In everyday life, minutes slip from our hands like sand slipping through our fingers. There are few things that discourage one as much as wasting time. Because time is not only money, timing is everything. And, at the end of the day, all or almost all of us wish that this one had lasted 30 or 35 hours. Or more. 24 were never enough, especially when we have to dedicate about eight to sleep and another eight to work.
Even more exasperating is learning that the average person in the world wastes a staggering 26 days a year doing nothing, almost two hours a day. A study pointed out that where we waste the most time is waiting while we talk on the phone. Another 45% indicated that waiting in the lines of the stores and another 44% in traffic jams. 15% of adults said they lose track of time while waiting for the coffee or tea pot to be ready.
Few things are more depressing than calculating how much time we waste each day, like knowing that you will spend a third of your life sleeping, almost a decade looking at the mobile or four months deciding what to watch on Netflix or HBO. This study by the Maryland and Delaware Enterprise University Partnership (MADEUP) transferred this dynamic to working life, to the time lost performing banal tasks at work.
To do this, they surveyed the time use of 5,000 office workers in the United States and the United Kingdom, and then the researchers extrapolated these figures to obtain a lifetime estimate of “weighted total worthlessness” (WTF). English) that could have been better spent.
It will surprise many that where we waste the most time as workers is correcting typographical errors, something that takes an average of 20 minutes a day, the equivalent of 180 days, or half a year, during a 45-year career. According to The Economist, among the most common examples of typos are “out” when we meant to put “greetings”, or “an arm” where “a hug” should go. In English the most common are “thnaks”, followed by “teh”, “yuo” and “remeber”.
Another of the great black holes of time is found in computer security. Up to 145 days lost by the average worker logging in during their working life, as well as so many more months trying to remember passwords, entering them incorrectly or updating them. Not only that, but rejecting repeated requests to schedule computer updates is another part of our existence that will never come back. And what about closing pop-up ads or trying to pause the autoplay video.
Then there is the field of organization. Carrying out tasks focused on ordering our workspace absorbs more than four months of the life of a worker. The most common: delete emails (six weeks of your life)clicking through Slack channels to read messages that aren’t meant for you, or clearing mobile notifications—more of the same.
The list goes on and on. Coordinating meeting agendas that will later be cancelled: another month. Waiting for people to repeat things because you mistakenly muted your Zoom or Google Meets app: a fortnight. Spending hours composing an email and then leaving it in the drafts folder: two days. Everything counts.
And studies like this show that technology is at the heart of this wasted time. However, the truth is that what she saves us is much more. What would our lives be like without the technology we now have? Even slower and much more tedious. Or is it that whole days were not lost for the letter in turn to reach the addressee? With WhatsApp this takes less than a second.