I Am Wasting My Time, How Do I Stop It?

Have you ever felt like this: “I am wasting my time. How do I stop it?” 

Are you addicted to any one of these short video platforms like Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, Moj? And felt like wasting time in that mindless scrolling?

Do you wanna use your time more efficiently, so that you can make your day productive?

If you answered “Yes” to any one of the above questions, this post is for you.

Time is the inexplicable raw material of everything. With it, all is possible, without it nothing. The supply of time is truly a daily miracle, an affair genuinely astonishing when one examines it – Arnold Bennett

Don’t worry, I too wasted my time a lot, you might also, everyone wastes their time. But how much time are they wasting? How efficiently they use the time is what matters. So, I am gonna share some cool methods for how I stopped wasting my time. But before that, you should know how I wasted my time.

How I wasted my Time

My way of wasting time was by sleeping, watching Netflix, YouTube videos, Instagram Reels, Facebook, and Twitter. The sad part is that nothing was useful for me or my career but those platforms. 

Instead of doing all these activities, I should have done the following things in my life:

• Learning some courses that will be useful and can support my career in the future. 
• Reading books. 
• Writing like this or writing a diary
• Recording a short and quick YouTube video
• Completing all those pending tasks on my To-Do list
• Brainstorming ideas to earn money daily
• Etc.

I was shocked when I was listing down these things. I was wondering how I could waste my precious time on that low-value content without engaging in these activities. That’s when I realized I was misusing my time.

This usually happens to me when there is a time gap between my tasks. I did like this, “ Ah, we have 30 min free time, let’s watch some reels or YouTube videos.” This is a toxic thought you should never have in your mind. 30 min is still a great time to read at least 10-15 pages in a book, you can draft a social media post for your brand, you can brainstorm your daily tasks, etc.

One or two 30 sessions per day for Instagram reels is ok for relaxing purposes, but not more than an hour. We will discuss this more in the next tactics. 

If you can relate to me, and you too have many tasks to get completed, but instead you are wasting time. Don’t worry. There are some methods to stop wasting your time.

Avoid Perfection

Don’t have the perfectionist mindset. It can fuel the procrastinator inside you. Consider that perfection is a myth. Try to get things done as soon as possible; don’t wait for perfection in your work. Imperfect work is always better than postponed work because postponed work will never get completed.

For example, there are two guys, Ramesh and Suresh. Ramesh is a perfectionist, and Suresh is the action taker. Both of them wanted to learn content writing skills for their career. Ramesh took a course and started learning everything he needed for content writing, and he wanted his 1st content to be perfect. But Suresh is different; he also started learning content writing, and he started practicing content writing every day.

Now you tell me, which one of those contents will be better after 30 days? Suresh’s content, right? Because Ramesh has been waiting a long time to start writing perfect content, Suresh, being an action taker, never looks for perfection; he started with imperfect articles and iterated the quality of his writing over time.

That’s why I am recommending you to take action without looking for perfection. Be a Suresh.

Digital Wellbeing features on Smartphones

I recommend using some digital wellbeing apps/features on your mobile to restrict time usage on Instagram and other applications that kill your time for unwanted attention.

I am using an inbuilt digital wellbeing feature on my phone to restrict the time I spend on Mobile apps like YouTube, Instagram, WhatsApp, Facebook, etc. I could have easily uninstalled Instagram, but my clients are hanging out there, and being a social media marketer for clients, I can’t completely avoid it. So, I restricted myself to using Instagram for 1 hr per day only.

You can reduce it further unless you get some useful value or information from that. 

Create instead of consuming

Be a creator, instead of being a consumer. It is always better to be a creator who creates content that can entertain, educate, and inspire others. If you like to watch more entertaining content, better to create content that entertains others. By this, at least you have the chance to monetize your content in many ways. It’s better to be a creator who can earn money than a consumer who helps others to get money by trading their time.

So start creating anything you like, check out the stats on your mobile, which application you spend more time on, is that YouTube or Instagram, or Google, whatever the app may be, start creating content for that app. Say, if you are spending an hour on Instagram reels, you can create at least 2-3 reels in an hour on Instagram. Trust me, once you start creating content, you won’t waste time on some unproductive habits on social media. Over time, you will find the pattern in your content and analytics, and you can develop your content creation strategy and become an influencer. 

So the choice is yours, do you want to be an influencer or a fan of an influencer? Comment your thoughts below.

Start writing a Diary/Journal

The benefits of writing a diary or journal are numerous. One of them would be to self-evaluate.  When you write the diary, you will find out the mistakes you have made and correct them. It will listen to your internal screaming to become a good and productive person.

By doing this, you can jot down the things that are wandering in your mind and capture them in notes or To-Do lists. And your mind will be free and have more space for productive and useful tasks. You will feel like having a positive state of mind. Instead of wasting your time on useless reels, you can introspect, which will help you to find ways to become a better person in your life. 

This method helped me to transform myself, and while I was writing a diary, I found out the areas where I am wasting time, then I made use of that time and started doing some tasks that align with my goal. That’s why this is my favorite one.

I strongly suggest you write a diary or journal; you won’t regret this in the future. If you are a content writer and marketer out there, it will help you get more ideas for creating content. I got the idea of writing this very post when I was journaling. 

Use Wall Stickers

You would have liked many quotes or dialogues from your favorite movies or actors in your mind. That is useful and relatable for your life. You can make a poster with those quotes on it and keep/stick it in a place where you can see it often. It can be a motivational quote or an instruction you should not forget over time, a chart, an image, etc. It can be anywhere, a wall in front of you, a Screen saver, wallpaper, etc. It should motivate you whenever you feel low.

And one-time motivation won’t help you much, it only lasts for 24 hours, which is why you need discipline. Check out the video below about motivation and discipline.

If this seems a bit expensive, try this out with the sticky notes. Write down the things you don’t wanna forget, paste them in places in front of you, where you can look at them often. By this, whenever you see those stickers, you will get some energy in you, and it can motivate you to complete that day’s tasks.

Quick fact: Once you make an effort to write down/stick the facts on walls, you won’t forget that message 90% of the time.  

Plan your day the night before.

Yes, plan your next day tonight.

List down all the tasks you wanna complete the next day. By listing the tasks in a paper, you can most probably complete all the tasks. By this, you won’t forget any tasks and waste time completing them later. By doing this, you can kill the procrastinator inside you. You will be more time-efficient.

Tips to plan your day the night before:

• While you list down the tasks, prioritize the important tasks that can be useful for your future.
• You can list these tasks in Google Sheets or on pen and paper. My choice would be pen and paper because this is reliable, and we can easily strike down the completed tasks.
• Don’t be too strict on your list, and don’t fill it out with more tasks. Make the list flexible, and have some time to relax (This time can also be a buffer). But don’t open Instagram reels.
• Your only goal should be completing all the relevant tasks, so don’t assign a time for every task on your list.

After you read this article, you’ll feel more confident and motivated. Right?

Moreover, all these points are for action takers, that too, a quick action taker. Don’t delay or postpone tasks just because of laziness, try to get them completed asap. What I wanna say is, try these things now itself, don’t postpone it for tomorrow, next Monday, or next month. Don’t wait for January 1, make this day the start of your year.

 

Poor time management doesn’t just affect personal productivity—it can also create serious issues in professional projects, like scope creep, which I’ve written about here: Scope Creep: The Silent Project Killer

To read more useful content like this, follow me on LinkedIn – Sasi Ram

Cheers,

Sasi10x