Gratitude makes ordinary life harder to waste.

Waste happens through inattention rather than through bad choices. Ordinary days pass unregistered, and unregistered time is functionally time you did not have. Gratitude works against that by making the day visible while you are inside it, which is the only point at which anything can be done with it.

Try ending the day by naming two specific things that actually happened, not categories but details. It takes a minute and it noticeably reduces the sense that weeks are disappearing without contents.