We often think that just a few minutes here or there doesnt really add up to much. “I’ll just check Facebook for a few minutes.” However, if you are unintentionally distracted for just a few minutes each hour, that quickly adds up to over 3 hours a week. What could you do with an extra 3 hours?
For one week, be extremely conscious of the minutes that you have been wasting throughout each day. You can use a check list and a timer for this exercise. Set the timer for 15 minutes and each time it goes off, mark whether your time was productive or unproductive. Then reset the timer. While this may be a bit of a distraction while you are actively concentrating, it is only temporary and you’ll learn a lot about how much time you are actually spending unproductively throughout the day.