Mother Teresa once said, “Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin.”
This is the ultimate truth of life. Especially for those who want to work for themselves. Career-oriented people can easily relate to this quotation. In this fast-paced world, every possibility of success lies today. One time that is most valuable for us is the time we are in, neither yesterday nor tomorrow.
20 common time management mistakes
Here are 20 common mistakes people do in their time management journey, and I have shared some kick-ass methods to rectify those mistakes.
1.) Turn off notifications:
This is commonly the biggest mistake we do at our work. We get distracted by the non-stop notification sound of our phone or PC. Your entire day ends up eaten by telephone or email. The most disturbing point about this mistake is that we do not find it as a disturbance at all.
So we never really try anything to fix the mistake. You feel you're efficient by responding to the second a new communication comes in. But most of the time, you do not realize the cost of this instant communication technology usage.
What to do:
To rectify this mistake, learn to turn off notifications. Honestly, it does not much help to your work if you reply at the exact moment a phone call comes or emails you receive.
Send your calls to voicemail and turn off your email notification. Check your inbox once in the morning, once after lunch, and once more before you leave the office. You’ll be able to know of all the important issues as they come up. Also, you will still have time to get some real work done.
2.) Set priorities and goals:
Most people don’t realize the importance of planning tasks in order of priority. In most cases, we tempt with easier and less important activities. Then you feel not having enough time to finish harder ones. Those are usually more important and urgent to do.
What to do:
Remember that prioritize your work is the key to manage your time effectively. Setting your goals and knowing which work to do first increase your productivity at the workplace. Start analyzing your tasks and develop a clear plan for task prioritization and stick to it, no matter what happens. Start with priority first, and you will see a significant boost in your productivity as an employee.
3.) Don’t procrastinate:
Why do we save the works which will take longer to finish for later? Procrastinating means building a mountain of those works, which will take a longer time to finish. It becomes tougher to complete all of them later. Some of them will remain unfinished. What if those remaining unfinished tasks would have been most important for your career? Have you thought so ever before?
What to do:
Make a routine of all those tasks that will take longer and have no set deadlines. After finishing the rest of your day’s work, try to complete at least one of those tasks. Only this is how you will not get burdened under them.
4.) Break your time:
Sometimes, we have lots of work to do, and the deadlines of them are so nearby with each of them. What we do that we work and try to finish them one by one. Sometimes it does not help at all. Because we get running out of time to complete other jobs after a certain point of time.
What to do:
We must break our working time among them according to the task's hardships and importance. Allot a particular time for each work. Do your best within the time. When the allotted time is over, then you should shift to another work. This is how you can finish all of them at a fixed time.
5.) Keep your data separate:
We remain in such a hurry to beat the time that we end up mixing all the files and documents on your desk or PC. Which eventually costs us much time than before. And we again run behind our schedule.
What to do:
No matter how busy you are, do not mix your files up. Do not put your office documents in your personal folder. Do not mix the completed project documents with those still, need some corrections. Organizing is a virtue. It comes with practice. You become an organized person in both your personal and professional lives.
6.) Be an expert in technology:
It happens for those who are still not experts working in PC or with certain types of software. An office employee never is much more efficient and productive if he fights with system processing all his days.
What to do:
Learn and practice all the valuable software that you will work on in your office. Start from basics.
7.) Develop a routine:
I have seen some of my colleagues come to the office without even a routine of their duties. They feel so lost all day. Eventually, they waste their day by just wondering what to do next.
What to do:
Come with a planned routine. If you are an employee or an employer, you need to have a daily routine of your daily work. You will save a lot of time by not wondering about your work’s next step.
8.) Set boundaries:
Imagine, your boss has asked you for last month’s revenue report, and you bring him the whole year’s revenue report. It only costs you your time and your boss’s. It does not be any help to both of you.
What to do:
Every work has a boundary. Not understanding it will cost only your time. Understand the job. Then set your brain to work to the boundary. This is how you will be able not to waste your time.
9.) Use your calendar:
What is the date? Do I have a meeting with my client today? Do I forget lunch with the company’s board members? When you are not aware of the calendar of your appointments, you may spend your day wondering.
What to do:
Carry your calendar of appointments with you. Check for the next day’s meetings and to-do list before going to bed. Then you will miss none of them.
10.) Stop multitasking:
Trying to do many things at a time drains your energy. You even do not get the desired result. If you are working on a presentation, you can’t handle an interview. This is, for example, by the way.
What to do:
Take a single work in hand at a time. Give your best to finish it in the allotted time. Do not let multitasking coat your valuable office time.
11.) Shut Your Door:
How many times you find it hard to finish your work because you are receiving non-stop visitors. You get a non-stop distraction for that. Your efficiency and productivity level drops. When you again work, matching the previous level takes more time
What to do:
You can shut the door off to discourage interruptions. Obviously, this is not for all day long, but this is a useful technique when you really need to concentrate on your work for just a few more hours.
