Do you ever realise how much time do you actually spend in doing the real work? There’s a difference between being busy and being productive. Most of us spent 8-10 hours a day at work and we have no idea how much time we spent on doing the actual work and wasting our time at work. We are all guilty of wasting time at work because of one or the other reason. There’s a human tendency of blaming others for the waste of time and no one takes the ownership of the problem. We can be busy all day with checking mails, attending meetings and other interruption but what actually matters is to contribute to the functioning of the organisation.
Time is money. Wasting time means wasting a lot of money of the business and the economy as a whole. According to a survey 40% of the working hours is wasted in a day which includes trivial interruptions like checking cell phones, chit chat with co-workers, water cooler breaks etc. 85% of the employees waste time every single day and there is an increase in percentage each year. Let’s discuss the ways and how to prevent waste of time at work.
- Recurring emails
The unwanted and continuous emails contribute to the main factor behind waste of time. An employee receives 300 emails weekly on an average and spends approximately 24% of its working hours on useless mails. These mails interrupt the flow of work and another 15 minutes is wasted on refocusing on the work after opening the mails. Sending unnecessary meeting invites even though it has been discussed on the previous mails causes double labour and also waste a lot of time. Therefore, the company should limit their conversations on mails and try to restrict themselves from sending unnecessary emails which can be done face to face. - Futile meetings
We are expected to attend innumerous meetings in a day that can counts upto spending 30 hours in a month on an average. Most of these meetings does not emanate productivity and are a huge time waster. According to a survey, 90% of the employees day dream at the meeting and 47% of the employees complains about the meeting to be the high waste of time. Not all the meetings are unproductive, infact it’s necessary to have a team discussion but the schedule should be designed effectively. The meetings should have a clear purpose and a proper agenda to be achieved at the end of the day, week or month. - Training period
Most of the training periods are the sheer waste of time. The employees are unaware of what the entire training is all about and how to implement it in real world. Therefore the training procedures should be practical and employees should take feedback from their managers and then actually execute in real life to save time and energy. - Social Media
It is reported that 70% of the employees spend atleast an hour on social media sites during their work hours. The constant pings on your messaging app also distract you and force you to check your phone after every 10 minutes. These constant interruptions are the major factor behind time waste. To avoid such distractions, employees should limit the use of messaging apps on their phones and try to reduce usage of their devices during work hours except in case of emergency. - Multi-tasking
Multi-tasking is done to do multiple works at the same time to save time and increase productivity but actually it is not the case in real world. When you do multi-tasking, you are prone to make more mistakes that will take extra minutes to rectify and thus reduces the productivity. Thus one should focus on doing a single job at a time to avoid mistakes. An employee uses multiple softwares to do a particular work but going to and fro distracts the mind and results in taking more time and also drains your energy. Therefore the company should unite the softwares in a single one to ease the job and also helps in saving time. - Technical Issues
The technology has evolved over the years and we are quite dependent on the technology for doing each of our work. The glitch or issues in the system will stop the work causing waste of time. These are the aspects that are uncertain and cannot be predicted and solved permanently, it can happen anytime even though you update your system regularly. - Working Environment
A bad working environment also leads to wastage of time. Maybe there’s an issue between two departments or colleagues that might stop the work and the entire office spend their time solving it. The temperature at the office plays a important role in time management, the temperature too hot or too cold might distract the employee from doing the work thus results in waste of time. This can be solved by getting the feedbacks from the employees whether they are facing any issues and how the company can help them to solve it. In this way the employees will also feel responsible towards the company and will try to give its best.
Not every moment spent here and there except work is not wasting of time. Humans are not machine they also need to reboot themselves by stretching their legs or gazing out from the window but yes, it has to be for a limited time. Having lunch breaks or visiting to a clients place is not waste of time although you are not being productive at that moment but these are the necessity which cannot be ignored. Therefore, as an employee you should spent your day at work in a way that you give your best to the company and also relax yourself from time to time, as health comes first.
