What’s the biggest waste of time in your day?
Time is something that’s always constantly on our minds. How do we have more of it? How do we make the most of it? How are we wasting it? How do we get time to work with us instead of against us. Because as we all know time is always ticking. And it’s never something that we can get back (but oh goodness do we wish that we could)
When you thought about the biggest waste of time in your day, what came up for you? Often times we hear that it’s wasted watching Tv, or scrolling through instagram. Feeling like time is being wasted is unique to all of us. It’s a feeling. It’s not something anyone can tell you is right or wrong.
And sometimes, wasting time is a really good thing. And there’s even some people who believe there isn’t such thing as wasting time because your brain might have needed it in order to rest or recalibrate. Sometimes, people who THINK they’re being incredibly productive actually aren’t being. Multitasking has been shown to be pretty ineffective because you’re not doing anything with intense focus or clarity. Think about all the times you’ve been trying to get something that requires deep thinking or creativity done. But you end up stopping to talk to someone, or you look at your phone, or you tab over to answer an email. It breaks up your focus and you lose the flow that’s really needed to get great things created. So, don’t always look at busy and think that it’s effective. And don’t look at your wasting time as necessarily a bad thing.
There’s psychological importance to wasting time, actually. But you need to waste time the right way, ironically there IS such a way to waste time in a way that’s effective and there’s a way to waste time that’s not effective. If you’re doing things like scrolling or surfing the internet, you’re probably wasting time the wrong way because you’re not actually engaging in anything that’s making you feel more calm, centered or productive. Now, if you were to use that same amount of time and do something the makes you feel more focused on yourself, your joy, and your feelings…even if you’re not getting “anything done” it ok, because you’re actually wasting time the right way.
So, I want you to think back on what you said was the biggest waste of your day? Knowing what you know now, is that waste of time actually a good waste or a bad waste? You can figure this out by thinking about that “quote un quote” waste of time and considering if it’s benefiting either your happiness or your productivity. If the answer is no, find a better way to wasted your time. You do NOT have to be productive with your time at all times. Actually you need to do quite the opposite. So go ahead, find a way to wasted time this week but make sure it’s contributing to something that makes you feel good.
