Time Wasters

"Time Wastage" means time spent by someone on non-productive activities or that do not serve any useful purpose.

In day to day life generally, one may not waste his/her time knowingly on any activity(s) that do not serve any purpose. However, there could be certain factors that may crop up during useful or productive activities, which may lead to wasting of the time. These factors may be termed as "Time Wasters", which may be generically applicable everywhere, or may be specifically applicable. 

Below are some of the key time wasters that are not classified for any specific duration or for any location (like office or home):

Interruptions: It means when a person is involved in some activity and some external agency (living or non-living) attempts to get the attention of this person on an another activity that is unrelated to the original activity hampering to the progress of the original activity that was being carried out by the person, then that another activity is an interruption for the person involved in the original activity. Examples of such interruptions could be the ringing phone, barking of a dog, doorbell, loud music in the neighborhood, etc.

Unclassified Task: When a person involves him/herself randomly on a task that has not been classified for some priority criteria, which may have been judged on the basis of Urgency and Importance, such a task is a time waster unclassified task. For example, if a person has to go to the office, or has to prepare food, or has to clean the bookshelf, or checking social media messages, or has to read a book. S/he needs should prioritise these tasks on the basis of urgency and importance. However, if s/he randomly selects one of these activities, there is a likely possibility of selecting a wrong task, leading to time wastage.

Dis-organised Place: If the place of carrying out the activities is not organised in a specific manner, it may lead to extra time involvement for searching an item, which may to the spending of extra time then the regular time needed to search that item. Then such a place poses to be a time waster.

Unnecessary Breaks: If the time gaps taken during the execution of an activity are more than the required gaps in terms of count &/or durations, then such breaks pose to be time wasters. For example, checking social media messages, coffee breaks, etc.

Social Media Messaging: If a person involves him/her regularly on checking and posting the messages on the social media like Whatsapp or Facebook, etc. in an uncontrolled manner, then such messaging becomes a time waster.

Chit-Chats: If the person involves in chit-chats with some person or group, in-person or over any other medium like telephone or group discussion, which is expected to lead no constructive results, such chit-chats may be considered to be time wasters.

Miscellaneous: There could be other time wasters that may or may not be appreciably considered as time wasters. Such as ineffective multitasking of the activities, unnecessary travelling, extensive socialisation, unwanted/unnecessarily putting own views in some other person's matters, etc.

- The author is a management professional reachable on agarwal.tanmay@gmail.com.