5 Tips to Help You Stop Wasting Time
Today I am sharing 5 tips to help you stop wasting time...and truth be told, I thought of most of these over the last month and half because your girl does not have time to be messing around and wasting time when there are such important projects to be done for the Hustle Sanely Squad (ahem, the re-launch of The Hustle Sanely Program annnnnd the upcoming launch of the first paper planner!) 🎉
Before we can start talking about how to overcome wasting time, we have to get to the root of why we’re wasting time. I’m sure you’ve caught on, but I’m not a fan of bandaid fixes. Because they don’t solve anything, they just temporarily cover it up.
Wasting time is a form of procrastination which is to put off doing something, right? I feel like when most people hear the word procrastinate, they automatically link it to a lack of discipline. Which totally can be the case. But I think there are also other roots of wasting time. I came up with 3 but I’m sure there are more.
So here are some reasons why you might be wasting time and procrastinating:
You are experiencing low energy.
If this is the case, I encourage you to audit your sleep, eating, and exercise habits. Are you truly taking care of your body from the inside out? If the answer is no, that could be a major reason why it’s hard for you to stay focused on what needs to be done - you physically and mentally don’t have the energy or capacity to. Hustling sanely is focused on overall wellness because I know that in order to be peacefully productive, we have to be well taken care of physically, mentally, and emotionally!You’re unclear on your vision.
I’ve said this before but I really believe that a lot of the time overwhelm stems from being unclear on your vision. Key 2 to hustling sanely is Get Clear on Your Vision because if you know what you’re working toward, why you’re working toward it, and your values behind why you’re working toward it then you can see bigger picture. When you have some tasks that need to be done that you’re not stoked about, instead of procrastinating, you’re able to recognize that the task aligns with your vision and you’re less likely to keep putting it off. If you’re unclear on your vision for your life, then it’ll be much easier to be derailed by the temptation to waste time by procrastinating.You’re afraid of doing something wrong.
Maybe you’re wasting time and not focusing on what you actually need to get done because feelings of fear and insecurity are swarming your mind. Let me ask you something, wouldn’t you rather fail trying than fail to try at all? Failing is almost always on the path to success, friends. Failing isn’t the same as losing to me. Growth happens. Reignited passion happens. Breakthrough happens. Stop giving the fear of failing so much dang credit. Instead, lean into knowing that wasting time and procrastinating gets you 0% closer to what you’re trying to do. Failing might not get you all the way there but it moves you closer. Even if you learn what not to do, that’s still moving in the right direction.
Okay so now that you’ve had some time to think about why you’re wasting time, I want to share:
5 things that I’ve been doing for awhile that have helped me stop wasting time and procrastinating:
1. Turn your phone notifications off.
Seriously, getting rid of the majority of badges and alerts from my phone has been so freeing as far as my time and energy go. I no longer feel like I’m at everyone’s beck and call. Those little dings and red bubbles don’t rule my days anymore. Real talk, I’ve never had my notifications on social media. That’s a hard boundary that I set for myself when I started working online full-time. But my time waster was email. Any time I saw a red bubble hovering over the email icon on my iPhone, I felt so compelled to “just check it real quick.” Which let’s be honest, grabbing our phones is hardly ever a real quick thing.
Checking one email turns into checking all of your emails which leads us to clicking a link and before you know it, you’ve been on your dang phone for 45 minutes doing a whole lot of nothing. Did you know that when you stop a task to check your phone, that it takes around 25 minutes to get back on track with the task? I read about that in this article. That is mind blowing! But I mean think about it - you brain has to shift from one task to another. And then back. That takes both time and energy! So let’s say you’re on your phone for 15 minutes. Add 25 minutes to get back into the flow of the task and boom 40 minutes gone. What if you do that 5 times a day. That’s over 3 hours of time wasted. THREE HOURS!
I talk about this a ton in the Hustle Sanely Program, but it’s your responsibility to protect your time and energy. Turning off phone notifications is a great boundary to set to do that.
2. Learn to be cool saying no.
This is something that used to be extremely difficult for me because I’m a self-proclaimed recovering people pleaser. Can you relate? I would get so anxious about letting people down. But then I realized that saying yes to one thing is always saying no to another. Saying yes to working late is saying no to spending time with your family. Saying yes to being PTA mom this semester is saying no to time to write your first novel. Saying yes to babysitting for your neighbor’s best friend’s sister’s cousin is saying no to going to your weekly small group meeting. When you think about it in this perspective, it makes saying no a lot more appealing and less scary.
This goes back to being clear on your vision - if you know what your vision is and what your priorities are that align with that vision, it’s way easier to turn things down that don’t make sense to spend your time and energy on in your current season. Saying yes too much wastes time because it distracts you from spending your time on the things that matter.
Now obviously, I’m not telling you to be a selfish jerk, here. I’m just saying to stop saying yes so quickly and be cool with saying no sometimes.
3. Stop treating everything like an emergency.
Ooof this one hurt me the first time someone said it to me. But hear me out - don’t get defensive here, be unoffendable so you can learn and grow. So often, we treat everything like it’s an emergency. We’re so willing to stop what we’re doing to tend to something else RIGHT NOW when the truth is, it isn’t something that is time sensitive.
This leaves us putting out little fires everywhere (I had to - such a great show) all day instead of accomplishing tasks that actually move the needle toward our goals. This is a form of wasting time because you’re spreading yourself so thin and actually not accomplishing much.
If something is presented to you, assess it:
Is it really time sensitive?
Does it need to be done right now or can it be scheduled for tomorrow or the next day or next week even?
Is it something that you need to handle or can you delegate it?
4. Be decisive.
We all know someone (or we are that someone) who takes 5ever to make a decision, even over the smallest thing, like where to grab dinner. Mulling over and over and over simple decisions wastes not only time but mental energy too.
Don’t take so long to make small decisions. Be confident in what you want and speak it out. I’m going to say this again - being clear on your vision and the priorities that accompany said vision will give you confidence when it comes to decision-making because you’ll be able to quickly tell what fits and what doesn't.
5. Stop overfilling your schedule.
Y’all knew this was coming! I stand behind choosing a Focus 3 every day because it allows us to give the most important tasks our best time and energy every day. When you fill your to-do list to the brim every day, you feel unaccomplished, burnt out, and exhausted. No matter how many things you ticked off your to-do list, you feel like you failed because you didn't get every single thing done. Overfilling your to-do list is a time waster because, and it’s a total mindset thing, when we see a long list, of course we want to check off as many things as we can from it. So we tend to veer toward doing whatever tasks we can knock out the faster so we can get the satisfaction of checking them off. Don’t tell me you’ve never done that - we all have, myself included!
Stop spreading yourself so thin and wasting time on unimportant tasks. Give your best energy to the most important tasks by using the Hustle Sanely Focus 3 method! If you’re new around here, listen to this podcast episode that talks about Focus 3 in depth.
To wrap up I want you to think about this: if you focus your time and energy on the important stuff and what actually needs to get done when it needs to get done you’ll be able to enjoy more free time. Plus you’ll be able to be present when you’re doing other things, like hanging out with your loved ones, because you’re not burdened with thoughts about how much you didn’t get done that day because you wasted time doing stuff that doesn’t matter.
Here’s the deal, girl, you can overcome wasting time and procrastination. But you have to choose to. You have to take responsibility for your time and energy. You have to take ownership of your vision and the priorities that accompany it.
If you enjoyed this post, head on over the podcast and listen to episode 037:
If managing your time and energy well is something that you need support in - I AM HERE FOR YOU, BABE! I created the 5-Week Hustle Sanely Program for this exact purpose!
