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Happiness

How Not to Waste Your Life: 29 Things To Stop Doing

Written by Tegan Jones
Tegan is a passionate journalist, writer and editor. She writes about lifestyle tips on Lifehack.

The modern world is fast paced and time often seems to slip by with us barely noticing. It’s for that reason that it’s important that we don’t spend time or attention on things that are frivolous, negative or just plan stupid. Check out our comprehensive guide to things you shouldn’t be wasting your time on, and see if there’s anything on this guide that you can cut out of your life.

1. Putting Makeup on for the gym and sports

It looks weird and it’s only going to melt off, which negates the purpose of putting it on in the first place.

2. Hitting ‘snooze’

Get your lazy butt out of bed. You set your alarm for a legitimate reason.

3. Constantly refreshing Facebook

Try living life rather than waiting for an acquaintance to update you on how their lunch is going.

4. Doing things you hate

Life is far too short to waste your time on doing something you hate. By that, I mean doing unnecessary things. You should probably still wash up and whatnot.

5. Checking your phone constantly

Did you hear your message tone? Did it ring? If you answered ‘no’ to either of those questions, put the phone down and back away slowly. No, you don’t need it when you go to the bathroom.

6. Dwelling on problems

In the immortal words of Vanilla Ice, “If there was a problem. Yo, I’ll solve it.” Instead of wasting time by dwelling on a problem, work out what you can do to fix it.

7. Worrying

It’s similar to above. Stop worrying and start working towards a solution.

8. Caring what others think

Unless you’re getting good advice from people you love, disregard it. It doesn’t matter what other people think of you, you need to stay true to yourself. Don’t waste your time, thoughts, and energy on what others think. Be proud to be yourself.

9. Staying online late into the night

It’s not only a waste of time now, but will probably result in you sleeping half the day away tomorrow, or being unproductive at work or school. There’s nothing so important that you need to stay online for it until 3 am. No, not even Tumblr.

10. Celebrity culture

Stop giving a flying spaghetti monster about the Krapdashians, or how you look compared to the entirety of Hollywood. They’re all Photoshopped. Thighs are supposed to touch.

11. Procrastinating

Just do it.

12. Playing romantic games

You can waste years not telling someone how you feel out of fear. Grow a pair of ovaries and tell them. If they’re not digging it, at least you’ll have the chance to move on. If they feel the same the only regret you’ll have is the days, weeks, and months you could have already had together.

13. Feeding the Trolls

It’s what they want. Stop before you go into a rage blackout.

14. Photographing everything

Instead of trying to document your life, live it. The internet will actually survive without the bathroom selfie of you and a ham sandwich, or whatever it is that you’re into.

15. Holding Grudges

Life’s too short! Forgive and be positive.

16. Complaining

Complaining really won’t get you anywhere, and the only person who it’s hurting is you. Start thinking positively. Figure out how to make your life more complaint-free.

17. Eating Out of Boredom

This kind of eating is a bad idea all-around. If you’re bored, it means you’re wasting time. Find something productive to do. Put some work in towards a goal or a dream. These would be much better uses of your time than visiting the fridge for the seventh time this hour.

18. Waiting for something to happen

The world isn’t going to wait for you. Go after what you want.

19. Constantly updating your status

This is not living. No one cares that your left flip flop broke on the way to the bin.

20. Indecision

Indecision often stems from fear. Deep down, you’re likely to know what decision you want to make.

21. Hanging around negative people

The people in your life shouldn’t be a constant stream of negativity. Give them the figurative (or even literal) bird, and find some positive people to spend time with. You’ll feel a whole lot happier and enjoy life more.

22. Watching TV

A little TV is okay, but it shouldn’t be the center of your universe. Instead of watching other people have adventures, have some of your own.

23. Watching Reality TV

If you’re watching TV, make it something halfway decent. Don’t waste your time with frivolous half-scripted crap that networks pump out so they don’t have to pay real writers. Avoid the bottom shelf stuff. There’s too many great shows out there.

24. Pinning things

Stop day-dreaming of amazing things on Pinterest, and start doing them.

25. Brands

All that expensive crap you covet really isn’t that special, despite the heinous price tag. They’re likely to be exploiting just as many third-world children as the cheap labels. Get over brand name obsession and spend your time and money on something worthier.

26. Gossip

I know it can be juicy and kind of fun, but it really gets you nowhere.

27. Unrequited love

This can be one of the hardest things to let go of, but you simply must. Unrequited means that you probably know that they’re not interested. Why waste your time on that when you can be working on being happy? When you find the right person for you, you’ll lament all the wasted time spent on someone who didn’t care.

28. Popping pimples

Do you really want to end up like the crater-faced guy from Grease? I didn’t think so.

29. Being glued to your phone

Not only does this make you miss the world going on around you, it’s also just plain rude in a social situation.

Featured photo credit: Sixteen Miles Out via unsplash.com