2 Reasons Why You’re Wasting Your Time
“If time be of all things the most precious, wasting time must be the greatest prodigality”
“If time be of all things the most precious, wasting time must be the greatest prodigality.” -Benjamin Franklin
Time is the most precious resource we have. Unlike money, every second or minute we spend cannot be earned back.
So why do we end up wasting so much of it?
In recent years I have read dozens of books and articles about time management. Most recently, it was a blog post of an 18-year-old who shared her attempt on preventing herself from falling asleep. She detailed her methods and explained how she coped without (barely) any sleep. This blogger suggested that we should all limit our sleep to the least possible since, according to her, sleep is a waste of time.
The truth is, we spend a third of our lives, averagely 26 years, sleeping. But is it actually a waste of time?
Sleep is one of life’s necessities, just like food and water. Just like breathing. It has been proven time and time again that a human being cannot survive without sleep.
Sleep deprivation was used widely as a form of torture throughout history, even by US military. While it is uncertain whether people die from sleep deprivation or not, it is clear that the side effects of it can kill.
Put simply — sleep is vital for our existence.
This blogger’s post has got me thinking — what is a ‘waste of time’, anyway?
Short attention span?

Everything in our world today must take only a few seconds, otherwise, we simply cannot bear it. Even those five seconds we must wait to skip an ad on Youtube seems like forever.
There’s a reason why we get that way. “Our attention span becomes shorter and shorter,” is what most people say. But is it true, though? Not according to Dr. Gemma Briggs. Our attention span, as she explains, depends on the task we perform. And it is a force of habit, too. For example, if you skip parts throughout a video, you are less likely to be able to concentrate on a full video, at any time, later on.
So with all those productiveness articles and the time management apps, surely we must be wasting less time than ever, right?
Here is the deal.
There is no absolute definition to what a ‘waste of time’ actually is, neither should there be.
Wake up at 5 am and meditate, they say. Don’t watch TV, they say. Turn off Facebook, they say.
No one can or should tell you what to do with your time. There is no time committee that decides what’s important and what isn’t. Sure, there is a moral code. You should probably help someone in urgent need instead of watching TV, but should you work instead of watching TV? That is completely up to you.
Time is not something we share amongst us. It is a personal thing.
Your time is yours. My time is mine.
You might find it useful to wake up at 5 am and go to sleep at 10 pm. I prefer to go to bed at 2 am and wake up at 10 am.
And if anyone suggests that you are wasting your time just tell them this: “how I spend my time is none of your business.”
I mean it.
Who is to say how you should or should not spend your time?
“Stop being on the computer all day long, you are wasting your time!”
Have you heard or said this phrase before?
Now allow me to repeat this sentence once more and make it clearer:
“Stop being on the computer all day long, you are wasting your time!”
Are you catching my drift?

Using the computer can be a great way to unwind. It can provide you with a good laugh. It can be a great way to learn, get inspired, be social, and so much more. The point is that, like anything else you do, it might be extremely valuable to you. And it could also be a waste of time. But that’s up to you.
I’ll give you an example. My sister obsessively watched a Spanish soap opera when she was younger. “This is nonsense,” we often said to her. What we did not realize, is that she became fluent in Spanish. It was only five years later when we were stranded in Madrid after we missed our flight when my sister saved us by using the Spanish she learned from the TV show. How ironic.
Everyone should get to decide what to do with their time, according to their own values, which differ from mine. That’s one of the beauties of life — what someone might find valuable and worthy doing could be a complete waste of time in someone else’s world.
Here is one short story that explains why we should decide how to spend our time:
When Steve Jobs dropped out of University, a lot of people told him that he was making a mistake. He decided to attend classes that seemed interesting to him and avoided the ones he wasn’t passionate about. The truth is, in our world, learning something out of pure interest, without the ability to make money out of it, is forbidden. A complete waste of time.
When Jobs attended a calligraphy course, people raised their eyebrows. They though: “how is this going to be a practical skill to use in the future?”
Jobs’ school of thought was exactly the opposite. He felt that traditional University studies weren’t helping him in shaping his life as he intended. By dropping out he was finally able to focus on the courses which he found interesting, regardless of how practical value they held for his future. And so, as the man himself shared, 10 years after he attended that calligraphy course, he implemented wonderful fonts into the Mac, which changed the way we use computers today.
One set of guidelines

With that in mind, there is one set of guidelines for using your time correctly. It’s a set of “rules” that works for everyone. We must spend our time with intention. Just like in Jobs’ case, we must spend our time on things which we find meaningful.
But there is no limit to what ‘meaningful’ could be.
Play video games. Goof around with the kids. Play the guitar. Write. Laugh. Cook. Run. Sit. Lie in bed. Take a calligraphy course. Watch a Spanish soap opera.
If you find it meaningful — do it. Forget what other people think. For some others it will be a waste of time, but, after all, it is your time. Not theirs.
Why you wasted your 20s
Having said that, the only time that is really wasted is any time that was/is spent without a real intention or meaning. If you did something just because everybody else said you should do it, for example.
I often hear this following phrase from my family and friends: “I wasted two years of my life” or even “I wasted my 20s!”
It is a terrible thing to say.
No one wants to waste their time. I mean, that is why we read articles about productiveness, right?
The important question is — why did you waste two years of your life?
There are two reasons why you could be wasting your time:
1. Doing things without an intention, like following the herd or doing what is expected of you or dictated to you.
2. You think you are wasting your time because that is you’re being told by others, although it is not actually true. Just like in my sister’s case with her favorite soap opera, if you find it meaningful - go for it.
University of life
Every day that goes by is another school-day in your own little University. It is hard to admit, but even the bad days have a great value in our lives.
It’s up to us whether we choose to listen, learn, and cherish those days or if we want to ignore and forget all about it.
We all have our ‘time wasted’ moments that we regret. It’s time we cannot take back. But was it really a waste of time? Can you learn something from it?
It’s that guy you dated but didn’t really like. It is that course you took because your parents told you to or the trip you really didn’t want to go on but felt obliged. Are you going to learn the lesson or are you going to put those moments in your ‘waste of time’ drawer?
Once we can be aware of our intentions, we will fully appreciate our time. Then, we will not need to read another article such as ‘How to be more productive in only 5 steps’.
Remember: your time is yours to spend. Make it count for you.
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