Why are you wasting time and how can you stop doing it?

In this article we will look at how not to waste time, and also understand what the expression “wasted time” means.

How much time do you waste on useless activities?

Remember how many times over the past few days you have said: “I just don’t have enough time .

You know what? You will never have enough time. You will never achieve everything you want. This is impossible.

However, there are sacrifices you can make to achieve greater results. You may not realize it, but you are wasting a lot of time . Below we will explain why?

“Sometimes you just want to have a good time. But you won’t pass the time.”

Smart thoughts about time

The hand of time can tame.
John Henry Newman Everything matures only with time; no one is born wise. Miguel de Cervantes

Time makes everything easier. Sophocles

Nine-tenths of all wisdom lies in the wise use of time. Theodore Roosevelt

You can forget about time only by spending it usefully. Charles Baudelaire

For people, time is a good angel. Friedrich Schiller

I advise you to take care of the minutes, and the hours will take care of themselves. Philip Stanhope Chesterfield

Time reveals the truth. Seneca

The future cannot come, because when it comes, it is already the past. Henrik Ibsen

The past, present and future in reality are one and the same: they are all today. Harriet Beecher Stowe

Quotes about time with meaning

The past is a ghost, the future is a dream, and all we have is the present. Bill Cosby

Better late than never. Titus Livy

I never think about the future: it comes quickly enough anyway. Albert Einstein

Life is short, but the years are long. Robert Heinlein

I've been wasting time for a long time, and now time is wasting me. William Shakespeare

I believe that time, with its infinite capacity for understanding, will one day forgive me. William Saroyan

Everyone has their day, and some days are longer than others. Winston Churchill

Time is the coin of your life. You only have this coin, and only you have the right to determine what it should be spent on. Be careful that someone else does not spend it for you. Carl Sandburg

Happy hours are not observed. Alexander Griboyedov

Do not wait. The timing will never be perfect. Napoleon Hill

How not to waste time, and what prevents this

If you feel like your time is being wasted, this article is for you!

Below we will analyze the main reasons why people waste their lives and offer solutions to the situations.

TV

TV is a drug. And like most drugs, it destroys your brain.

Unlike, for example, reading, watching TV is a passive activity. You sit in front of him and he tells you what to think.

If you don't filter and analyze information, your brain almost atrophies when watching TV.

Unfortunately, nowadays, due to the availability of information, it is very easy to lose the whole day in oblivion in front of the TV.

By the way, the most influential people are avid readers. And this is no coincidence. Some of them read for hours every day, like Elon Musk or Bill Gates.

Tip: Use watching TV as a reward for working hard, such as a way to unwind after a hard day. But don't watch TV just because you're bored - it's wasted time.

Social media

Social media is a black hole for your time.

Yes, they are great for staying in touch with friends. Surely, you have friends all over the country, and we have no doubt that you would have lost contact with them long ago if it were not for social networks.

But it's all too easy to fall into the trap of aimlessly scrolling your news feed and having unhelpful conversations.

Useless communication

It is generally accepted that we need to socialize at least 20 hours a week to be happy. This is not so much, considering that most of us are constantly in contact with our loved ones.

However, communication is different. The more time you spend in useless communication, the less time you have to achieve your goals.

Advice: Associate with people whose qualities you admire. However, communication does not have to be personal. This could be, for example, reading books.

Commuting to work

Packed tightly into a subway car, you can neither move nor even breathe.

When you get pushed on the bus, you push back to avoid falling on the person sitting in front of you.

In a traffic jam, your car is moving at a speed of 10 km/h, and you don’t know where to put all your anger.

Surely, the daily commute makes you feel as if you are losing a small piece of your soul. But there is a way out of this.

The daily commute to and from work for the average person in Moscow takes two hours. Two hours!

Advice: Don't waste this time staring into oblivion. Use your commute to read or expand your consciousness in other ways.

The difference between relaxing and wasting time

Rest and relaxation are not wasted time.

Many people try so hard and invest so much into something that they can easily fall victim to mental and physical disorders. Therefore, to stay in good shape, you need to regularly charge your batteries.

When you do something (like watching TV or browsing the Internet) aimlessly, you are wasting time.

When you do something you enjoy (like reading a book, taking a bath, or going for a walk), you relax both mentally and physically.

