The sorry state of work-place productivity

In my daily trolling through the internet, I came across this interesting infographic examining the reasons contributing to poor workplace productivity. I think you’ll find it interesting to scroll through (shown in its entirety below), and it hits all the highlights of “time wastage” — estimated total cost (to the US economy), average hours/week, biggest time wasters, internet surfing, our reasons for wasting time, etc.

For me, two sections jumped out and had me pondering what they really tell us: where we think we waste our time, and why we waste it. For “where”, the reasons given are: 47% — meetings; 43% — office politics; 37% — fixing others’ mistakes; 36% — annoying co-workers; 22% — busywork; 20% — tending to work emails; 18% — internet; 14% — dealing with bosses. For “why” we waste time, the survey says: 35% — not challenged enough; 34% — hours are too long; 32% — no incentive to work harder; 30% — unsatisfied with job; 23% — bored; 18% — underpaid.