Time Management Mistakes

Do you manage your time well? Do you feel as though you have too much to do and not enough time? Are you making any of these common time management mistakes?

• Not Setting Personal Goals - Not having goals means you don't have direction. Not having direction means you can easily get lost. Set yourself a goal each day or smaller goals throughout the day to help you get more done. There's a physiological link to writing down your goals - it makes you more committed to achieving them
• Not Having a Prioritised List - Lots of people use a to-do list, but not many people prioritise it. How do you know which tasks on your list are the most important and therefore the ones you should be working on? If you have no priorities then you likely go for the easy things (quick wins) first. This leaves little room for when those big unexpected cure balls come in
• Not Prioritising - It's not just your to-do list that needs to be prioritised, all tasks that you receive should be prioritised. Whether that be a customer request, a task for your boss or helping a colleague. Everything needs to come in order of importance, not just who is shouting the loudest.
• Not Getting Started - More commonly known as procrastination, if you just look at tasks or make excuses not to get them started you're never going to get them finished. Find the value to you in every task and make yourself feel more motivated to complete them.
• Getting Distracted - Do you find yourself getting sucked into conversations about football or X-Factor? Do you find that some tasks excite you more than others and you're likely to drop one task to start another that is much more interesting? Then you're not managing distractions effectively. Stick to your goals and to your plan.
• Busy Doesn't Mean Productive - Being busy doesn't mean you are getting more done. Take a look at this post here to find out why
• Not Using a Schedule - If you use a to-do list or another way of capturing tasks then it potentially means you are not scheduling work effectively. Use a calendar to schedule your tasks.

If you need more help managing your time then why not attend one of our time management training courses. Take a look at our time management training course overview here.