A time waster is any activity that has a low ratio of benefit to time spent. Rather than trying to do these activities more efficiently, it is better to try to eliminate them.
Certain activities can expand to fill all your time. You can snap out of it by setting a time limit. Make self-imposed rules such as, "When I start to do [insert activity], I will set an alarm to remind me to stop 10 minutes from now."
Nothing makes it easier to resist temptation than a witness. Sharing an office with a coworker can eliminate any inclination to do nonwork activities while you're at work.
There are many time wasters in modern life: junk items on the to do list, email lists, chatrooms, nonwork discussions at work, unwanted salespeople and recruiters, manual processes that could be automated, and so on. Once identified, they can be eliminated.
At home, you can manage time wasters better by using a digital video recorder to manage your TV, "videos to rent" lists and Netflix so you spend less time wandering around video stores, and laundry and housecleaning services so you have more free time for fun.
Learning to install something that will only be installed once has limited payback. For complicated installations like centralized backup/restore systems, budgeting to have installation done by the vendor or VAR can be a significant win.
For a system administrator, the ultimate time waster is any task that could be eliminated if only you had time to build the infrastructure to make such busywork go away. In other words, the ultimate time management technique for a system administrator is a good IT infrastructure. By thinking strategically, you can eliminate tactical tasks over the long term. In other words, you can stop mopping the floor and fix the leaking faucet.