Relaxation is a break from what you do all day long. For some it might be yoga, a bath or reading. In any case, such a change in activity makes you slow down and feel better.

We recommend reading → 106 best quotes about happiness, love and life

Here are some practices that can help you relax and avoid wasting time:

• Yoga;
• Pilates;
• Boxing;
• Run;
• Dog walking;
• Weight-lifting;
• Reading;
• Bath;

It could be anything.

• Photographing;
• Drawing;
• Manicure;
• Cooking;
• Sewing;
• Knitting;
• Dancing;
• Football.

You might think that some of these activities don't sound very relaxing. Boxing, for example?

But it's not just about stopping or slowing down. It's about a change of pace, doing something that has nothing to do with your daily tasks.

When you love what you do, it's hard to break away. But sometimes it needs to be done.

Taking breaks gives you a sense of perspective and helps you find solutions to problems you've been struggling with for ages.

We'll talk later

Time management expert Craig Jarrow once said that the biggest time wasters are messages and emails.

Chats, private messages, disgusting spam that comes in email - all this causes you to be distracted, turning your attention to things that are not worth your time. And you need to respond to messages, you need to participate in discussions, and all this wastes time and sometimes emotions, because not all messages are equally pleasant

So just turn off your phone, don’t go on social networks and work calmly. Consider that you have eliminated your main irritant.

Change your phone and computer settings

Digital technologies help us briefly step into another world. A world where there are no restrictions for humans. A world where we can aimlessly refresh our feed over and over again. A world where there is no boredom, but there is freedom. But in reality, when we are overwhelmed with work, all this is an unaffordable luxury.

To prevent such a tasty morsel as social networks and other digital entertainment from looming before your nose, make your phone or computer as boring as possible. At least while working. Turn off notifications for all applications, and if you feel ready to take more drastic measures, delete them.

Another option is to initially buy gadgets intended for only one purpose, such as an e-book without Internet access. This will make it easier to focus on business and fight the urge to check messages or count likes.

It’s not time yet, it’s not time anymore, but in the interim is life...

Most of us know only a couple of quotes about time, which boil down to the fact that time, firstly, is money, and, secondly, business is time, and fun is an hour. The author of the first statement is the American scientist and politician Benjamin Franklin, and the second is the Russian Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich. And, in principle, for many, the knowledge of smart and beautiful phrases about time ends there. What else do people know for sure about time, that it should be valued. True, despite this knowledge, some people prefer to “kill” time rather than spend it usefully. We suggest combining the first and second - spending a few minutes usefully: reading, perhaps, new quotes about time with meaning. After all, throughout the history of mankind, billions of people have tried to understand what time is, and thousands of writers and scientists have tried to give it their definition. We have collected their quotes on this matter especially for you.

Why should we save time?

It is very important to understand the meaning of time in order to make good use of every moment. Time is a non-renewable resource and the most valuable gift we can give to others. And this is obvious, because its supply is limited. Young people, especially, rarely think about this and spend hours wandering aimlessly around their rooms or hanging out on social networks. And the result is this: just a few minutes are not enough to complete important work on time or arrive on time to an important meeting. Promising to yourself to improve and not to allow this to happen in the future does not help. On the contrary, the habit of wasting time gets worse. Having started to wash the dishes, we get distracted by the phone, and when we sit down to work, we remember that we haven’t had tea yet.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of such people; in psychology there is even a concept of procrastination (doing everything, just not what needs to be done). There is only one result - an overwhelming number of important things postponed.

Get rid of useless apps

Another nasty thing that seems to be supposed to relax a decent hard worker during his well-deserved break, but in fact it simply distracts him from work. Accordingly, it may seem that the only way to deal with this problem is to remove all applications, leaving only the necessary ones. This is a way out of the situation, but there is a less bloody way that is suitable for those who, without such breaks, are like a smoker without cigarettes. Download puzzles and applications that are considered educational and useful. Just don’t justify Subway Surfers by saying that it develops manual dexterity and breadth of thinking; it’s better to play chess or answer questions. And you don’t need to tell me that your brain needs a smoke break after hard work - it’s not a weakling like you, it just needs a reason to take a break from work. So do it usefully, with applications that seem to keep your brain in good shape, and not dull you with methodical, mesmerizing and completely meaningless actions. After such applications it is much easier to adjust to the working rhythm.

