How good are you in managing your time? Time management is a common problem. If you are like many people wondering where does their time go, this article is for you. Not managing time may make you feel overloaded and you’ll often have to work late to hit your deadlines. Or maybe you’ll feel like your days going from one crisis to another, this is demoralizing.

So you might be knowing that you have to manage your time more effectively to be more productive, but it can not be possible until you know the time management mistakes that you’re making and know how you could improve.

When we manage our time well, we’re exceptionally productive at work, and we are less stressful. Much of the time can be given to other high-rewarding projects making a really big difference to a career.

There is no doubt that we all commit mistakes, both, in our personal and professional lives. One mistake that most people commit is not working on their time management skills.

We are taught a lot of theories, principles, and laws in school, but hardly any school teaches time management techniques. One needs to make self-efforts to learn, “How not to make time management mistakes.”

“The great dividing line between success and failure can be expressed in five words: I don’t have time.” — Franklin Field

What is Time Management?

The process that we follow to plan and control the time spent on activities is called time management. The more scheduled your life is, the more productive you are. An organized life means lower stress levels and high energy.

Time Management includes:

• Effective Planning
• Setting deadlines
• Delegation of responsibilities
• Setting goals and objectives
• Task prioritization
• Spending the right time on the right activity

Wasting time costs a lot more than wasting money. Lack of time management techniques might not bring a huge difference in your life in the beginning, but the results get intense sooner or later, especially at work. Having strong time management skills can make you an efficient worker.

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Time Management Issues At Work

Facing time management problems in the workplace is common. According to the latest research, 70% of employees work on weekends even after working long hours. It affects their health, productivity, and relationships.

Most of us have been in the mess of time management many times in our lifetime. Despite our best efforts to organize time, stay on top of our schedule and successfully complete tasks, things may still go out of control. So take some time to identify the root of your time management problem.

What are you doing wrong and where is your time slipping away? Let’s take a look at common mistakes that disturb your workflow and see how you can stay top on time management.

“Lack of direction, not lack of time, is the problem. We all have twenty-four hour days.”- Zig Ziglar

Here is a list of time management mistakes that one should get away with to put the entire day into use.

1. Being Stuck In The Past & Future

Sometimes it becomes difficult to get something out of the head. Life is a cycle, time is cyclical. There is no point in regretting. The best thing is to leave the past in the past. Being caught in the past or in the future correlates with worse mental health. We usually regret the decisions made in the past and worry about the future.

Time is ticking away. Focusing on the present moment brings more satisfaction in life. Utilizing the time to its maximum extent increases the chances of success. According to recent research, people who focus on the present and are satisfied in life tend to ruminate less on negative events. It helps to concentrate on positive things. Hence, living in the turmoil of memories and past events should be a big no.

2. Not Taking Technology Along

Being afraid to embrace change is another common mistake. Many people do things manually or in traditional ways rather than upgrading themselves to use technology. Using an antiquated approach to work kills time.

In modern times, being digital is an important element of success. It is the technology that runs our lives today. There are many resources and tools to make our lives easier. For example, using project management tool at the workplace is the trend. It is the approach followed by well-reputed companies nowadays. The tools help in smooth workflow management, task dependencies, setting time estimates, tracking time, using annotations for proofing, all come in one place.

3. No Well-planned Work Schedule

Overlooking the importance of making a timetable to manage projects is another mistake committed by many. Your task list might include assigning tasks to the team members, finding a substitute for a task, scheduling their shifts, managing all the work done, etc. For all the tasks to take place at their correct time, you need to make a suitable timetable for the same.

You can create a timetable fast by defining the deadlines of the activities, setting priorities, determining dependencies and setting time estimates, etc. For this, you can also use Gantt charts. Gantt chart software helps to visualize tasks in a timeline view, measure the progress of the project, see task dependencies, give more clarity about the project, etc. You can yield various benefits of using Gantt charts in your next project. Know how to use Gantt chart like a pro.

