5 Ways You’re Consistently Wasting Your Time And Energy

Do you ever go to bed feeling mentally exhausted, yet when you think about what you did the whole day, you can’t come up with anything significant?

Your brain is on constant overdrive. Time escapes you, and you’re always busy, but that busyness never results in anything fruitful or beneficial.

You’re busy running errands, busy overthinking, busy overanalyzing, busy dwelling, busy being negative. Before you know it, the day is over, and you didn’t even do what you needed to get done that day.

The myth of “I have time”

If there are 24 hours in a day, and 8 of those are used for sleeping and an additional 8 for work (or school), we’re left with 8 hours. Of those 8, we’ll factor in some bathroom breaks, eating, and commute time.

The Local says people in the U.S. spend an average of one hour daily on eating. A study in the U.K. says the average person spends 1 hour and 42 minutes in the bathroom daily. CNBC says the average commute to and from work time in the U.S. is around 50 minutes per day.

This leaves us with 4 hours and 25 minutes of free time.

Since social media has become more of a habit rather than a significant distraction, it’s fitting to include it in our daily time calculation.

Digital Information World says people spend upwards of 2 hours on social media, which leaves us with about 2 hours of free time in a workday.

If you’re like me, the idea of only having two hours of freedom per day sounds miserable. You want the ability to wake up or go to the store without feeling rushed; you want to make a great income without feeling like you’re glued to your desk. You want flexibility in your day-to-day life.

If that’s your goal, then here are five ways that you’re consistently wasting the little free time that you have and what you can do to fix it.

Stop anticipating the worst-case scenario and, instead, hope for the best.

I used to believe that anticipating the worst-case scenario would set me up in a way that, if something bad were to happen, I wouldn’t be as upset about it had I not been anticipating a negative result.

So I’d sit there and feel stressed about things that might not even happen.

I’d apply for jobs I wanted and envision rejection emails. I’d picture myself in clothing I liked and would tell myself I was too fat for them before even trying them on. I’d sit and stew in that negativity, wasting time and energy.

Negative thought patterns wreak havoc on your mind and body. You start to attract what you don’t want rather than working towards what you do want, and you sabotage yourself before you even give yourself a chance.

I’m not going to tell you to start thinking happy thoughts 24/7, but ask yourself this, when has negative thinking ever led you toward anything good or beneficial?

And on that note, what’s the harm in anticipating good things for yourself? Why waste precious time and energy anticipating negative results?

Stop worrying about what others think of you.

Chances are, the people you’re so worried about aren’t even thinking about you, and you’re giving them your precious mental space.

There was a time in my life when I’d waste so much time having imaginary conversations with myself about what others *might* be thinking of me. I’d sit and dwell and come up with imaginary scenarios that would keep me up at night.

Trust me; nobody is thinking about you the way you’re thinking about them. Your aunt really doesn’t care that you have a tattoo on your butt cheek.

Stop multitasking and focus on one project at a time.

I used to brag about my great multitasking capabilities on my resume. I’d even poke fun at people who claimed they couldn’t multitask.

I’d start my work day as follows: check email, start working on a project, go back to emails 20 minutes later, draft a response to an email, check Instagram mid-sentence, go back to project, remember I was writing an email, and go back to Instagram.

My work days would end, and I’d have a handful of half-assed projects on my lap instead of 2–3 completed ones.

Studies show that multitasking causes more stress and decreases efficiency, and those studies couldn’t be more right.

Learn to be your most effective self by focusing on the most critical tasks of the day and setting aside all other tasks and activities.

Stop trying to win every conversation that you have with people.

One of the best things my mom ever told me was to stop trying to always be right and win conversations.

“It’s just not worth it, you will always have your own opinion, and they’ll have theirs. The time you waste trying to prove to someone they’re wrong is time you will never get back.”

When my boyfriend and I first started dating, I would bicker with him for hours. I wanted to win, I wanted to feel right, and it didn’t matter how much time I was wasting, being right was more important to me.

Now? I can’t recall the reason for any one of those fights because they were never a big deal. I blew them up because of my desire to win. However, I do remember how much time I wasted, and I’d go back in a heartbeat to tell myself to snap out of it.

You will never have perfectly aligned views with other people. And whether you’re fighting with your significant other, a friend, a stranger — whoever, your time and energy are more important than proving you’re right.

As the old saying goes, “If it’s not going to matter in five years, don’t spend more than five minutes being upset by it.”

Learn to apply that the next time you get the urge to bicker.

Stop making mountains out of molehills.

If you’re someone who gets upset over little things, you need to know that you do have control of your emotions. You just haven’t learned how to do it yet, and it might be because you never learned while growing up, or maybe you’re in denial.

I was in denial that my emotions controlled me for years. I was a volcano that would erupt at the most minor of inconveniences. The smallest of things would trigger me. Being spoken to in a particular tone, things not going according to my plan, the gym being too crowded, etc.

I believed that I was born that way. I felt what I felt, and I didn’t care about who I hurt throughout the rollercoaster of emotions I’d experience on a daily basis. If something upset me at 7 am, I’d waste the entire day being upset about it.

You don’t always have to react. You don’t always have to blow things out of proportion. You don’t always need to get angry at the smallest of inconveniences.

The situation might be out of your control, but how you react is 100% within your control, and you get to choose how you’re going to respond to the things that frustrate you or make you angry.

Start small. The next time you get that bubble of irritation because your coworker said something to you in a “tone” you perceived as rude or your phone decided to update right when you needed it, take a deep breath and calm down.

It’s not the end of the world. The situation does not need to be escalated. You’re in control of your emotions. You don’t need to waste the little free time you have stewing and being upset.