Procrastination Cost Calculator
Find out how much your daily procrastination costs in salary terms over a year.
worth of paid time spent not working, per year (9% of each day)
At this rate, procrastination is your most consistent work habit.
Ok, so I wonder how much my procrastination costs me. Let's see if I can work it out. Be honest, I probably lose around 45 minutes a day to scrolling, tea and "just checking" things. That's about 9% of my working day.
On a salary of $60,000, that's about $28.85 an hour. So 45 minutes of that is $21.63, and over 250 working days it comes to $5,408.65 a year.
That's $108 a week. More than I thought.
What if I halved it? I'd get back 93.8 hours and $2,704 a year.
I'd never put a price on it before. It never feels like much in the moment, but it adds up.
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Everybody loses some of the working day to things that are not work. Enter your salary and roughly how long that is each day, and see what that time is worth over a year. It is not about guilt, it is about seeing the size of it.
How it's worked out
- Your hourly pay is your yearly salary divided by 52 weeks of 40 hours.
- A day is your hourly pay times the minutes lost, divided by 60.
- A year is a day times the working days. The share of your day is the minutes lost divided by an 8-hour day.
On $60,000 a year, 45 minutes a day is worth $21.63 a day. Over 250 working days that is $5,408.65, or 9.4% of an 8-hour day.
Common mistakes
- Counting every minute you are away from work. Short breaks help most people think, so count only the time you wish you had back.
- Using the number to feel bad. Use it to decide which one habit to change.
- Guessing from your worst day. Think about a normal one.
Questions
Is procrastination always a problem?
Not always. Breaks improve focus, and some degree of non-task time is normal and healthy. The tool is not making a moral judgement. It is just doing the maths.
What counts as procrastination?
Whatever you want it to. Time spent avoiding the thing you are supposed to be doing. Reading this is probably a reasonable estimate of the concept.
Does this mean I am losing that money?
No. You are paid the same either way. The figure shows what that time is worth at your pay rate, so you can see how big it is.
How do I estimate how much time I lose?
Think about a normal day, not your worst one. Add up the time you spend on things that are not work, and enter the total in minutes.
Since you're already here.