Traits that are Eroding your Time Management Skills

Time management is a skill we need in life and work.

“If you often find yourself run down by your daily workload or overwhelmed by the complexity of projects and tasks in your life, it is likely because you have not fully mastered effective time management.”

-Matt Mayberry

When it comes to work, your lack of time management can be a significant issue, leading to overdue projects, piled up work, and missed deadlines.

Avoid the following things that are eroding your time management skills so you can eliminate the causes and be the best version of you in the workplace.

Being a Yes Person

When you forget how to say “no” to projects and tasks, it’s easy to drown in your work and lose all sense of time management. With too many due dates to manage, it becomes impossible to find focus, which is critical to time management. Not to mention, by saying yes to everything, you lose the ability to work on things you care about.

“By saying no, you are giving yourself the ability and bandwidth to say yes to the things that are more important.”

– Craig Jarrow

Lack of Organization

Clutter leads to a whole host of psychological issues that take a toll on time management. Lack of organization can be a deterrent in some many ways. It is capable of;

• Drawing attention away from where our focus should be. 
• Signaling the brain that the work is never done. 
• Inhibiting creativity and productivity.

Clutter and lack of organization holds your mind hostage. Rather than prioritizing what needs to get done, you’re trying to fend off mental fatigue, stress and anxiety, making time management nearly impossible.

Forgetting to Take Breaks

Brain breaks are one of the best ways to manage your time. When you become burnt out on a project, your productivity slows drastically, you lose interest in what you’re doing, and before you know it, you’ve wasted 20 minutes staring at the screen. Brain breaks help you avoid this issue and have been proven to improve productivity by 34 percent.

No Well-Defined Goals

Goals provide structure to your work by giving you a prioritized list of things to get done; goals help you to identify your priorities. They outline what you want to achieve, when you want to achieve it by and the importance of the task.

Goals are an essential way to reduce your workload and reduce your poor time management. Not only do you become clearer about what you want; you become more certain about the tasks and projects which are not a good use of your time.

No To-Do List

Similar to a lack of defined goals, without a to-do list, it’s hard to structure your day. The key to time management is being able to prioritize tasks and a to-do list is the best way to do that, ensuring you get everything done. If you do have a to-do list, but still struggle with time management, your list may be too minimal or basic. When you add times and specifics for each item, you’ll be more successful.

Perfectionist Thinking

When everything needs to be just right, you tend to lose control of your time because you focus so much on one project or task that you ignore the others. While it’s important to produce work that you’re proud of, letting go of small issues that can be fixed later or ignored altogether allows you to make time for all the other items on your to-do list.  

Failure to Manage Distractions

Everywhere you look there’s a distraction. With distractions and interruptions, it’s hard to get into your workday effectively. Distractions prevent us from achieving flow, which is the satisfying and seemingly effortless work that we do when we’re 100 percent engaged in a task.

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Culled from: Glassdoor