The Top Time Wasters What are the biggest time wasters? Pace Productivity conducted surveys among 690 employees and entrepreneurs across North America. We asked two questions. The first was designed to find out what factors impede respondents' productivity that are outside of their control. The second is designed to find out how much people take responsibility for wasting their own time. Answers to the first question are more numerous, because many people wrote multiple responses. This is not the case with the second question. In fact the most common response to it is no response at all. Accepting personal responsibility is harder to do than blaming something else. Overall, both questions give a sense of the most pressing productivity issues. Only the top 15 responses for each question are noted here. What things, outside of your control, get in the way of your productivity? # of Responses Paperwork / administrative tasks Customer requests: service / problems / complaints Phone calls / phone interruptions / inquiries Computer / system / equipment problems No internal support / other departments' inefficiency Unspecified interruptions Traffic / travel Meetings - too many / too long / unnecessary Volume of work / not enough time Staffing issues / people absent Requests from peers / other departments Changing priorities / unplanned projects Fire fighting / emergencies Doing other people's jobs Customers without appointments 135 115 101 86 58 45 43 38 38 36 31 29 27 26 23 What things, within your control, get in the way of your productivity? # of Responses No response / nothing Paperwork / administrative tasks Interruptions by phone or in person Time management No focus / doing too many things / no prioritizing Procrastination Poor planning Socializing / gossip / breaks / calls to friends Customer requests / situations / complaints Lack of knowledge / training on products, duties Distractions / no discipline / daydreaming Not being organized Burnout / sickness / lack of concentration /stress Filing / inefficient personal filing Internal communications Doing others' work / being too helpful 91 71 52 44 40 33 30 30 28 28 27 18 14 14 14 13   More Research | Top of Page