When it comes to spending our time and attention, “waste” comes in (at least) three forms:

opportunity cost

This is the underlying factor of all forms of time waste. This is what we feel when, after spending time in one manner, we retrospectively feel like we would have derived greater gain from doing something else.

net negative experience

This has to do with the residual emotional effect of an experience. Even if we achieve the greatest ROI from our time, if we are left with a negative feeling about it, we will probably still consider our time better spend elsewise.

unmet expectations

And further, even if our time yielded a positive gain and a net positive emotional experience, still, if we feel the experience fell short of the expected or promised experience, we may nonetheless consider it to have been a waste based solely on the prospect of an imagined opportunity cost which has been left unrealized.

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Admittedly, “waste” is just as subjective of a judgement as “value” is, but understanding and keeping in mind these three aspects of attentional waste can help us to mitigate as much of it as possible when developing our content.