Time Management Mistakes: What Not To Do! by Kirstin O'Donovan

We all would like to have more time and it's the one excuse we all use on a regular basis: "I just don't have enough time!"

There are many tips and techniques to improve your time management skills; today we will cover a few of the most important. We will go through the most typical time management mistakes. Avoid some of these common mistakes and you will have more time to do what you want!

1) Lack of clarity regarding what actually needs to be done or how much work the task actually entails. Not being sure of what exactly is expected of you could make you waste a lot of time. You could be performing tasks you don´t have to, or not including tasks and having to repeat the process to include them. Before starting any task, spend a few moments reviewing exactly what it consists of and what the outcome you want is.

2) Attempting to do too much. Do you always say YES? You need to be assertive and not take on more than what you can because you are too scared to say NO! If you know that your schedule is tight and you cannot take on more work, don´t do it! Most of the time we don´t know how to be assertive and say NO, so we suffer the consequences alone.

3) Not planning and doing whatever grabs you next. This makes you unproductive and prevents you from focusing. You always going from one task to the next, often not completing the task or taking much longer to complete it, if you do at all! Again, have a list of things you want to accomplish, once you have finished your list, then you have time to do whatever else you wish, but if you start the other way round, you will be wasting a lot of time going from one task to the next.

4) Underestimating how long tasks take you. This is a big time killer, for example, allocating fifteen minutes to a task where in reality it will take you an hour. Allocating time realistically is essential when planning your day. If you are not sure, keep time logs of estimated time and actual time spent on previous tasks and you will start to develop the habit of estimating tasks effectively.

5) Not being flexible. You cannot plan every minute of the day and you must be open and flexible to change. Emergencies happen, tasks which have not been planned for can suddenly become top priority for the day. Be open and flexible to change, if not, a change in your day could throw you off course; you will lose concentration or become stressed and overwhelmed.

6) Spend time doing unnecessary things that are easy, interesting or fun, but don’t really add value to your project. This could be because you don’t know how to prioritize or you are putting tasks off because of some underlying reasons. If you still find yourself doing this, read again the emails on procrastination and prioritizing. Spending time on tasks that bring us little value but make us feel like we are accomplishing something can be a huge time waster.

7) Keeping everything in your head. This is a typical time waster. Not writing things down leads to you forgetting them and then spending more time doing error correction than on the tasks needed. By keeping everything in your head, you will feel less creative, as you conscious mind keeps preoccupied with the list of things you have to do, and not actually doing the tasks themselves.

8) Not delegating when necessary and trying to do everything yourself. If you can delegate it, do it! You will be amazed by how much extra time you will have when you spend time doing tasks that you need to do alone and not on tasks that other people can help you with. Remember, if you delegate, it´s extremely important to ensure the other person understands fully what the requirements for the task at hand are.

9) Incorrect environment to focus in and too many distractions around. If your desk is a complete mess and you have papers everywhere, files in different folders, etc, then you will spend more time navigating through it than working. Having a clean and tidy environment makes it easier to be productive and gives you a sense of efficiency. Identify the things in your working environment that distract you easily, including colleagues, social networks, etc. Find a way to separate yourself from these when needed.

10) Spending too much time perfecting tasks that should have already been finalized. This is perfectionism and can really stand in our way of productivity when we spend extra time trying to do something better when it will never be better anyway. Stop comparing yourself to others, don´t doubt yourself and get out of the mindset of perfectionism.

The bottom line for today is simple: Identify what wastes most of your time and take corrective actions to improve your time management skills. This way you will accomplish more in less time.

If you are an entrepreneur struggling with time management and organization, you definitely want to see "The Entrepreneur's Guide to Time Management". Remember, if you are not managing your time, you are not managing your business as effectively as you could!

Kirstin O'Donovan is a Your Productivity Coach. Visit Top Results Coaching for all your productivity coaching needs.