Are You Wasting Your Time?

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I have always heard my entire life from various people, “Time is money and money is time.”  I agree to a certain extent, but if I had to come up with a quote regarding time and money.  It would go something like this, “Time is priceless and money cannot buy time.”

The Truth About Time

 

We waste a lot of time in a day, which leads to weeks, months, and sometimes years of wasted time.

According to Key Organization Systems (http://www.keyorganization.com/time-management-statistics.php#multitasking) here are some facts:

  • Office workers spend an average of 4 hours per week in meetings.  They feel more than half of that time is wasted.  (Opinion Matters, for Epson and the Centre for Economics & Business Research, May 2012.) 
  • The #1 time-waster at the office is “too many meeting, up from No. 3 in 2008,” according to 47% of the surveyed.  (Salary.com, 2012) 
  • The average American, age 15 and older, spents 3 hours and 11 minutes a day working in 2009, 17 minutes less than in 2007. With that extra time they watched more TV (+12 minutes, to 2 hours and 49 minutes a day) and slept more (+6 minutes, to 8 hours and 40 minutes a day). There was no change in time devoted to volunteering, exercise, and learning.  (American Time Use Survey, 2009)
  • The number of hours annually that the average traveler found himself or herself in rush-hour traffice jams grew to 36 hours in 2007, as compared with 14 in 1982. In most big cities, prime-time congestion takes up 3 hours in the morning and evening.  (Urban Mobility Report, Texas Transportation Institute, 2009)
  • Using time-diary studies, it is found that people claiming to work 60 to 69 hours per week clocked an average of 52.6 hours, while those who believed they worked 70-, 80-hour or greater weeks totaled 58.8 hours.  (Prof. Robinson, 2006-2007 comparisons, American Time Use Survey, Bureau of Labor Statistics)
  • Open screens on desktops, files on the desk, and coworkers all distracted workers so that only 55% of work was resumed immediately. Productivity in the business sector has been increasing by only 3% since 2000.  (Herman Miller Inc., "The Siren Song of Multitasking," 2007)
  • 43% of Americans categorize themselves as disorganized, and 21% have missed vital work deadlines. Nearly half say disorganization causes them to work late at least 2 or times each week.  (Jane Von Bergen, "So many reasons to neaten up...", Boston Globe 3/12/2006, Esselte survey, David Lewis)
  • Most people actually use 60% or less of available work time. When more than 38,000 people in 200 countries were queried about individual productivity, it showed that even though they were physically at work five days a week, they were only productively using three days.  (Microsoft Survey, March 15, 2005)
  • Unnecessary meetings cost U.S. businesses approximately $37 billion each year.  (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2005)
  • Employees spend an average of 36 minutes per day at work on personal tasks. By gender, men take 44 minutes and women 29 minutes, with the 18-34 year old group using the most time.  (Office Team surveys, February 2007)
  • On a typical day, office workers are interrupted about seven times an hour, which adds up to 56 interruptions a day, 80% of which are considered trivial, according to time-management experts.  (Wendy Cole, TIME Magazine, 10/11/2004)
  • For 10 years researchers studied the behavior of busy managers in nearly a dozen large companies. Their findings on managerial behavior showed that fully 90% of managers squander their time in all sorts of ineffective activities. In other words, a mere 10% of managers spend their time in a committed, purposeful, and reflective manner.  (Dr. Helke Bruch and Dr. Sumantra Ghoshal, Harvard Business Review, 2/2002)
 

Save Your Time

 

There are many other ways in which we waste our time, but focus on ways of saving your time.  There’s no specific way to save your time.  However, discover ways to take back some of the wasted time you been losing for years.  Here are a few tips:

  • Listen to something educational, if you are stuck in traffic, 
  • Turn off any distracting notifications, if you are supposed to be working, and 
  • There are many more ways.
 

What are other way on which you can save your time?  (Please share your thoughts and leave a comment below.)

 
Bryant
MTN Universal
Be the wEiRd this world needs!
 
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