How to indicate this spelling in writing

If you wrote “wasted” together, underline “vp” with one line, highlight the prefix “v” and the root “empty”, and write “adv.” in parentheses. (adverb).

If the word is written separately, underline the “space” between “in” and “empty” with one line and write “preposition” above “in” and “adjective” above “empty”.

If you don’t know how to explain spelling, it’s time to learn how to do it. Read my article on how to correctly explain and underline spellings, and also watch the video (also mine). This method of working with spelling will help you quickly remember the basic rules of the Russian language and learn to automatically write correctly.

Short quotes about time

Time changes everything - except for something inside us that is always surprised by the change. Thomas Hardy

The past has undoubtedly been great, but I truly believe that the future will be even more wonderful. Swami Vivekananda

The arguments of time are stronger than the arguments of reason. Thomas Paine

Sooner or later, everything happens to everyone - as long as there is enough time. George Bernard Shaw

As we speak, merciless time is flying away. Seize this day, trusting the next one as little as possible. Horace

There is enough time for everything. Thomas Edison

To secure the future, you must respect the past and not trust the present. Joseph Joubert

What use is immortality to a man who cannot make good use of even half an hour? Ralph Waldo Emerson

Modern man believes that he loses something - time - when he does not do something quickly enough. However, he does not know what to do with the time he gains - he only knows how to kill it. Erich Fromm

The ability to concentrate and use time well is everything. Lee Iacocca

Stop dozing uselessly

How many times do you reset your alarm clock in the morning? How long do you then sleep, lounging in bed? On average, after the alarm goes off, a person still dozes for 3 to 5 minutes in order to revive his dormant brain and get used to the idea that another damn day has begun, no different from the rest. But the problem is that this lying down is of no use - like milk from a rooster. You wake up immediately after the first alarm, and the rest of the time you lie stupidly waiting for the next one. You are no longer sleeping, your brain is tuned to wakefulness mode, and you are trying to convince yourself that an extra 5 minutes in bed will give you some kind of rest.

But this time can be spent usefully. For example, it would be quite enough for ordinary morning procedures. Best of all, they could let you come to work early and thus get a little head start. Look, these 10 minutes will be enough for the work, and you won’t have to take it home. You yourself know that in some time periods, work that can be done in 10 minutes is completed in an hour, and vice versa.

Set your priorities

We all sometimes have to make tough and categorical decisions. For example, determining which tasks we can complete and which ones we can postpone until later. This distinction allows you to concentrate on the projects that really matter, instead of constantly being distracted by new requests from others.

Use regular lists for this. First, make a list of all the things you need to do. Then select from it and transfer to another list 10 tasks that you plan to work on right now. Start new projects only after you free up one of these 10 lines by finishing the previous task.

Try fixing specific time intervals for repetitive tasks. For example, on weekdays from 10:00 to 10:30 you will sort out work mail. Each such period should be clearly “reserved” for one lesson. This tactic will “unload” your daily to-do list.

Phrases and quotes about time and its significance from great people

Alcohol, hashish, hydrocyanic acid and strychnine are just weak solutions. The surest poison is time. Ralph Waldo Emerson

I never watch the clock: time was created for man, not man for time. Francois Rabelais

People spend their lives in anticipation, determined to indulge in serene happiness sometime later, when they find time for it. But the present has one advantage over any other time: it belongs to us. Past opportunities have passed, the future has not yet arrived. We can store up pleasures for future use, as we would stock up on wine; but if we delay too much in using them, we will find that both have become sour over time! Charles Caleb Colton

Seize this hour before it slips away from you. Moments of life that are truly great and significant are rare. Friedrich Schiller

Time is the test of all inclinations, all feelings, all connections... Vissarion Belinsky

Time is a strange guy: he gives more than he takes (and he takes everything). Edward Estlin Cummings

Time calms, time clears, no mood can remain unchanged for several hours in a row. Thomas Mann

Time has a great ability to give validity to everything - even in the field of morality. Henry Louis Mencken

All we have to decide is what to do with the time we are given. John Ronald Rael Tolkien

I have to manage the clock myself, and not let the clock control me. Golda Meir

Complete scheduled tasks

The most important thing you have to do in the morning is to resist the temptation to look through the endless stream of messages that have arrived in your email or work chat. Instead, pull yesterday's five-item to-do list closer to you. By completing them, you will 100% provide yourself with a kind of “safety cushion” of completed tasks by about 11:00.

