5 Productive Uses of Waiting Time
September 1, 2024
By Joel Morgan
Welcome to Time Diamonds! This week, we discuss ways to turn waiting time into productive time.
If you joined our previous conversation TAKE 4 Steps to Arrive On Time, Every Time, you know that the discipline of consistently arriving on time will often result in your spending time waiting for someone else. While it’s easy to see this waiting time as wasted time, there are numerous ways that you can squeeze a lot of value out of that waiting time. Here are a few ideas:
1. Catch up on social media
In our previous discussion about Positive IDA (Immediate Decisive Action), we looked at the 2010 Basex study describing the loss of productivity from electronic distractions. Each distraction, say, a “quick check of Facebook”, can result in up to 20 minutes lost as we struggle to return to the original activity.
For many of us, though, checking social media is enjoyably entertaining and a valuable way to keep up with the life events of friends and family. If social media use is important to you, nothing wrong with that!
Instead of allowing social media use to distract you from other, arguably more important life events like work and actual face-to-face interaction, save it for your waiting time! Waiting for the meeting to start? Waiting for the person you’re meeting to show up? Catch up on your social media activity while you wait! In fact, this social media time can be a great psychological reward for the effort you’ve made to arrive early (and have waiting time) in the first place.
2. Learn something new
Many of us would like to learn something new, whether it’s an additional skill to enhance your career, or just a hobby you’d like to explore. Use your waiting time to add that new knowledge you’re looking for!
There are many great online learning resources available today. One free option is Khan Academy. While Khan Academy is best known as a resource for younger students, it can still offer amazing value if you’re an adult looking to brush up on knowledge you’ve forgotten (calculus, for example) or taking your first steps through the basics of a new subject (programming, economics, chemistry, etc).
Another great web learning resource is Udemy. Udemy courses, which typically cost $10 – $15 each, consist of a series of pre-recorded videos created by anyone who has something to teach. The video format can be especially helpful if you find that you’re someone who doesn’t learn well from text.
Udemy courses cover an extremely broad range of subjects, from programming languages to yoga to violin lessons! Once you buy a course, it’s available to you “for life”, so you can take it at whatever pace you want for as long as you want.
Because Khan Academy, Udemy, and other similar services are “go at your own pace”, they’re perfect for waiting time! Got 10 minutes before your appointment? Pull up the next lesson and learn something new!
3. Read interesting articles
Where in the world is Tuvalu? I asked myself this question recently when I learned that the “.tv” internet domain is actually owned by the Pacific island nation of Tuvalu!
Possessing unending curiosity can be both a blessing and a curse. The blessing comes in the form of constant learning leading to greater understanding. At the same time, the constant curiosity can cause productivity-reducing interruptions (see previous conversation about Positive IDA) due to our desire to answer questions immediately.
Is there a “curiosity question” that you’re just dying to answer? Instead of interrupting whatever you’re doing at the moment (which is often more important than the “burning question”), make a list of these questions (a mobile “notepad” app is perfect for this list), then plunge into them when you’re waiting for an appointment or meeting!
4. Read a book
Continuing the “reading” theme here, waiting time is a great opportunity to read a book! If you’ve adopted (or are willing to try) e-books, this can be an especially great option. With e-books, you can carry your entire library around with you in your mobile device, available at a moment’s notice when you find that you have waiting time!
While Amazon’s Kindle helped pave the way for e-books, there are other options available. For example, the OverDrive e-book app allows you to borrow e-books from the library! And Barnes & Noble’s Nook e-book resource offers an alternative to the Amazon Kindle service.
One of the best things about e-books is that you can buy / borrow and read them on your existing mobile device or even on your laptop / desktop computer! You don’t actually have to buy a Kindle or Nook to take advantage of e-book offerings Amazon and Barnes & Noble. You can simply buy the book and read it on your mobile device.
As with social media scrolling, your reading time can become a reward for the effort you made to arrive on time. Can’t wait to find out what happens next to your favorite character in the book? Make sure you have that next chapter ready for your waiting time. You may even be glad you had to wait!
5. Catch up / clean up email
Email, even “important” work-related email, can become one of our biggest time-wasters. A 2012 study by The Universiy of California at Irvine and the U.S. Army found that our “always on” email habits at work significantly reduce productivity and significantly increase stress. A related 2014 study conducted by the University of British Columbia found that a few scheduled email-management times over the course of a day reduce stress and increase productivity.
As part of establishing new habits when it comes to email, waiting time offers a great opportunity to catch up and clean up your email box! Even if you’re not able to take your work email with you through a mobile device, you can still catch up personal email during waiting time. Also, depending on your company’s email policies, you may be able to forward critical (or lengthy) work emails to your personal email box to read and consider during your waiting time.
And if you haven’t already established an effective folder system for your email box, waiting time can be a great time to get that started! Like storage boxes at home, email folders make a great place to store emails that you’ve already seen but aren’t ready to throw away.
When you find yourself with waiting time, check your emails, respond to the ones that need responses, then stash them in your email storage boxes and relieve the clutter in your in-box!
Turn Waiting Time Into Treasure Well-Spent!
Every moment of your life is a treasure. There’s no need to feel that waiting time is wasted treasure. Convert that waiting time to treasure well spent!
Got any other tips that might help the Time Diamonds community? We’d love to hear from you! Please leave your ideas in the comments below!