A 2015 research by Tabitha Kiriti, for UNCTAD, describes Kenyan women as “time-poor.” On average, Kenyan men work 8.2 hours a day while women work 12.9 hours a day.
This is attributed to the dual work that women do; in the workplace and at home. Therefore, it is important that women in Kenya manage their time better if they wish to be more productive. Still, other ways kenyan women find themselves short of time is through unashamed laziness and wasting time without even knowing it.
Today, we’re only going to help you with the latter. Here are 7 ways you waste time everyday without knowing:
1. Heavy Meals
Seriously, why do you have to eat to your fill like that? It’s not good for the productive use of your time. When you eat a heavy lunch you feel exhausted in the afternoon, right? It’s because your body prioritizes digestion and all your blood go to your guts. So you get less work done. Also, a heavy supper is bad for waking up early. You deny your body its night rest. A contested fact is that heavy night meals make you fat because your tired body opts to do less digestion and converts food to fat.
2. Internet
When have you ever gone online and not ended up in a rabbit hole? When you’re distracting yourself with regular old browsing, social media and back-and-forth emails you lose the time to accomplish the simple tasks in your day. Instead, you should check your mail during the breaks in your day and avoid the other two until the end of your workday.
3. Multitasking
Stop praising your ability to multitask, it’s actually one of the ways you waste your time. An understanding of chronomics reveals a lot about this. A great contrast is that of Northern Europeans/Americans and Africans. The former have a monochronic perception of time and typically do things one at a time. African perception is polychronic and we typically do more than one thing at a time; like the M-Pesa attendant talking to you and writing your ID number down. This also goes with less value placed on punctuality and time in general.
4. Meetings
It doesn’t matter whether you hold your meetings standing. There is very little that is accomplished in meetings that cannot be done without it. These are just platforms for the loudest people in the room to shine. If you have power to convene meetings then prefer to not convene them. You will save more time this way.
5. No To-do List
Having a to-do list is a great way to build your discipline. Think of how you will feel if every end of your day you check your to-do list and you only get one or two items ticked off. This is where the “everyone has 24 hours” saying comes from. A to-do list not only instills discipline but also help you prioritize work therefore be much more productive and time-efficient.
6. No Routine
This is related to the above point. You must get into good routines to build a habit of saving time. Habit is the difference between productive and lazy people. One of these is getting the 5am advantage. Start structuring your day rigidly like your old school days and you will spend less time getting your work done.
7. Negativity
You know how this normally plays out. Every time you are complaining, being passive aggressive or murder people in your head ,you cloud your focus with all that bitterness. Therefore, you do not get as much done in the little time you’ve got.