One of the most valuable things you can learn is to kill societally constructed ideas about appropriate “working hours” and when you should work. Society trains you to accept the standard 8am to 6pm workday, outlined by the corporate world which got its ideas from the industrial revolution when factories needed to be operated non-stop. Humans back then worked 12-16 hours a day. Now, the corporate workday is outdated and very inefficient, with employees spending only two-fifths of their workday doing any real work.

How Many Hours We Spend Productively

It makes no sense to work 40-hour weeks in your office job. Most knowledge workers only spend 39 percent of their average workday on their primary job tasks, i.e. the roles they were hired for. They spend the rest of their time on meetings, emails, buffer time activities and distractions. If you can perform your job well using just 40% of your workday, you only have to put in 16 hours of real work. **The remaining hours can be freed up.**

Examine your own workday, and track the hours that you actually spend on real work. What unproductive tasks can you cut down on? 

A UK study revealed that the average worker spends only THREE hours in their workday productively. Out of the remaining five hours, almost TWO hours were spent just trawling news websites and checking social media every day.

You should have data on how you spend your time. Many people are bad at time management because they have never once tracked their hours. 

Since most people overestimate the hours they work, you are likely to be also “off” by 15 hours or more in your own estimation. If you think you spend 40 hours a week working, you are most likely working just 25 hours or less – perhaps even as low as 16 hours.

Office workers waste their time on random things. These are things which you have personal control over, and you are completely to blame for wasted time in any of these typical areas:

• Checking social media – People spend almost 45 minutes per day just consuming whatever their friends and strangers post on social media.
• Browsing news websites – Employees spend over an hour per day concerning themselves with the news.
• Searching for another job
• Snacking / smoking breaks
• Personal phone calls and texting
• Watching porn
• Watching entertainment videos or TV (YouTube, Netflix, Hulu)

With the time you can free up on a typical day, it is possible to find alternative sources of income. With good time management, you can manage 1-2 side hustles or take on another remote job while still being an employee without having to work beyond 50 hours a week.

How to Waste Less Time

The average person spends 40% of the workday doing real work. If you have the efficiency of an average person, you can theoretically take a 40-hour work week and turn it into a 16-hour work week. This is great news as there is room to improve, at least theoretically speaking. 

Aim to perform your tasks well but in less than half the time. 

Here are some time management strategies to become more efficient and waste less time.

1. Time your work

Use Google Calendar (or any other software) and track your time down to the minute. Just note down the exact time you start working, and the exact time which you pause. When you resume your work, note down the exact time again, and repeat this process.

Aim to get at least 3 hours of work done within 4 hours of working, i.e. aim to get at least 3 hours of real work completed if you work from 8am to 12pm. 

I set up different categories of work on a Google spreadsheet (day job, writing for my content businesses, programming side hustle, finding clients for consulting, etc.) and input all my hours every week into each of these separate categories. This gives me my personal productivity data on a weekly basis. You want to have data.

Even if you only do this for a week, it still gives you rather accurate data assuming that the week is a typical week in your life (where you perform your normal activities). 

However, I would encourage you to continue tracking your time every week. I personally find myself more productive in the weeks I track my hours, as I can retrospectively make sense of my productivity data in relation to lifestyle habits such as poor sleep or alcohol – yes, you should track your habits too! 

If I see that I am working too few hours that week, I will have more urgency to get things done. If I am super productive that week, I am extra motivated to stay on top of my game. Keep in mind to only track real work hours, not busy work.

2. Set a timer

Most people work when they are comfortable. By default, I would work for 5 minutes, get distracted, and come back to my task when I eventually “feel” like it. In non-pressure situations, this is comfortable but I often end up hating myself at the end of the day.

Using a timer, however, is a mini game changer as it helps me to set standards. When you work, set a thirty-minute or 1-hour timer and then shut down your email, close your browser tabs, and silence your phone. During this hour, you want no interruptions, no distractions, and no messing around with communication channels or meetings. Just be totally focused and you can relax when the timer sounds. 

3. Work remotely

If you work in a corporate office, there is likely no way you can avoid several time wasters. Even if you do everything right within your control, you will waste time as a result of your work environment.

Instead, when you switch to a remote WFH position, it is way easier to manage your time well. These are the things you get to cut out:

• Being physically interrupted by co-workers or bosses
• Non-work related conversations with colleagues who may be distracting
• Attending in-person team meetings
• Playing office politics
• Commuting (which takes up at least an hour or so EVERY DAY for most people) 

Working remotely makes you healthier, more energetic, and more productive. You do not put up with long 8-10 hour workdays being in commute and your office. You get to cut irrelevant time-wasting activities, have a lighter schedule, and it will be easier to form good working habits.

4. Be self-employed

Compared to working remotely, this is a harder transition from an office job because you are going to be working longer hours at the start, when you are just starting your side business(es). Most people do not have the luxury of quitting their job early, so it is inevitable to work at a day job AND run a side business simultaneously. It can take a year or more before you can afford to be self-employed.

However, once you are self-employed, you get to cut out even more time efficiencies. Here are some further things you eliminate from your workday:

• Team meetings and conference calls
• Training on topics which you will never apply at your job
• Dealing with inefficient company workflows

Design your entire schedule whichever way you want, and you can literally work whenever you want as a self-employed person. 

Yes, you will need stronger time management skills, but your working hours are no longer set by outdated societal standards.

5. Improve your workspace setup

Back pain, neck aches, and long hours of sitting all contribute to inefficiency – bad work habits at your computer lead to poorer health and destroy your productivity.

You want to improve your ergonomics, and that starts from the way you set up your desk. Your physical environment is everything. 

There is no point skimping on office equipment if you value time efficiency at work. For example, if you just replace your dining chair with an adjustable office chair, that alone can result in higher quality work within a shorter amount of time since your body relaxes. You do not have to keep getting up from your unbearable chair, damn it. 

There are many physical factors that can prime your body for productivity, such as how many screens you use, good placement of your keyboard and mouse, the room which you work in, and even the headphones you use.