The way I see it, using your time productively Is the best way to live. There’s nothing quite like going to bed satisfied, knowing that you’ve accomplished a heap of work, and waking up excited to tackle the day every morning. Really puts a tingle in your balls. Wasting time, and spending most of it in the mental equivalent of first gear, in my experience, is the fastest way to dissatisfaction, lack of direction, and even depression (obvious exceptions apply for those suffering from serious disorders). It’s never been easier to waste time than it is today: Most young people spend half the day glued to their phone or computer screen, scrolling through Instagram, trawling Youtube to find the least (perhaps most?) mind-numbing content they can. And I’ve been guilty of it as well: I can shamefully admit that I’ve clicked on videos with clickbait titles like “everything fell apart” or “greatest day ever” when I had literally no idea who the content creator was. We live in an age where attention is an invaluable asset and there is constant competition by social media companies and the like to capture it. But, there’s two sides to every coin: It may be easier than ever to waste time, but it’s also easier than ever to be productive with our time. We have an extraordinary number of resources available at the push of a button, and the potential efficiency of any particular endeavour is through the roof. However, to begin using our time efficiently, we must first analyse where it’s being wasted.

3 kinds of time.

To do this, I divide my time into 3 categories: Active time, passive time, and dead time.

Active time: This is the time you spend, you guessed it, being active. Working out, working, writing, directly moving towards your goals. This is your most productive segment of time.

Passive time: This is less productive, but still necessary. This is the time you spend unwinding from periods of active time. Resting from the gym, taking a break during study, taking that much needed breather at the end of a long day. This amount of time can be minimised for maximum efficiency, but there’s a certain point where efficiency drops and you’re taking too little time to unwind. Passive time is necessary, as it allows you to work at peak efficiency during active periods.

Dead time: This time is completely wasted. It’s the time you spend vegged out on the couch watching re-runs of Family Guy or playing Candy Crush not because you need a break mentally, but because you’re disengaged from the world and putting off work that you could be going. This is the time you need to eliminate.

Now, it takes a certain degree of self-honesty to distinguish between passive and active time at times. Some days, you’re going to need more time to relax than others, but it’s very easy to slip from necessary relaxation into time-wasting potato mode. For this reason, I suggest choosing a maximum length of time to spend resting between periods of activity. Personally, I’d advise starting with an hour-long timer. If you feel burned out after a week spending no more than an hour relaxing at a time, consider upping it. If you approach it with the right mindset, however, you should generally have a high enough work capacity as a human being to make do with this amount of rest.

Dividing time like this isn’t inherently necessary, particularly for those who are busy enough not to have time to spare let alone waste, but for those who find time slipping away and being wasted, it is imperative that you understand where the time is going and put a stop to poor time management.

Planning out the day

Making a list of the things I plan on accomplishing during the day has been huge in helping me increase my productivity. I’m never at a loss as to what to do at any given time, and the simple motivation of completing tasks is addictive. There’s also a sense of momentum involved: When I tick something off the list, I like to keep going and steamroll the rest of my tasks. There’s also the option of making a timetable for the day: I choose not to do this as I find it kills my momentum slightly having to finish a task prematurely before moving onto something else, but this may not be the case for everybody and is worth considering in many cases.

Getting a jump on the day

I choose to wake up at 5:30, every single day (barring the occasions when I have company). Building the habit was gruelling and it’s still hard on some days, but it is well worth it. It does amazing things for my mood, allows me more control over my routine even with an inconsistent work schedule, prevents the afternoon slump that used to kill me every day, and most importantly, it allows me to get a jump on the day. When everybody else is beginning their work day, I can have a workout, meditation, stretching routine and breakfast completed, and already have momentum going for the rest of the day. My bedtime is 9 o’clock nightly, which can also be inconvenient, but building healthy habits is much easier when your sleep/wake cycle is consistent, and there’s new research coming out all the time that demonstrates the importance of a consistent bedtime and waketime. Going to bed early also helps cut out the generally unproductive time normally spent watching TV at night. There’s a reason the video of a Navy Seal recommending a wake time of 4:30am has blown up recently, and Hollywood juggernauts like Mark Wahlberg and the Rock recommend it.

Increasing the value of your time-sinks.

To do this, you need to identify the things you waste most of your time on. I’ll use a few examples: Say you waste 3 hours a day playing FIFA, or 3 hours scrolling reddit, or 3 hours on Youtube. Why not spend an hour playing FIFA, recording it, and then spending an hour or two editing and recording commentary? Why not spend an hour or two braintstorming and writing a Reddit post for your favourite sub? Why not find something you’re passionate about and make a Youtube video on it?

These scenarios may seem like a waste of time to many people either way, but it’s all in the value of building useful skills and having a tangible product at the end of it. Instead of spending your time taking in small amounts of information or getting a dopamine hit, you’re developing your video editing skills. You’re developing your writing style and formulating new ideas. You’re developing your creativity and your ability to express yourself verbally. You’re learning how to capture interest and promote yourself. Plus, you have a tangible product at the end. I’ve been consistently drafting reddit posts daily and it gives me an enormous creative satisfaction to see them come to fruition and receive feedback on them. My writing style is improving and becoming less clunky, I’m formulating my ideas more efficiently, I’m giving other people ideas that potentially benefit them. This post isn’t about becoming a Harvey Spectre-esque 80 hour work week machine overnight, it’s about making incremental changes to increase your overall productivity bit by bit. Sometimes the hardest time to be productive is when you have no reason to be: Perhaps you’ve completely all your outstanding work and are left with “free time”.

Keep track of your excuses.

The human mind is an awfully strange environment: Many people are caught in a cycle of excuse-making followed by immediate regret. They then allow themselves to hamster away this regret, and make the exact same decision time and time again. Excuses are often very weak and obvious in hindsight, but can appear as legitimate reasoning before the fact. The technique I use for dealing with such excuses as this is very simple: Write down your excuses, with some conditions.

For example, if I find myself skipping the gym regularly, I can keep track of my legitimate reasons for going, as well as the completely unjustifiable bullshit my brain comes up with, putting them into two categories. “I’m sore” can be followed up with conditions like “do you genuinely believe there’s a legitimate risk of injuring yourself based on this?”. Obviously, if I wake up with my back feeling awful it’s probably better to skip and not hurt myself, but if I’m just sore from the previous workout, I’m being lazy. Similar questions can be asked of things like “I’m tired”, “I need to rest”, “I have things I have to do”, “I’m sick” etc. Assess the situations in which these would be legitimate, and prepare your answers in advance. In the cold light of day, excuses are often laughably weak. It’s a similar phenomenon to waking up in the middle of the night reeling from a nightmare, falling back to sleep, and waking again in the morning wondering what the hell you were afraid of. Keeping track of your excuses is like receiving an advanced warning and being able to prepare for them. It’s an extremely valuable tool, and has pretty much completely cut out skipping my priorities.

Conclusion

Now, I shouldn’t have to disclaim this because this subreddit is full of adults who can make their own choices, but these are simply tips. Feel free to employ as many or as few of these as you wish. They’re simply techniques which have improved my ability to work towards my goals far more effectively and not be stuck in a cycle of regret and self-deprecation cause I can’t motivate myself to get to work to save my life. Your time is precious, try your best not to waste it.