness. Your point will come across better.

    Oh, where was I? Aha! There’s my time-wasting habit. Talking too much. :)

  • http://www.taskwise.com Mirey

    How much time do you spend a day at work doing nothing or doing your own stuff?? The best way to begin a successful business, you ask? Plan your business in 7 steps: http://www.taskwise.com/blog/2011/4/7-steps-to-planning-a-business

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