Sometimes just the thought process that gets us to a conclusion is enough to apply to different situations. After watching a number of lockpicking videos on youtube that were mostly just "wasted" time I was faced with a problem at work where the company was too slow at fixing the med boxes so I'd end up providing patient meds too late because we'd have to ask for a maintenance person to come and fix it while I then request the pharmacy to send a whole set of new meds I can actually touch. A little looking around the box found a super big security flaw where the latch was unprotected and only kept in place by a spring so all I had to do is use a screwdriver, something we had a few of on the unit, and just push on the latch laterally as I pulled down and lo and behold the box was then opened in less time than it took for it to open correctly. I also didn't have to risk getting yelled at by my manager for propping it open, just had to make sure they didn't see me pick the lock.

Also there's no real thing as wasted time as long as you feel accomplished, this idea of laziness came about because bosses wanted another excuse to drive into people that didn't work to their fullest capacity to exploit their surplus value. We don't need to be productive at all times, the sigma grindset types say that if you're not learning a skill then you're wasting time, but sometimes just doing something for the sake of doing it is its own reward even if there is no big payoff.