How to Stop Wasting Time And Start Getting Things Done: 10 Things I Stopped Doing to Get More of My Life Back

1. Stop Treating Everything Like It’s Important
2. Stop Making the Same Decisions Over and Over
3. Stop Using Your Phone Every Time Your Brain Gets Bored
4. Stop Trying to Be Productive for Eight Hours Straight
5. Stop Doing Things That Should Be Eliminated, Delegated, or Automated
6. Stop Saying Yes Automatically
7. Stop Overplanning Instead of Doing
8. Stop Filling Every Empty Space in Your Calendar
9. Stop Waiting Until Later to Live
10. Set Your Non-Negotiables
11. Final: Stop Managing Time Just to Do More

If you want to know how to stop wasting time, the answer isn’t doing more, it’s protecting what actually deserves your time.

Time management is usually talked about as a way to get more done.

How can I finish more tasks? How can I work faster? How can I fit another project into my schedule?

But I think there’s a better reason to learn how to manage your time:

To get more of your life back.

Every hour you save doesn’t have to become another hour of work.

It can become an hour at the gym. An hour with your family. An hour building something you care about. An hour traveling, learning, going on a date, hanging out with friends, or doing absolutely nothing.

That’s what makes time different from almost every other resource we have.

You can make more money.

You can lose something and buy another one.

But once today is over, you’re never getting those 24 hours back.

So I’ve become increasingly interested not only in what I should be doing with my time, but also in a different question:

What am I doing that doesn’t deserve my time at all?

Stop Wanting To Learn How To Get More Done, And Start Learning How To Get More Done Of What Matters To You By Getting Clarity On Exactly The Life You Want!

If you don’t approach life this way, you’re not living intentionally, you don’t believe in Free Will, or YOU believe your excuses somehow benefit you or whoever you’re telling them to.

Here are 10 things I’ve learned to stop doing—or at least do significantly less of—to get more of my time and my life back.

1. Stop Treating Everything Like It’s Important

When everything is important, nothing is important.

You can have 15 things on your to-do list and technically accomplish 12 of them while still avoiding the one thing that would actually move your life forward.

I’ve done this plenty of times.

Being busy feels productive because you’re moving. You’re answering things. You’re checking boxes. You’re getting that little satisfaction of crossing another task off the list.

But movement isn’t necessarily progress.

I’ve learned to ask myself:

If I could only accomplish one meaningful thing today, what would I want it to be?

That doesn’t mean I literally do only one thing all day.

It means I know what deserves my best attention.

Everything else has to compete for what’s left—not the other way around.

Your most important goals shouldn’t get whatever time remains after everything else has taken a piece of you.

Give the important things your best time first.

Its such a relief when you finish your one thing. You even get more energy to want to do other things.

You realize that your one thing was harder to do in your mind than to actually physically do it.

2. Stop Making the Same Decisions Over and Over

Small decisions don’t seem expensive.

What should I eat?

When should I work out?

When should I work on this project?

What should I work on first?

Should I do this now or later?

Individually, none of these decisions take very long.

But repeat them every day and they start consuming mental energy that could be used somewhere better.

That’s why I like systems and routines.

Having systems and routines might feel like a constraint but it’s actually very freeing to have control over what you do and when because you consciously decided it. You’re living on your own terms!

If I already know when I’m going to work, what I’m going to focus on, when I’m going to exercise, and how certain recurring parts of my life work, I don’t have to renegotiate those decisions with myself every day.

I made the decision once.

Now I just follow it.

This is one of the reasons I believe some of the best time-management decisions are actually one-time decisions.

Decide once. Build the system. Stop paying for the same decision every day.

It won’t always be perfect, but as you do it more often and it becomes a habit, you’ll get more clarity on how to improve your life and environment based on your one decision.

3. Stop Using Your Phone Every Time Your Brain Gets Bored

Sometimes the biggest thief of time isn’t a huge commitment.

It’s 30 seconds.

You pick up your phone while something loads.

Then you check a notification.

Then Instagram.

Then a message.

Then you see something interesting.

Five or ten minutes later, you realize you don’t even remember why you picked up your phone.

Do that repeatedly throughout the day and you’re not just losing the minutes you spend scrolling.

You’re constantly breaking your attention.

