71 Things That Waste Time & How To Stop Doing Them

Feel like you don’t have enough time to do the things you want? I get it – me too. Despite our best intentions, many of us find ourselves falling into patterns that waste valuable hours each day. Identifying these things that waste time is the first step toward reclaiming those lost moments and making the most of each day. 

Studies show that the average person spends over two hours daily on social media alone, which amounts to over five years of their life. 

According to Zippia,  20% – 25% of people procrastinate chronically with 88% of workers procrastinating 60+ minutes daily on the job. (Pretty shocking, right?)

By recognizing common time wasters, we can create more intentional time back in our days, leading to more purposeful, satisfying lives. 

In this post, we’ll explore various categories of time-wasting activities, including:

• Digital distractions
• Work inefficiencies
• Poor personal habits
• Social and relationship pitfalls
• Mental and emotional challenges
• Disorganization
• Unproductive entertainment

Each category is broken down with examples and practical tips for minimizing these time drains, helping you make the most of every moment.

“The days are long but the years are short,”

– Gretchen Rubin

71 Common Things That Are Wasting Your Time

Here are some of the biggest time wasters that are most prevalent today.

You can go from wondering where your whole day went to creating time for things that matter most to you by eliminating or reducing some of these things.

Digital Distractions

1. Social media scrolling: Spending hours scrolling through TikTok and Instagram feeds without realizing how much time has passed.
2. Browsing online shopping sites aimlessly: Looking at products online without the intention to buy, just to pass the time.
3. Watching ads: Sitting through ads while watching TV – instead get up and complete a quick task.
4. Online forums and chat rooms: Engaging in lengthy discussions or debates that don’t add value to your day.
5. Incessant messaging apps: Constantly checking and replying to messages on apps, interrupting your focus and productivity.
6. Watching TV shows you don’t enjoy: Spending time watching bad movies or TV series that don’t interest you, just to pass the time.
7. Excessive gaming: Playing video games for hours on end, neglecting other responsibilities.
8. Binge-watching shows: Watching too much tv consuming multiple episodes or entire seasons in one sitting, sucking up a lot of quality time.
9. Playing with your phone during work: Using your phone for non-work activities while you should be working.

Work and Productivity

1. Unnecessary meetings: Attending meetings that lack a clear agenda or purpose.
2. Checking emails constantly: Frequently refreshing your inbox and responding to emails immediately, breaking your workflow. Instead, commit to checking your emails 2 or 3 times a day only.
3. Too much back-and-forth emailing. It’s much faster to pick the phone up to tie up any loose ends. This also applies to calling instead of sending multiple text messages.
4. Procrastination: Delaying important tasks in favor of less critical activities. Try ripping the bandaid and taking one small step on the task you need to be doing.
5. Multitasking: Contrary to popular belief, multitasking does not work and hinders overall performance. Focusing on a single task at a time is the way to go.
6. Not planning your day: Starting your day without a clear schedule or set of priorities.
7. Too much time planning and not enough action: Let’s face it, you can’t reach your goals by planning alone.
8. Lack of goals: Working without specific objectives or a sense of direction.
9. Distractions at work: Allowing interruptions from colleagues, phone calls, or notifications to disrupt your focus.
10. Repetitive tasks that could be automated: Manually performing tasks that software or tools could handle to save you time.
11. Not using productivity tools: Ignoring available tools such as Notion and toggl that could help organize and streamline your work.
12. Working long hours: This leads to a lot of procrastination as we can only work so long without losing interest or energy.
13. Doing everything yourself: Refusing to delegate tasks that others could take care of, helping you take things off your plate.
14. Not creating a work to-do list which leads to a lack of focus for your work day.
15. Ignoring your schedule: Failing to follow your planned agenda, leading to disorganization and working on the wrong tasks.
16. Not setting deadlines: Working on tasks without clear timeframes for completion.
17. Overanalyzing decisions: Spending excessive time considering options instead of taking action.
18. Indecisiveness: Being unable to make quick decisions, causing delays.
19. Overcommitting: Taking on more tasks or projects than you can reasonably handle.
20. Micromanaging others: Overseeing every detail of others’ work, wastes time and undermines their autonomy.
21. Perfectionism: Nothing will ever be perfect so aim for 80% – since you’re a perfectionist this will be higher quality than most other’s efforts. Read this: 11 Ways to Stop Being a Perfectionist
22. Poor communication: Misunderstandings and lack of clarity that lead to wasted time and effort.
23. Redundant work: Repeating unnecessary tasks due to lack of coordination or oversight – try not to recreate the wheel.
24. Overplanning: Spending too much time planning and not enough time executing.

Personal Life & Habits

1. Hitting the snooze button multiple times: This literally is taking time away from you every 9 minutes.
2. Not meal prepping/planning: Creating added time trying to plan meals and cook during the week.
3. Committing to things you can’t do, or don’t want to do: It’s okay to say no.
4. Eating junk food: Consuming unhealthy foods that can make you feel sluggish and less productive.
5. Drinking too much alcohol: This leads to hangovers and brain fog making it hard to complete anything.

