How can we stop wasting time?

The intention which you desire comes from the perception that you adhere.

Are trivial tasks a waste of time?

Here is something that I ponder myself sometimes when I do things I normally don’t enjoy because I feel like it is wasting time when I could be doing other tasks that are more productive.

Okay, so we need to break down what productivity means, and what is wasting time.

Productivity according to the google dictionary is measured in terms of the rate of output per unit of input. So what is suggested is that whatever you put in, the outcome you get as a result determines how productive you actually are.

Let’s say you spend 8 hours a day at work, well that in turn will produce 8 hours of wages. Now let’s say you work overtime and you get paid time and a half, which in most provinces it is a legal requirement. You now work 2 hours and get paid for 3 hours.

The time you worked overtime is now more productive since the output is greater than it would be generally.

Now that we understand the term productivity lets turn our attention to time being wasted.

What does this mean? What does this look like? Is it possible?

I asked the last question because this is where the message lies.

What does wasting time mean?

Of course, for everyone, it will be different. For example, I may consider watching T.V. a waste of time, but in truth, there are good positive outcomes from watching T.V. such as; a unique perspective, a new insight, information, knowledge and my favorite observation of relatable facts and human behavior.

So what does it mean? Wasting time means that you are doing something that produces no results. Although that statement may not be entirely true, because everything produces results whether they provoke emotion or are psychological; relaxing.

When I googled ‘what does wasting time mean?’ It actually produced many results since this is a topic of popular discussion.

While there is a great deal of discussion behind time wasting, after carefully analyzing what this actually means, this on it’s on provides a means to write another post on the subject. Time wasted presents many difficult positions in which I actually did not appreciate until we decided to dissect its meaning.

It can be said that time wasted is subjective. Considering time is a commodity, something that can be gained or lost, then it can become wasted, however in reality time is either always wasted or never if we examine this for face value.

For the purposes of the message of this post, let’s consider that time wasted is what people believe their time is better spent doing something else that produces an outcome that is valued by them.

What does this look like?

Since wasting time is something that a person believes is not going to produce a valued result, then we can say that someone who is blind and goes to see a movie with subtitles that it is a waste of time since they can’t actually follow the dialogue, instead they hear foreign sounds that make no sense.

It can be someone who is always on time, and the person their meeting shows up late, they consider it as their time being wasted by that individual, or undervalued.

How about someone who is working on their bicycle instead of working on their homework?

So here we see that wasting time is something that can be either constraint, uselessness, or diversion.

Is it possible?

Here is where I have led you to believe that yes, it is possible to waste time. Although the scenarios I presented to you may truly seem like a waste of time until you perceive it through another lens.

While time wasted is a notion that is applied in many different forms, observed contrarily, and is researched by psychologists.

Acacia Parks Ph.D. writes in psychology today that she thinks wasting time is something that is considered obligatory rather than selfless. Meaning that she believes that time she spends doing something she has to do rather than wants to do.

She also examined that works that are published in psychological science, that

“spending time with other people, makes you feel like you have more time to spare.”

Helping someone in any way is not time wasted but is a time saver?

Seems like we can go in many directions with this post, however, I do want to drive my message before we get off beat.

Time cannot be wasted, and it matters how you look at it. When you do anything, there is something to gain. Like I mentioned earlier, emotion or a psychological aspect. However, there is more. When you think of time being wasted then you sure can pass time and get nothing out of it.

How about approaching that scenario with the fact of gaining or learning something new, something different? When you look for things, they suddenly appear.

Wayne dyer an American philosopher, motivational speaker, and author once said;

“if you change the way you look at things the things you look at change.”

This couldn’t be truer.

I always had this notion that I am about to waste my time sitting down to watch something trivial. However, when I sit down with intent to gain something, it usually never fails that I do.

Even when I am on social media, when I changed my intent, everything else changed.

Don’t just change the way you look at things, also change your intentions about the things you look at.

Thank you for reading this post. I know it wasn’t a waste of time for you my intentions were pure. Please share, ❤, or comment, I would love to hear what you think about “time wasted”.

To be continued….

Image copyright by stackstreet

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Originally published at karasingroup.com on October 16, 2016.