Your brain keeps glitching back and forth from constant different short videos of dopamine hits that you’re breaking your life away. Years will pass by and you’ll wonder where your life went.

I use social media but I don’t have any notifications on. Ever NON! Not even for email.

The only real way to reach me is my personal text message or call. Or unless I see your message by chance if I’m using social media at that moment. But I might only vaguely respond.

My connections are real, they’re small but very rewarding.

If I’m really doing deep work, I will turn on focus mode on my phone so people get a message when texting me or calling me.

That’s why when I’m doing focused work, I want as few reasons as possible to touch my phone.

Put it somewhere else.

Turn off unnecessary notifications.

Use Do Not Disturb.

Make distraction slightly harder.

If simply putting your phone in another room isn’t enough, another option is a timed phone lock box. You put your phone inside, set the timer, and remove the option of mindlessly reaching for it during your focus period. You definitely don’t need one to control your phone use, but I like the idea of making distractions physically harder to access instead of relying entirely on willpower.

[See a timed phone lock box on Amazon →]

You don’t need to have perfect discipline if you can create an environment where distraction isn’t constantly asking for your attention.

4. Stop Trying to Be Productive for Eight Hours Straight

Be honest and realize that we’re not really productive all 8 hours of our work shifts.

Our energy shifts and we need to learn to manage it.

This was a big realization for me.

I don’t need eight incredible hours of focused productivity every day.

I need a few really good ones.

Give me two, three, or four hours where I know exactly what I’m working on, distractions are minimized, and my attention is directed toward something meaningful.

That’s often more valuable than an entire day of bouncing between emails, messages, meetings, browser tabs, small tasks, and interruptions.

So rather than asking:

How can I stay productive all day?

I’ve started caring more about:

How can I protect my best few hours?

I like setting a timer and treating that period as protected focus time.

I also prefer the idea of using a physical timer when possible because it gives me one less reason to reach for my phone. A visual timer can make your focus block visible at a glance and create a clear beginning and end to the session.

[See a visual focus timer on Amazon →]

This is essentially the same approach I break down in how to manage time effectively as a busy professional, protecting a few real hours instead of trying to optimize an entire day.

One project.

One objective.

Minimal distractions.

Then when those hours are over, I can move on with the rest of my life.

Productivity shouldn’t require you to spend your entire waking day trying to be productive.

Plus, you have Sh*t at home to get done too. You can’t try to “pick up every dust ball that comes into your mind”.

Decide what’s important in every area of your life and eliminate everything else that has little to no value.

5. Stop Doing Things That Should Be Eliminated, Delegated, or Automated

Whenever something repeatedly takes my time, I try to look at it through three questions:

Can I eliminate it?

If not:

Can I delegate it?

If not:

Can I automate it?

We tend to jump immediately to:

How can I do this faster?

But sometimes the fastest way to do something is to stop doing it altogether.

And if it actually needs to happen, that doesn’t automatically mean you need to be the person doing it.

Technology can handle repetitive work.

Another person may be able to handle something better or faster.

Some tasks exist only because we’ve never questioned why we’re still doing them.

Before optimizing a task, question whether the task deserves to exist.

6. Stop Saying Yes Automatically

Every yes costs time.

That’s easy to forget because the cost usually comes later.

Someone asks you to do something on Tuesday and you say yes.

It takes two seconds.

Tuesday comes around and suddenly that two-second yes costs you three hours.

That doesn’t mean you become selfish or never help anyone.

Relationships matter. Helping people matters. Experiences matter.

Sometimes saying yes to something unexpected becomes one of the best memories of your life.

The point isn’t to say no to everything.

It’s to understand what you’re actually exchanging.

When you say yes to one thing, you’re often saying no to something else.

So I’ve learned to be more intentional with both words.

No protects your priorities.

Yes creates experiences.

You need both.

7. Stop Overplanning Instead of Doing

Planning can become procrastination wearing a suit.

You organize your calendar.

Rewrite your goals.

Change your productivity system.

Research another app.

Make a better spreadsheet.

Watch a video about productivity.

And somehow the thing you actually wanted to accomplish still hasn’t moved.

I love systems.

AND You most definitely should write down your goals and desires so you know what you’re aiming for.

But eventually the system has to produce action.

A mediocre plan that you execute will usually take you further than the perfect productivity system you spend three weeks designing.

