Time is like family; you don’t realize how much you need it till you’re older.
You’re still young and full of ambition. You might want to start a business, pursue a hobby, or make time to exercise, but you’re so busy with work and school. How do you do these things if you can’t buy more time?
To become a better you, you must allocate time appropriately in areas that will generate a positive benefit. Exercising, practicing mindfulness, practicing a religion, and working on a hustle are some areas you can invest your time to become a happier and healthier you.
Here are seven habits you didn’t know are wasting your precious time.
This article is a sequel to the previous list of time-wasting habits, which you can find here.
1. Living in clutter
Rummaging through piles of clothes, scuffling through piles of clothes, and turning your room upside down to find your keys is a ridiculous waste of time. By being organized in the first place, you can avoid running into these inconveniences.
By continuing to live in clutter, you extend the time to get ready in the morning—that alone already reduces the amount of work you could’ve accomplished. Clutterness also hurts your health because of the stress you subject yourself to.
2. Chasing after love to escape loneliness
Yearning for companionship is a natural human behavior, but some people commit to relationships even though they aren’t ready. They believe a partner will bring them love and joy when they’ve hardly put any effort into loving themself.
The most important love we can have is the love within ourselves. If we don’t love ourselves, how can we love somebody else?
Some people get into a relationship only to receive validation. The lack of love between both partners puts the relationship on a tightrope. It’s also a waste of time because of the distraction from the partner and the meaninglessness of the relationship.
For reasons why you should remain single for now, read here.
3. Using your phone in the bathroom
All of us are guilty of being on our phones while using the toilet. We can’t bear the boredom of sitting and not doing anything for ten minutes, so we use our phones for entertainment.
After turning on our phones, turning them off isn’t always easy. Ten minutes turns into fifteen, and fifteen turns into twenty. The addictive nature of our phones makes losing track of time inevitable, meaning we’re bound to waste more time on the toilet than we think.
4. Sleeping in
Sleep is a non-negotiable in life. However, this doesn’t mean we should overdo it. The recommended amount of sleep varies from person to person, but eight hours is typically the most optimal amount.
Periodically sleeping in and not being interrupted by an alarm clock can be healthy. But if we sleep in every day, not only do we waste valuable time, this puts us at a higher risk of mental health disorders.
Austin Meadows and Dr. Anis Rehman from sleepfoundation.org found, “Sleeping for over nine hours each night may be a sign of a sleep disorder, mental health disorder, or other health issue.”
Sleeping for a few more hours than optimal makes us feel fatigued, which delays the time it takes to enter a focused state. As a result, an ordinary hour-long task might take two hours to complete now.
5. Failing to take action
To accomplish any goal, you must do one thing: take action. As straightforward as it sounds, many people are stagnant on their road to success because of their fear of taking action. They don’t fear action but rather the judgment from others and failure that may arise.
They keep their dreams in a jar and waste time thinking instead of working towards their goals. The more we refuse to take action, the more we push our goals further. Over time, this leads to impatience, making us more likely to give up on our goals.
6. Excessive mindless consumption
Video games, social media, Netflix, and porn all have one thing in common: they make the brain happy but waste an incredible amount of time. Of course, they’re all habits—they’re bad habits we do without realizing how much time we’re wasting.
Indulging in these pleasures brings satisfaction, but they only push us further down a rabbit hole. Once we’ve incorporated them into our daily routine, resisting them becomes impossible because of how addictive they are.
Conclusion
Time is the most valuable asset in the world, and although we can’t buy more, we can maximize it. Of course, our brains require frequent rest periods from work, but that isn’t an excuse to spend the entire day lying on the couch.
By reducing how much time we waste, we regain time that we can allocate to other meaningful areas of our lives. These areas include working on a hustle, spending time with family, or pursuing a hobby.
For ways to improve time management, read here.
What is something you could eliminate from your life to give you more time?