4. Making No Efforts to Get Over Procrastination

New joke definition of procrastination: The action of ruining your life for no apparent reason

Procrastination is the thief of time. It is very easy to hum and haw before doing any task. The matter of concern is that one knows they should not procrastinate still they do. Completing a task at an eleventh-hour doesn’t always reap fruitful results. Gradually, it becomes a habit to wait until the last moment to do a task. The habit of procrastinating seeds in other important parts of life as well.

“Don’t be fooled by the calendar. There are only as many days in the year as you make use of. One man gets only a week’s value out of a year while another man gets a full year’s value out of a week.” — Charles Richards

It is important to see every moment valuable. The habit of utilizing every minute of the day can help you reach success zenith. To say no to procrastination you need to be self-disciplined, prodigious and determined to complete the task at hand. When you start taking care of your minutes, your hours take care of themselves. Moreover, you become more productive when you manage your time better.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, the great composer, was a great procrastinator too. He had not written the overture for Don Giovanni even one night before the opera.

5. Absence Of Vision In Life

Now, the big question, have you thought about what you want from life in the future? The answer to this question will help you know whether you have a vision in your life.

If you are not able to answer it, then you need to be more visionary. You need to envision something solid for yourself and for the future of the company. Also, you need to check if you have an engaged and dedicated team to achieve this vision.

“The worst kind of poverty is the poverty of vision”- Onyi Anyado.

Time management tip: Before you strive to get a vision, check for the context. The vision created without keeping in mind the context of times can produce erratic results because vision is impacted by the context of the times.

6. All Work And No Play

Sitting in front of the laptop screen, doing work all day long and not participating in fun activities is another mistake. According to me, it is no less than a sin. If you’re in over your head and you run away from social gatherings or other mind-rejuvenating activities, then your productivity might be dripping down. In such a situation, even simple tasks consume a lot of time.

Work and recreation both are important in life. One should have a balance. To relax one’s mind, some recreational and leisure activities are required to be added in the daily routine. Activities like going for an outing, hacking, get-togethers with family and friends motivate the brain to improve and get better. Also, such activities reinvigorate a mind and increase productivity at work. Hence, work can be completed in a shorter duration of time.

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7. Practicing Things The Wrong Way

Again, this point also reflects the importance of having a vision in life. You might have noticed that despite practicing a task time and again, you haven’t still mastered it. One reason is that you might not have focused on getting it right. Your focus might be just on getting it done while practicing.

Everything we learn, it rewires our brain. Various portions of the brain are activated when one practices something. The brain has to coordinate many complex actions while learning something new. So, it is important to take care of what you practice. Getting things done the right way is more important than just getting them done. Success takes successful actions.

The steps to do things the right way:

1. Imagine how your most productive day would be.
2. Write an action plan.
3. Bar yourself from negative emotions and train your brain to focus on the right perspectives of the task.
4. Take any action keeping in mind the end result.
5. Analyze your performance after every task.

8. Multitasking All The Time

Multitasking is considered to be an effective time management tip by many but not all know the science behind doing multiple activities. Our brain is wired to do a single activity at a single time. So, trying to focus it to do multiple tasks at one time sometimes does not prove to be a time-saving action. Also, multitasking makes us feel clogged and bogged down with mental clutter.

Answering constant emails and phone calls along with doing other tasks like creating timesheets for the tasks done by your team is not a good choice to make. It directly hits our productivity, decreases the concentration level, overloads information and enhances disorganization. Hence, it wastes a lot of time.

9. Not Doing The Most Difficult Task First

Do you often push your stressful and painful tasks until the end of the day? Do you find yourself doing most of the work during the last working hours of the day? It implies that you are one of those individuals who don’t stack the tough tasks up in their to-do list.

