Disclaimer: This post may contain affiliate links. You can read my full disclosure here
How To Stop Wasting Time And Get Things Done. How well do we manage our time? We have so many things to do every day. However, even with 24 hours a day, we never have enough time to complete them all.
If you follow successful people on social media, you will notice that they handle loads of tasks daily. How do they manage their time? What are their tips to increase productivity? Have you ever wondered how can they be so efficient? Well, I have, so I decided to do some research and realised that there are things that I practised daily that was actually a waste of time.
Learn How To Stop Wasting Time
Here is my list of all the ‘Time Wasters’. Are any of these familiar to you?
1) Not Planning
Do you plan in advance? If you don’t then you are actually wasting a lot of time. Planning is very important to help you stay focus and manage your time well. I usually plan my tasks a week ahead. I would just randomly note down in my planner whatever I am planning to do for that week. Then every night before I go to bed, I spend about 20 minutes, planning much intensively all the tasks that need to be done the next day.
Planning helps me to see a clearer picture of things that I needed to do and not miss out on anything important. I noticed that when I started planning, I have much more free time to enjoy doing things that I love and spending more time with family and friends.
2) Unnecessary social media scrolling
Social Media is something important to many of us and usually it is always at the top of our too do list. But how many hours a day do we spend scrolling on social media and what benefits do that gives us to our daily routine?
As a blogger, social media does play a big part in driving traffic to my blog but that is not an excuse for me to spend hours scrolling on social media. Now, I limit my time on social media during the day and try to schedule my posts in advance.
Cut Down On Multi-Tasking
I used to always multi-tasked. I always felt like I had so much to do with so little time. That was before I started planning. Now I try not to take on too many tasks in a day.
Before this, I thought that if I was multi-tasking, I could get things done quickly but instead, I was losing focus. How to get anything done properly when the focus has to be spread here and there. Now I focus on one task at a time and the results of my work are much more satisfying.
Postponing Tasks
Don’t put any task on hold. Postponing a task to do it the next day or the day after is going to stress you out sooner or later. That was exactly what I used to do before. The more task I put on hold, the busier I was the next day and the day after. Day by day more tasks were pending and my to-do list just grew bigger and bigger and it really stressed me out.
When I started planning, I learned to balance my tasks wisely. I try my best to tick off everything in my to-do list before I go to bed at night. I made a deadline for every task. In a way that helped me to avoid doing anything last minute or worst still after its deadline.
Organised Your Day
I am sure that we wished we could complete a hundred tasks a day. But we are only humans, not robots, we need time to relax and unwind. Try not to jam-packed your ‘to-do list’ with hundreds of tasks. You will only end up feeling stressed and too tired to complete any task the next day.
Now I try to organise my day wisely. I make sure to set aside some time for emergencies. So if anything urgent comes up, I won’t be rushing to complete it. However, if nothing unexpected comes up on that day, I will use that ‘extra time’ to do something that I enjoy.
Avoid Distractions
It’s so easy to get distracted and end up not completing your tasks. If you worked from home, distraction can be the biggest rival. for you to be sidetracked. It is so easy to lose focus and get carried away doing something else.
If you are a mom with little kids, this might not be easy. I have no kids but I have 9 cats and you can imagine the number of distractions I get daily. The good thing is my cats are always fast asleep during the day, so that is when I get to complete my tasks without shifting my focus to my fur babies.
Fail To Prioritize
Prioritize your work according to its urgency level. Urgent tasks need to be on top of the list and should get done as soon as possible. Set daily, weekly, monthly and long term goals, so you will continue to be motivated to complete your work.
I recently started to prioritize and I have already started to see some positive progress in my work.
Let’s Stop Wasting Time And Start Getting Things Done
Are you wasting any time? What seems to be your biggest ‘time wasters?” Do share your views in the comment section below.
Great advice – I’m guilty of many of these things lol! Lack of planning and not prioritising are definitely key…
You are not alone. Most of us are guilty of all these things too 🙂
I found multi tasking sometime slow the process down so much. Also, I need to start planning things ahead of time.
Planning ahead of time has saved me many hours a day.
Ugh, scrolling through social media gets me every time. Especially since I use them all for business purposes, too. But I recently made my daily and weekly tasks list on my white board so it’s in sight and it helps keep me on task.
Speaking of a whiteboard, I guess I need one too to help me see clearly what I really need to do instead of opening and closing my notebook frequently.
Social media scrolling is such a time suck! I’ve been trying to limit how many times a day I check my various apps. So far it’s been difficult but I’m making progress.
In the beginning, it is difficult to cut down on scrolling maybe because we are used to doing it daily.
There are days that I do all these and procrastinate like crazy. Post like this can put me back on track.
I write a post like these to remind my own self too 🙂
We all are sometimes guilty of these things. I have found if I don’t plan my day in advance, the next day usually turn chatoic and I end up wasting the day. Also getting distracted with things. So I generally plan in my journal ahead and allocate time to things.
Writing everything is a journal is always a great help to stay focus and organized.
Oh this is so great! I have been really focusing on doing the things I want to do, lists make a huge difference in getting that accomplished!
Oh yes, listing down everything that needs to get done is a great help to actually get it done on time.
These are all great tips! I used to waste HOURS surfing the web and catching up on news. Now that I am a parent, my windows to get things done are often short, and could be interrupted at any time – this has made me MUCH more focused on the task at hand.
I used to waste loads of time surfing the net too. It was just something to addicting and it became my daily routine.
Oh you can say that again! very useful, simple and most of all working tips to get thing done! We do all need that
Yes, we all need ways to get things done on time 🙂
I really needed these tips! I feel like I waste a lot of time and landup being stuck with lot of work. Most of times I am busy with nothing
I hope these tips help you to get things done and becomes a positive routine 🙂
My all time favorite topic. I have a similar post about productivity. Your tips are great and they are crucial to get things done. Also, love the design of your blog. Cheers!
Aww, Thank you 🙂 So glad that you like my blog design. Will check out your post after this.
9 cats! Wow! That’s too much cuteness in one house 😉 I have a 2 year old toddler who is a handful. And I work from home. It’s really difficult to not get distracted.
Yes, its cuteness and fluff overload….lol. Enjoy your moments with your toddler. It’s difficult not to get distracted.
I plan but I must stop multitasking. And I waste lots of time aimlessly scrolling on social media. Thank you for sharing.
Yes scrolling on social media did take a lot of my time too
I’ve tried to not waste time to see all social media scrolling. I’m only focusing on 1 social media for work. I agree with your opinion. Make planing. It is the most important thing.
Yes planning has helped me to stay more focussed 🙂
I’m so guilt of all of these especially the social media scrolling. I’m really trying to use my time better and plan effectively to be more productive. I will definitely refer to this post again when I need a little reminder.
Cut down on the scrolling and you will have more time to do other things. I worked for me and I am sure it will work for you too 🙂