8 Common Time Management Problems

2019-02-15

Time management is a very crucial aspect—in all areas of our lives. Did you know: Investing 10 to 12 minutes in planning your day will save you at least two hours of wasted time & effort throughout the day? Interesting, right?

 

Unfortunately, many of us have all the facts and we know what we must do to be productive, but what exactly is stopping us? There are a number of factors that contribute towards us missing deadlines or just simply being unproductive.

 

If we’re honest we’ll find ourselves guilty of one or more of the following negative habits that “steal” our time.

 

How Early do You Start Your Day?

 

You’ll be amazed how waking up bright and early will positively contribute towards effective time management. Not only will you have more time to complete your daily tasks but they’ll be done well.

Starting your day late will just cause you to be rushed and overwhelmed throughout. So the next time you wonder why you don’t have enough hours in a day—track it back to the time you woke up.

 

A number of factors may cause you to start your day late. These include:

• Not setting an alarm
• Snoozing your alarm
• Sleeping late

 

Failing to Set Targets

Now that you’ve woken up early, do you have a clear action plan of what you’re going to do during the day?

 

Most people don’t write down to do lists. Tackling your daily tasks in a haphazard manner is detrimental to your productivity. Not only does it slow you down but you’re bound to miss a couple of important tasks.

 

Make use of systematic data templates to clearly state your targets for the day, week, month and even year. This way you’re aware of the goal and consequently allocate your time wisely depending on the task at hand.

 

No Clear Set of Priorities

Setting targets goes hand in hand with prioritizing. Ask yourself this: Which one is the most important task? Which one has the closest deadline?

 

Answering these questions will show you what needs to be done first and why. If you don’t prioritize you’ll spend the day occupying your time with low value tasks. As a result you’ll miss out on the high value and more important tasks. This will result in unnecessary rescheduling or missing of deadlines.

 

Ineffective Scheduling

Sure, you might have a clear action plan and list of priorities but how efficient is your scheduling system? Your productively level is only as efficient as this guideline.

 

Is it organized and logical?

 

This daily tasks gets even more challenging when you have to organize others’ schedules as well. Site managers may have whole teams to monitor. Luckily, there’s an app for that: Use advanced tech such as the Serfy platform to help manage your entire workforce, on an off site.

 

Procrastinating

Did you know that most people are good at setting priorities and targets? They may even go as far as employing the best scheduling system. The real problem starts when it’s time for execution.

 

Implementing the above mentioned practices is commonly hindered by procrastination. And yes, it indeed is the thief of time. When you procrastinate you never get around to doing what you said you’d do—actually what you know you must be doing. This may be because of the following factors:

• Making excuses: You’ll come up with a number of “reasons” why you can’t complete a particular task. It can be anything from “I have no inspiration” or the famous,” I’ll do it later”.
• Miscalculating task completion time: Statistics have shown people normally take twice as much time to complete a task than they expect. This behaviour trait is common among A- type personalities who feel they have everything under control. By the time they get to actually doing the task it’ll be too late. So change your planning according to this to have realistic timelines.
• Too much work: If you perceive a task to be too big you’ll spend most of your time psyching yourself up to doing it rather than actually doing it. End result—you’re out of time. Breaking down the amount of work will definitely help curb this.

 

Multitasking

So you’ve gotten around to actually doing your tasks but are you doing them one at a time or all at once? Unfortunately most people assume multitasking equates proficiency. Sadly that’s not the case. On the contrary studies have shown that multitasking often causes productivity to drop by approximately 40%.

 

Because you’re not concentrating one a particular task, the following may result:

• Multi tasking often prevents you from giving equal attention to all your tasks
• It takes up more of your time than if you complete your tasks in a logical sequence
• Production of substandard work

 

Are you Managing Distractions?

 

 

We live in a digital world. Though it’s deemed to be a progressive era, the amount of time you spend on the internet can be counter-productive.

 

Whether it’s browsing the internet or attending to endless emails and phone calls, this is time that could’ve been used elsewhere.

 

This not only refers to digital distractions but your home environment as well. Approximately 38% of employees work from home. Distractions such as watching television will greatly interrupt your workflow as well as break the creative flow.

 

Are You Skipping Breaks?

It’s clear from the above that every second counts if you want to be productive. While this may be true, taking this statement too literally will be to your disadvantage.

 

Here’s why: A well rested and refreshed mind is more productive than a tired & stressed one. Unfortunately some people skip their tea and lunch breaks in an effort to get the job done.

 

According to studies, our brains are simply not programmed to function & focus effectively for eight hours straight. A tired mind will just result in endless mistakes which will just prolong the time you take to complete a particular task.

 

So the next time you think of forfeiting that lunch break—think again.

 

Final Thoughts

It’s clear your biggest enemy in managing your time is yourself. Now that you have the facts, are you going to eliminate these time detractors?  Take the first step today. The clock is ticking.