Even if you cross off just one item from your to-do list after yesterday’s terribly unproductive day, your brain will thank you and release dopamine, the pleasure hormone responsible for the “feeling of reward.” This will be an impulse to get back to normal and get into a working rhythm.

Statuses about time are short and beautiful

• We are all mired in the sands of time and have no control over it.
• Time does not heal, the one who hugs you tighter each time heals.
• Life is a game of money and time.
• What seems very important today will turn out to be a trifle over time...
• I will always remember those moments when I wanted to stop time.
• Time does not heal or teach - it simply goes away along with what was...
• Why wait? The dream is now!
• Tomorrow means working on today's mistakes.
• It’s not time yet - it’s no longer time, but in the interval - life.
• Sometimes our tomorrow becomes our yesterday without ever becoming our today.
• Our biggest misconception is that we still have a lot of time.
• He was clumsily killing time, which was skillfully killing him.
• Time has only one problem - sooner or later it runs out.
• Age is something that exists in our thoughts. If you don't think about it, it doesn't exist.
• Tomorrow is already too late.
• Anything is possible, the impossible just takes longer.
• Don't waste your time, it's the stuff life itself is made of.
• Happy people count time in minutes, while for unhappy people it lasts for months.
• Stop acting like you have 500 years to live!
• Luxury is the ability to manage your time.

Let's learn not to waste time

Mastering the science of time management - the science of time management

The principles of time management can be used not only at work, but also at home. They will help you manage your time in such a way that you will have much more personal time for relaxation.

One of them is the Pareto principle, or the 80/20 rule, which states: 80% of the result is achieved with 20% of the effort. The remaining 20% ​​of the result requires 80% of the effort. Therefore, if you properly distribute time and effort, then the greatest results can be achieved with little effort.

For this to happen, in the evening you need to think about tomorrow’s affairs and make a list of upcoming tasks. It is important to write them down on paper so that you can cross them out later. It’s a small thing, but it evokes a feeling of satisfaction and adds enthusiasm.

You need to plan from large tasks to small ones, indicating specific deadlines for their completion. A large amount of work is divided into several parts. 20% of the time spent thinking about ways to solve a problem will save 80% of the time when solving it directly.

Another principle of time management is prioritizing tasks in accordance with the “Eisenhower Matrix.” The work schedule of the 34th American President D. Eisenhower was very busy, and to optimize it, he developed a “matrix”, which is now used by people all over the world. He came to the conclusion that important things are often not urgent, and urgent ones are not always important, so he divided them into 4 groups: important and unimportant, urgent and not urgent.

1. In the 1st group he included important and urgent matters. These matters cannot be delayed. It is desirable that this cell in the matrix table remains empty or contains no more than one or two cases. If there are more of them there, it means that the priorities are determined incorrectly, and force majeure is inevitable (for example, acute toothache, defending a thesis, a burst pipe in the bathroom, etc.).
2. In the 2nd - important, but not urgent. If you give up on them, they can become important and urgent (for example, a preventive examination at the dentist, collecting material for a thesis, replacing plumbing fixtures).
3. In the 3rd - urgent, but not important (unscheduled phone call, meeting).
4. In the 4th - not urgent and not important. Such things can be called chronophages - time eaters (watching uninformative programs, undeveloping games, meaningless conversations).

Those who, thanks to the matrix, have learned to prioritize their affairs, confirm that they have become more collected and organized.

The Pomodoro Method will prevent us from getting bored with work, which means we won’t waste time just to avoid it. The method involves 5-minute breaks after every 25 minutes of work. Having completed 4 such cycles, we extend the break to half an hour. A timer will help us keep track of time (the method is named after the tomato-shaped timer).

“Stop being disgusted, eat a frog!” - recommends Brian Tracy, who is called the psychologist of success, in a book with that title. By frog he means the most difficult and unpleasant task, which he advises to do first thing in the morning. Having finished with it, we will ensure ourselves a great mood for the whole day. “If you eat a frog first thing in the morning,” wrote Mark Twain, “the rest of your day will be wonderful.”

If we don’t overcome ourselves and “eat a frog for breakfast,” the thought of an unpleasant task will haunt us and spoil our mood, no matter what we do. Although, most likely, we will not do anything concrete.

