Be Honest – Do You Waste Time at Work?
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Many people waste time at work. It’s true – and you might be one of them! Not everyone who wastes time at work does so on purpose. Sometimes the time wasters are foisted on us (like pointless meetings), but many are self-induced (such as socializing and participating in office gossip).

Statistics About Wasting Time at Work

For a 2014 Salary.com study, 89% of respondents “reported wasting time at work every day” (some of which was probably the time they spent filling out the survey). Of those who said they waste some time at work, 62% indicated wasting 30 minutes to an hour every day, and the others indicated that they waste even more time on a day basis.

Respondents reported:

•2% waste five or more hours per day when they should be working

•2% waste approximately four hours per day when they should be working

•6% waste about three hours per day when they should be working

•16 % waste around two hours per day when they should be working

•31% waste approximately one hour per day when they should be working

•31% waste about half an hour per day when they should be working

Common Ways People Waste Time at Work

There are plenty of everyday workplace occurrences that add up to a whole lot of wasted time. Common workplace time wasters include:

•Whining to your coworkers about how busy and overworked you are

•Performing tasks inefficiently

•Playing on and/or constantly checking social media

•Checking for email messages every few minutes

•Re-doing work that gets messed up due to poor planning

•Out-of-control Internet surfing

•Poorly planned meetings without a specific agenda

•Senseless meetings there was no reason to call in the first place

•Trivial interruptions

Stop and think about the things you do at work that waste your time and ask yourself how much time you’d get back if you stopped those behaviors. Is chit-chatting with your coworker about your outing at the dog park yesterday really worth getting so behind on your work that you’ll need to end up staying late tonight?

Achieve Balance by Eliminating Time Wasters

You just might be surprised at how much time you ‘find’ that can be used for other purposes when you learn to recognize – and eliminate – the behaviors that keep you from using your dedicated work time wisely. If you’re struggling to achieve work-life balance, a good starting point is to cut back on workplace time-wasters and do your job more efficiently. This will allow you to have more time to dedicate to interests outside of work, and that’s what work-life balance is all about.