I’ve learned to build enough structure to know what I’m doing and then start.

You can improve the system while you’re using it.

You don’t have to solve your entire life before taking the next step.

8. Stop Filling Every Empty Space in Your Calendar

This one matters to me more and more.

If becoming better at time management simply results in you adding more work, you haven’t really gained any freedom.

You just became more efficient at filling your life.

Your calendar shouldn’t be packed from the moment you wake up until the moment you go to sleep.

There should be room for things that don’t produce measurable results.

Going somewhere.

Seeing someone.

Working out.

Taking a walk.

Trying something new.

Sitting outside.

Thinking.

Being bored.

Living.

I’ve said before:

Your calendar should build your life—not replace it.

I think that’s one of the most important principles in time management.

Because the point of getting better at managing your time isn’t to create the world’s most optimized calendar.

It’s to create a life you actually want to experience.

9. Stop Waiting Until Later to Live

This might be the biggest one.

We live in this perpetual infinite cycle of someday, of always preparing.

Once I graduate high school, I’ll go to college. Once I graduate college, I’ll get a job. Once I get the job, I’ll get a raise. Once I get a raise, I’ll retire and take that vacation I always wanted. HA!!!!

It’s easy to build your entire life around some future point.

Here are some more for you’re metal masturbation:

I’ll enjoy myself when the business succeeds.

I’ll travel when I have more money.

I’ll slow down when I reach this goal.

I’ll spend more time with people when things aren’t so busy.

I’ll start living once everything is finally in place.

There will always be another goal.

Another problem.

Another project.

Another reason to wait.

I want to build things. I want to accomplish things. I want financial freedom. I want to keep growing.

But I don’t want to wake up one day and realize I spent the majority of my life preparing to eventually live it.

That’s why I don’t see productivity and living your best life as opposites.

Oliver Burkeman makes this exact case in Four Thousand Weeks, the average human life is only about four thousand weeks long, and once you actually sit with that number, chasing infinite productivity stops making sense.

If you’re thinking that I don’t know your life and struggle. I don’t. I know mine. My excuses don’t benefit me, nor do your excuses benefit you either.

I think good productivity should make living a good life possible. Living your life INTENTIONALLY.

Work intensely when it’s time to work.

Build systems that make life easier.

Prepare for your future.

Pursue ambitious goals.

But don’t forget that your life is happening while you’re building it

10. Set Your Non-Negotiables

Set your minimum non-negotiables.

As long as you cross it out, the consistency over the long run will bring tremendous results.

For me, Health, Wealth, Fun & Experiences, Learning, and a clean environment are my non negotiables.

MY 5 MINUTES RULE

I spend:

5 minutes going over my finances.

5 minutes working out.

5 minutes of reading.

5 minutes of cleaning.

5 minutes of reaching out and planning hangouts

Its that simple.

I’m one of those people I described above of perpetual prepareness. So, making sure I make time for going out is important to me so I make the time to reach out and plan.

Depending on my finances and what I can afford, I still get to plan experiences and bond with the people I love.

Once the 5 minutes are over for each non-negotiable, I can stop or I can keep going but I know that consistently every day, 5 minutes turn into great moments.

Its usually easier to keep going after the time is up, but I also don’t push it. I want to relax and decide what else I want to do with my time.

Work will be there, and I’ll show up. My non negotiables are my responsibility, and 5 minutes at a time are changing my life.

Stop Managing Time Just to Do More

There’s nothing wrong with wanting to become more productive.

I do.

I want to become better at focusing, planning, making decisions, building systems, and using my time intentionally.

But I don’t want the reward for becoming more productive to be more work.

I want the reward to be freedom.

If I can accomplish something in three hours that used to take me six, I don’t automatically want to find three more hours of work.

Maybe I want those three hours back.

That’s the part of time management I think we sometimes miss.

The goal isn’t to perfectly optimize every minute of your existence.

It’s to become intentional enough that fewer of those minutes disappear into things that don’t matter.

So when you’re trying to improve your time management, don’t only ask:

What should I be doing?

Ask:

What can I stop doing?

and

Why am I really doing this for?

Because sometimes the fastest way to create more time isn’t figuring out how to do more.

It’s deciding what no longer deserves a piece of your life.

Save time not so you can work more—but so you can live more.

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