12.) Be Organized:
Some people have a hard time staying focused because they have a flooded desk with piles and stacks. Those distract them from the task at hand.
What to do:
Clear the clutter from your desk and other visible surfaces of your workplace. Put your finished project on the rack and ongoing, unfinished projects at the desk. Then only you can focus entirely. You will not lose your attention from what you are working on.
13.) Outsourcing:
Especially when you are the boss, or you run a business, then you try to be perfect at work by supervising every single detail yourself. It creates enormous work pressure, and you could not complete your everyday work.
What to do:
Learn to outsource. Keep faith in your team. Train them to work according to your vision of work.
14.) Social media engagement:
Checking your Facebook or Instagram may be a quick relief from work pressure. But not being careful enough can cost you hours from your work time.
What to do:
Make your apps sleep after 5 to 10 minutes of usage at your office time. You can use some technology.
15.) A few seconds matters:
There always have some smaller tasks to finish at our schedule. We neglect them to do later. After that, we forget them under other important visible work.
What to do:
When such a to-do crosses your path, ask yourself if you can complete it in a few seconds or not. If so, just finish it. You will have one less thing to worry about.
16.) Question Yourself:
We spend a few times in gossiping and politics in the office. These few moments become a few hours after months. This becomes a total waste of our time.
What to do:
Always ask yourself, “Is this the best use of my time at this exact minute?” If not, stop what you’re doing. Invest your efforts toward another activity that will give you an actual payoff.
17.) Learn to say no:
When you are drowning at work and take more for yourself, it becomes a burden on you. Because only taking jobs does not impress your boss. How effectively you finish them matters.
What to do:
If you are already under working pressure, you can say no to new works, not every time, obviously. But a polite refusal will not do any harm.
18.) Less sleep:
You can’t come to the office sleepy. You can’t attend a meeting or go for an interview with a tired body and mind. A tired mind and body are not productive at all.
What to do:
Take a sound sleep. 6 hrs sleep is essential for our body and mind to recharge themselves.
19.) Most productive time of day:
If you keep the most important meetings or appointments in the last part of your day, you may feel tired, and probably your brain would not have been as active as it should be. The work will be delayed, and you will run out of time.
What to do:
Know the time of the day when you are most productive. Usually, it is morning time. Schedule every important work on that portion of your day.
20.) Action plan:
Hopping back and forth from one activity to another is a big time-waster. If you file a piece of paper, then make a conference call. After that, you send an email, and then you file another document. Switching gears of your brain to do every work makes you slow.
What to do:
Instead of it, try to complete all of one type of to-do together. Then you should move on to the next task. You’ll find that you move faster and get more done in a shorter amount of time when you’re at that pace.
Time management is the most special skill of a successful person. It is the process of control of time. We exercise to spend specific activities at a particular time.
Being a master of this virtue is difficult. But when you do, it increases your effectiveness, efficiency, and productivity.
Time is an abstract element. So you really can’t manage it. It is a flow like wind and river. You can’t make it stop how hard you even try. But you can train yourself to walk for a long time.
We want to work as much as we want. And we find so little time to balance our intense workload. How many times, on a busy day, we find the clock is ticking so fast when we have lots of work to accomplish. We always run out of time when we are doing something important.
This all happens because we are not an expert in time management.
Wise time management can help you find the time for what you desire, and for what you need to do.
Importance of time management:
Time management is very crucial for both employees and employers. There is no such word as idle time. It is just a waste of time if you do not use it properly. Here is the importance of time management in our careers.
Time management is important in the workplace to get higher productivity from employees.
Time management is one of the most critical factors in reducing work stress. In a healthy environment, people become more productive.
Time management is essential to manage staff, projects, and all the business processes efficiently and effectively. Saving time is saving money.
In today’s world, when unemployment is at a high rate, thousands of people are applying for a single job, you can’t afford to mess with time.
If you don’t use time effectively and be a more efficient employee than others, there are thousands of people standing in queues to work in your place.
1. You can easily deliver work on time if you have managed your time well.
2. Being punctual at your work gives your life and career in new growth.
3. Time management is all about planning. If you can plan your time wisely, then you can plan your career smartly too.
4. You become more conscious of your choices.
5. You learn to prioritize your work.
6. If you want to manage your time well, be a more collaborative person. This will make you a perfect team-leader or co-worker.
7. You can’t manage time without a fully active brain. This also means that your brain gets to work more than before when you manage time. This is a great sign for your career.
8. You will get to know the value of time to accomplish your goals. Whatever you have desired for, you learn to make it real now.
Conclusion:
Now you know what types of mistakes we make at our workplace and cost our valuable time, and we do not get enough time to complete our everyday work. Do not repeat these mistakes on your next business day. Use the most of your day and make your dream a reality.