Brian Tracy has explained this concept very beautifully in his book Eat That Frog. In the book, he has described the importance of doing the hardest and the biggest task before doing the easy ones. There is a psychological fact behind this. Every individual wants to finish on a good note even if required to begin with a weak note (doing tough tasks in the morning here means weak notes.) Also, the thought of doing that difficult task retains in the mind for long till the end of the day. Hence, it gives rise to procrastination and frustration. As a result, one ends up not doing that task at all most of the time. So, keeping the tough tasks before the easier ones in the time table is the way out.

10. Failing to Manage Numerous Distractions

Social media platforms and a variety of communication channels are the main cause of distraction we face in life and at work. Though these platforms allow us to stay updated somewhere it distracts us. So it is important to know ways to minimize distractions and manage interruptions effectively. You should learn to stay focused and improve your concentration when there are more chances of being distracted.

Whether it’s the phone or notifications that you keep getting from social media groups, it breaks our creative process. And so time management becomes a problem. Until you manage your distractions, your time management will be an issue. Schedule time free from interruptions and minimize the time you spend on things. Remember what your goals are and what you’re aiming for to focus and eliminate distractions.

Time management techniques to minimize distractions and get work done.

• Identify priorities
• Set aside a chunk of time
• Choose one thing to work on at a time
• Use a timer: manual or automatic (Like ProofHub time tracking tool)
• Block yourself from social media

11. Failing to Keep a To-Do List

Are you not in the habit of keeping track of what you need to get done through a detailed to-do list? This will make you spend more time going through emails, reaching over meeting notes, and constantly reaching out to someone to know what you have to do.

Setting your to-do list on ProofHub will always keep you on top of things. You can set priorities on your list according to the important pieces of your work. You’ll always know what you have to do, everything you need to do, and you’ll not have the fear of forgetting something. In the case of large projects, you will need a to-do list. Just break your large tasks down to small steps, making sure nothing is overlooked, asses the value of each task, and set it down on your to-do list. This will make you have clarity over your workflow always.

12. Trying to be a Perfectionist

It is commendable to give your best input in every task, but you should never make a run for achieving perfection in everything you do. I am saying this because the existence of perfectionism is limited only to words, and there’s no such thing in the real world. Moreover, when you are working on tight schedules and you have an unbreakable bond with deadlines, you always have to race against time, and looking for perfection is not an option at all.

It’s impractical, and at the same time, a bad decision to search for perfection at work. The worst thing about trying to lead every assignment to perfection is that a lot of time gets wasted in pushing things from ‘better to ‘best’. Consequently, it will eat up the time allotted for other tasks and you may stand on the verge of missing deadlines. To be good at time management, it’s better if you stay away from the idea of perfectionism.

13. Skipping (the much-needed) Short Breaks

I know taking multiple breaks in a day sounds a bit odd considering we are talking about time management. However, taking short breaks of 5–10 minutes at regular intervals can help you focus on your work and become more productive. It’s hard to get good output when working straightforwardly for several hours without any breaks.

You can leverage a short break to relax your brain as well as the body by doing activities like — going for a quick walk, doing some stretching exercises, meditating, and eating snacks. Additionally, you can also do nothing and relax on your office chair during the break. This will help you to divert yourself from work and after the break is over, you will be able to concentrate better on your task. And it goes without saying that you can do more in less time when you are laser-focused on your work.

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Bottom Line

Here you’ve learned “What are the greatest time management challenges?” along with their respective solutions. The ball is in your court now. Identify your weak areas and take further actions wisely. The better you manage your time, the better leader you become. You can use time tracking apps to know where your time goes and analyze how you end up your day. Keep yourself in check.

What are the activities you do that waste your time? Think and share. Leave your answers in the comment section.

If you enjoyed this…

Read the other articles:

1. 9 Super Easy Time Management Tips For Entrepreneurs To Tackle The Clock
2. 10 Excellent Tips To Skyrocket Your Time Management Skills
3. The Importance of Improving Your Time Management Skills

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