Our journey towards eliminating time-wasting and maximising our work hours starts here.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n Inefficiency happens when:<\/p>\n\n\n\n As a result of all that, the following problems occur:<\/p>\n\n\n\n As the end consequence of inefficiency at work, your team fails to deliver quality end products and satisfy clients, resulting in your company or startup never reaching the success it could.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n If you waste time at work it might mean that you\u2019re not doing high-level, priority tasks that you were assigned to do \u2013 instead, you may:<\/p>\n\n\n\n As a worse alternative, you may not work<\/i> at all<\/i> – having personal calls, getting off work due to personal errands, or aimlessly surfing the web are all actions that fall under this category.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While wasting time at work, you may fall victim to either internal or external time wasters<\/b> – the difference is that we can<\/i> control (and are often the instigator of) internal time wasters, whereas external time wasters are usually beyond our control:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u23f2\ufe0f Common internal time-wasters at work include:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u23f2\ufe0f Common external time-wasters at work include:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n As a result of these time wasters, you\u2019ll often find it difficult to regain focus<\/a> on priority tasks, even if you try – according to Gloria Mark<\/a>, a digital distraction scholar at the University of California, it takes as much as 23 minutes to fully re-focus on a task after a distraction<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n What\u2019s worse, according to official time management statistics<\/a>, the time needed to regain focus totals at 2 hours per day<\/i><\/strong> – which is a hefty price to pay, even for seemingly harmless, short distractions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n According to various confessions on the Reddit forum<\/a>, people roughly waste from 1.5 to 4 hours every day<\/strong> – meaning that the 40-hour workweek may sometimes boil down to only 20 hours of productive and efficient work time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Salary.com was looking for more detail on the actual time wasted at work, and made a poll<\/a> covering 750 employees, which gave the following results:<\/p>\n\n\n The poll shows that an equal amount of people (31%) admitted wasting from 30 minutes to 1 hour per day – and that only 2% admitted to wasting more than half of their workday.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The poll also inquired in why<\/i> people waste time:<\/p>\n\n\n The notion that all breaks aid productivity leads more than half of the polled people (53%) to waste time – and general boredom comes at a distant second with a share of 20%.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Additionally, the poll shows that time wasting doesn\u2019t have to be a result of any negative attitudes towards the employer expressed through inaction. In fact, it is more commonly rooted in the individual experiencing states such as boredom, procrastination<\/strong> or languishing<\/strong><\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Of course, when talking about wasted time at work and looking for its roots and causes, we should not forget about the most common distractions, i.e. internal and external time-wasters at work mentioned earlier<\/b> – here\u2019s how many people they influence, according to Statista research<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n This research shows that as much as 80% of people find chatty colleagues<\/strong> the most distracting element of a workplace – with office noise<\/strong> being a close second with 70%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Overwhelming changes<\/strong> at work distract a share of 61% and meetings<\/strong> distract a share of 60% – making the often emphasized notion that frequent meetings damage our productivity and focus on priorities a valid one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Even the least prominent distractor still stands at a hefty 56% – more than half of the researched employees find Social Media<\/strong> a huge potential for wasting time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So, if we are not careful, we may fall into a bottomless pit of distractions, where one distraction leads to other distractions – resulting in much more time wasted than properly used.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n That\u2019s a simple enough question.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Inefficiency leads to wasted time, and wasted time leads to inefficiency – as long as one exists, the other will likely soon follow.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n This has a lot to do with the demoralizing effect of inefficiency:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \ud83d\udca1 Clockify Pro Tip<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Procrastination affects one out of every five working professionals. Learn more about the causes of procrastination and different ways to counter it with our guide: <\/p>\n\n\n\n In summary, inefficiency and wasted time may seem harmless at first but are actually a gateway to a number of huge problems in the long run.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Bear in mind that general<\/i> time management statistics are one thing and that the reality in your company, startup, or team are another – here\u2019s how you can identify your own<\/i> inefficiency-inducing time-wasters, and deal with them by:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Our user Jason had this to say about Clockify in his review on Capterra<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Our experience has been overall very positive. Clockify has helped us to identify wasted time<\/a> and inefficiency which has actually helped our technology department reorganize some processing, save money and time, and ultimately get significantly ahead of our product launch schedule.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n You can best do that by tracking the time<\/a> you spend on all your activities at work via a timer<\/a> \u2013 including time spent on priorities, minor tasks, meetings, phone calls, inbox management, and the like. To properly assess how you spend your time at work, you should also track the time used for breaks. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Tracking time requires just a few simple steps:<\/p>\n\n\n\n By doing so, you\u2019ll eventually build a list of time entries you can later analyze.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Let\u2019s look at an example of a day where all the activities at work were tracked, with special emphasis on the time wasted (marked here with red):<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n The results<\/b>: Yes, tracking time on everything <\/i>you do at work can be eye-opening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n Time tracking software used by millions. Clockify is a time tracker and timesheet app that lets you track work hours across projects.<\/p>\n\n As evident by the abundance of the color red, this day was not spent all that productively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In fact, a lot of time was spent on meetings and breaks, while only one<\/i> priority task was tackled – and not for long.