Social and Relationships

1. Not saying “no”: Agreeing to too many tasks or social events, spreading yourself too thin.
2. Gossiping: Spending time discussing others’ business, which is unproductive and creates negativity.
3. Engaging in arguments: Wasting time and energy on unnecessary conflicts.
4. Attending events out of obligation: Going to events you’re not interested in just because you feel you have to.
5. Unproductive relationships: Maintaining toxic or one-sided relationships that drain your time and energy.
6. Poor networking: Ineffective networking that doesn’t yield beneficial connections or opportunities.
7. Negative thinking: Dwelling on negative thoughts that waste mental energy and time.
8. Unhealthy relationships: Staying in relationships that cause constant stress and consume a lot of time.
9. Overusing entertainment: Spending excessive time on entertainment activities instead of more productive tasks.
10. Too much socializing: Overcommitting to social events, leaving little time for personal or work-related tasks.
11. Unnecessary phone calls: Engaging in lengthy or unproductive phone conversations.
12. Long, unproductive phone conversations: Spending too much time on calls that don’t add value to your day.

Mental and Emotional Well-being

1. Overthinking: Spending too much time analyzing and worrying instead of taking action.
2. Negative thinking: Allowing pessimistic thoughts to dominate your mind, wasting mental energy.
3. Having a negative mindset: Being a glass half full person leads to more time spent worrying.
4. Spending time with toxic people. Simply put, spending time with toxic negative people is a huge waste of time. Instead, make time for close friends and family members – people you can be yourself around.
5. Poor mental health care: Ignoring your mental health issues and needs can be a huge time suck, but more importantly it means you’re not looking after yourself – and you deserve to do so.

If you need a hand managing the world we live in (like so many of us do) I highly recommend talking to a professional. You can start with your family doctor or even try online therapy.

Organization and Planning

1. Having too much stuff: A messy, cluttered space makes it difficult to find what you need and stay focused. Consider purging things you don’t use and for the items you do, find the proper place for them to live.
2. Incomplete tasks: Leaving tasks unfinished, which can accumulate and cause stress.
3. Poorly planned errands: Running errands without a plan means you might forget something – then you have to go back again later, wasting your time.
4. Disorganized workspace: A messy desk or office that hinders productivity and focus.
5. Shopping without a list: Going to the store without a list, leads to impulse buys and forgotten items.
6. Poorly managed personal finances: Not keeping track of your finances, leading to wasted money and time.
7. Not having goals: Working without specific objectives or direction wastes time in the long run.
8. Poorly run projects: Participating in projects that lack clear leadership or structure.

Miscellaneous

1. Waiting in long lines: Before doing this think about whether you can take care of the same task online or at another time.
2. Commuting without productivity: Not using commute time to listen to music and podcasts or connecting with loved ones.
3. Long breaks: Taking excessively long breaks that cut into your productive time.
4. Bad habits: Engaging in activities that waste time and provide no benefit.
5. Unnecessary phone calls: Having long conversations about trivial matters.
6. Repetitive tasks that could be automated: Manually performing tasks that could be handled by technology or tools.
7. Not following through: Failing to complete tasks you start, leading to a backlog of unfinished work.
8. Attending events out of obligation: Participating in events you’re not interested in just because you feel obligated.

Tips To Help You Be More Intentional To Stop Wasting Time

“You will never ‘find’ time for anything. If you want time, you must make it.”

– Charles Buxton

Set Boundaries with Yourself

Let’s face it – we all love a good Netflix show, but allowing binge-watching TV to take over your life isn’t ideal.

So set some boundaries by giving yourself a time limit each week. This way you can do more things that you’ve been wanting to pursue.

Practice Saying ‘No’

There are two key ways to practice saying no:

1. Saying no to others
2. Saying no to yourself

Here’s the thing – when you say no to things that don’t serve you, or take your happiness and energy away you then have the chance to say yes to what’s truly important in your life.

Create a list of things you’d love to do in your free time

By creating this list, you’ll give yourself inspiration to make changes to your daily life – allowing you to create time for the things that matter to you. 

So grab your journal and start making a list of things – everything from:

• Hobbies you’d like to try
• Things you want to complete around the house
• Trips you’d like to book
• People you’d like to see more of
• A new job you want to apply to
• Things you want to add to your bucket list

Final Thoughts

As you can see there are many common ways to waste time and we all do it – which is not the problem. The issue is when we waste way too much time preventing us from living the life we truly desire. 

The precious time we have in life goes by way too fast. Think about where what you were doing 10 years ago. In many ways, it might feel like it was yesterday. 

In the big scheme of things we have such a short time in this world, yet today we unknowingly allow ourselves and our time to be interrupted and taken from us. 

My hope is that you and I can live a more intentional life with the time allotted to us and we can start doing this by identifying our own time wasters. 

Here are some of mine – just so you know you’re not alone!

• Time spent worrying
• Regular procrastination
• Too much Netflix
• Not completing tasks
• Overthinking and ruminating
• Not following my work schedule
• The list goes on

What Makes You Waste Time?

Do you have any time-wasting habits you’re trying to reduce or eliminate? 

Share what you’re hoping to ditch, in the comments below – and I’ll cheer you on.