Learning to say “no”

In 2008, the film “Always Say Yes” was released in cinemas about a man whose life was not going well because he answered “no” to every proposal. And she changed dramatically for the better when he began to say “yes.” The slogan of the film is “One word can change your life.” The lives of those who cannot refuse can change just as dramatically when they learn to say “no.”

Helpless people waste their personal time because they fulfill other people's requests, listen to empty conversations and, in fact, live someone else's life. They say that before you say “yes” to someone, think about whether you are thereby saying “no” to yourself, your affairs and desires.

Putting things in order

Searching for the right thing takes a lot of time: we all know where to get it, but for some reason we forget to put it where we are looking for it after we have used it. During the search, we are distracted by extraneous matters that interest us, then we realize that, by the way, almost half a day has already passed. As a result, searching takes us more time than putting things in order.

The habit of getting rid of trash on time saves time, and the trash basket is called an effective time management tool.

Setting your mood

They say how you start your day is how you spend it. We got up in the morning thinking that “everything is bad”, we didn’t want to do anything, and that’s how we programmed ourselves for the whole day. And then we are surprised that the day was wasted! The mood requires setting: so we don’t push ourselves, but think about the bonuses that await us ahead as a reward for a successful day. We tell ourselves: “Have a nice day! - and get to work.

Blocking social networks on your work computer

If we cannot resist the temptation and from time to time we look to see if something new has appeared there. We came in for a minute, but at best the hour didn’t happen. You can sit there all day, as there are plenty of sites for communication. You also need to upload a photo, which should have been corrected beforehand. So the day passed, as it turned out - in vain!

It’s not so easy to get rid of such an addiction, once you’ve fallen into it, but it’s possible. You only have to disconnect from social networks for a week to understand that their role in our lives is not at all paramount.

© Elena Timoshenko, BBF.RU

Meaningful words about seconds, minutes and hours

Wasted time is time in which we have not lived a full human life, time not enriched by experience, creativity, joy and suffering. Dietrich Bonhoeffer

There is no greater evil than wasting time. Michelangelo

Time lost in pleasure is not lost. Bertrand Russell

We are doomed to kill time - this is how we gradually die. Octavio Paz

A year is a period of three hundred and sixty-five disappointments. Ambrose Bierce

How little has been lived - how much has been experienced! Semyon Nadson

Delay is dangerous. Titus Livy

I do not believe that the human mind is capable of comprehending the past and the future. Both are just illusions that can make you think that there are some changes in this life. Bob Dylan

If someone is simply ahead of their time, then the day will come when it will catch up with them. Ludwig Wittgenstein

I'm not going to take revenge or look back on the past. We must forget the past and look forward to the future. Jomo Kenyatta

Why do we waste time

Precious hours are eaten up by bad habits. There are five of them. To stop wasting time, try to get rid of them all.

Wrong thinking

How often do you use the expression “if only” in life? Probably every day. People tend to evaluate what happened from this position. Often thoughts are too far from reality. Trying to build an ideal magical world, a person forgets about pressing matters. He steals time from himself.

Constant complaints about things beyond our control

It could be anything: rainy weather, a neighbor who started repairs early on Saturday morning, insufficient economic development in the country. Please note that if you often complain and start conversations on such topics, it’s time to sound the alarm. Complaining has no value. It's a waste of time, irritation and bad mood. Why not replace them with important and pleasant information?

Aimless disappearance on social networks

It is difficult to argue with the fact that the Internet has become a part of every person’s life. Moreover, many are so immersed in the virtual world that they forget about reality. In other cases, everything is not so bad, but there is a problem. Have you noticed how you wait for the next message, wander aimlessly through groups on social networks in search of news, or look at photos? This takes hours. Try to allocate no more than an hour a day to surf the Internet, for example, 30 minutes in the morning and evening. You are guaranteed to get a lot of free time.

The desire to do everything at once

Do several things at once and you will notice how quickly you feel mentally and physically tired. The human brain is capable of controlling the execution of a small number of tasks. The ideal option is 1 task for the designated period of time. Otherwise, you won't accomplish anything useful during your working day.

Lack of organization in things and affairs

Clutter at home or in the workplace takes a lot of time to clean up. A much more economical option is to devote a few minutes every day to maintaining order. Organization is also needed in business. The lack of a routine or a clear plan of action is a direct path to a pointless waste of time resources.