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Total time wasted<\/b>: 5.5 hours<\/p>\n\n\n\n Biggest time waster<\/b>: Meetings, with 1 hour and 25 minutes<\/p>\n\n\n\n Total time spent on priority tasks<\/b>: 2.5 hours<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, let\u2019s look at what exactly went wrong during this day, and how you can make improvements:<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n In regards to the example tracked day, it has to be emphasized that breaks themselves aren\u2019t the problem<\/strong><\/a> \u2013 after all, they help you rest and recharge your batteries, so you shouldn\u2019t eliminate them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The same goes for your lunch break – you can\u2019t properly focus when you\u2019re hungry, so you better refrain from trying.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, you should aim to <\/strong>maximize the effect<\/em> of your breaks<\/strong><\/a>, by organizing and scheduling them better:<\/strong><\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n The problem with this day was that breaks were seemingly taken at random and took too long<\/strong> – having short breaks that span 10-15 minutes and taking 1 hour for lunch will always take away from your productivity because you won\u2019t have enough time to fully immerse yourself into your work.<\/p>\n\n\n In addition, taking a break after a low-level task such as inbox management or a meeting is also counterproductive, and sometimes even unnecessary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Another problem is the order of tackled tasks:<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n If you\u2019re generally the most focused and productive in the morning, then it\u2019s a shame to waste this special time on a low-level task such as administrative work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Moreover, leaving a high-level task such as fixing critical bugs on your app for closing hours is another poor judgment in time management – you\u2019ll likely be too tired to fully concentrate and deliver with quality.<\/p>\n\n\n As an alternative to this day, here\u2019s an example of how you could better organize and schedule your time at work:<\/p>\n\n\n\n The results<\/b>: This looks like a much more promising day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The breaks were shortened and better implemented, and much more time was spent on the priority task in total. The time spent on meetings was also shortened, as well as the time spent on inbox management.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Moreover, the priority task was worked on first thing in the morning, when we are likely to be the most alert, while the administrative task was left for the less productive time of the day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Total time wasted<\/b>: 2 hours, but you should view at least some of your wasted time<\/i> as a necessity – you\u2019ll still need efficient short breaks and a lunch break sometime during the day<\/p>\n\n\n\n Biggest time waster<\/b>: Still meetings, but less so, with 35 minutes in total<\/p>\n\n\n\n Total time spent on priority tasks<\/b>: 5 hours and 45 minutes, with even more potential for improvements<\/p>\n\n\n\n By tracking time for all your activities, you\u2019ll gain a clear and precise overview of your time at work<\/a>. You\u2019ll also get a clear, mathematical rendition of what you can do better in the future – you\u2019ll see where you can cut time, and where you can allocate more time, as well as where you should reshuffle the order of the tasks tackled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After tracking time every day for a while, you\u2019ll be able to identify your own, but also your team\u2019s biggest personal time-wasters with precision, and work on making long-term improvements to your work routine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \ud83d\udca1 Clockify Pro Tip<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Organizing your workday and breaking it down into efficient blocks of activity is a delicate art. Learn how to create and fine-tune an effective work schedule with our guide: <\/p>\n\n\n\n Once you have all your available time tracking data sorted out and analyzed, you\u2019ll get the exact time you could be allocating to more important activities and working towards better work efficiency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Let\u2019s look at the two example days compared, once again:<\/p>\n\n\n Despite the fact that you\u2019ve spent the same amount of time at work (8 hours), the productivity levels varied widely when we compared the two days:<\/p>\n\n\n\nWhat is inefficiency at work?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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What is wasted time at work?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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How much time do we waste? And why do we waste time?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/clockify.me\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/HOW-MUCH-TIME-PEOPLE-WASTE-PER-DAY.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/clockify.me\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/WHY-PEOPLE-WASTE-TIME.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/clockify.me\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/WHAT-PEOPLE-FIND-DISTRACTING-AT-WORK.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\nHow do inefficiency and wasted time correlate?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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How to identify inefficiency and wasted time?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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1. Track what you do at work<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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TIME TRACKING RESULTS FOR A DAY – CURRENT SITUATION <\/b><\/h4>\n\n\n
![\"Time](\"https:\/\/clockify.me\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/Time-tracking-results-for-a-day-current-situation-min.png\"){kind=tracking}
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n![\"Illustration\"](\"https:\/\/clockify.me\/blog\/wp-content\/themes\/cake-blog\/theme\/images\/banners\/clockify\/landing-3@2x.png)
\n <\/picture>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n \n\n\n\n2. Analyze and reassess what you can do better<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
![\"Time](\"https:\/\/clockify.me\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/Time-wasted-on-breaks-that-are-too-long-min.png\")
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n![\"Tasks](\"https:\/\/clockify.me\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/Tasks-that-need-re-ordering-min.png\")
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\nTIME TRACKING RESULTS FOR A DAY – FIXED<\/b><\/h4>\n\n\n
![\"time](\"https:\/\/clockify.me\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/time-tracking-results-for-a-day-fixed-min.png\"){kind=tracking}
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3. Use available data to make long term improvements<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
![\"day](\"https:\/\/clockify.me\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/day-1-and-day-2-comparison-min.png\")
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![\"Dashboard](\"https:\/\/clockify.me\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/Dashboard-section-of-the-app-min.png\")
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n![\"Favorite](\"https:\/\/clockify.me\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/Favorite-projects-min.png\")
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n![\"Reports](\"https:\/\/clockify.me\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/Reports-section-of-the-app-min.png\")
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n![\"Delegating](\"https:\/\/clockify.me\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/Delegating-task-to-team-min.png\")
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n![\"Estimated](\"https:\/\/clockify.me\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/Estimated-project-time-min.png\")
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