Genre: Opinion/Argumentation

Sounds like a pretty grim thing, doesn't it: "wasting your time." When you read the words, you may have felt assaulted, attacked or even belittled, but that is not the point of this article. We are not here to talk about your greater purpose, but instead the far more practical and tangible aspects of wasted time that happen every day in your own office, at your own desk, even if you are the most dedicated and devoted employee or worker imaginable. There are many ways that you can waste time without even knowing it. For example, research indicates that 28 percent of most work days is spent recovering from unnecessary interruptions. That does not even include the time that you spend dealing with the interruption. Work at home by yourself? You are probably still not immune if you take calls or check email throughout the day without a schedule. Every time you move away from the project at hand to deal with something else, you will require time to "recover" your focus after you return to the project. As a result, scheduling your interruptions as much as possible can save you some serious time. For example, only answer the phone and check messages once an hour (unless it is an emergency). The same can go for emails. Many of us check our email every time we see a new one pop into our box, and, let's be honest, most of the time that email is not that important. However, you still have left your focus and will need time to recover it even if the email was nothing more than a pizza coupon or your daily recipe suggestion. Set a time for checking email and keep the box closed in the interim. You will save yourself a surprising large amount of wasted time and get things done much faster. You are probably also wasting a lot of time looking for information. Now, this may or may not be an area that you can resolve immediately. The fact of the matter is that many jobs -- particularly VA jobs -- require you to access a wide variety of information that you may or may not have on hand. As you learn the ropes, refine your search tactics so that you can find information more quickly, and bookmark or store important web pages and facts where you do not have to look for them -- even if you just were searching your emails. This will save you time and frustration, since nearly 50 percent of the time information searches do not yield results. As you can see, just implementing these tiny changes could easily result in major time gains in your day. Make yourself more productive -- and save that wasted time for things that you would rather be enjoying or doing after your work is completed -- by honing in on your wasted time and finding ways to start using it effectively.