Personal Productivity
8 Time Management Mistakes That Hinder Your Productivity
AUTHOR: Marlena Kuczyńska
Do you feel that your productivity is lower than expected? You feel overwhelmed with that amount of tasks, “distracted” is your middle name and you still exceed deadlines.
These kind of problems are usually caused by poor time management. Eliminate these eight time management mistakes and find a way for boosting your productivity!
1. Procrastinating
We all like to procrastinate. What’s better than watching cat videos instead of sweating on a hard project? Well… maybe dog videos. Anyway, procrastination is something we should all fight against. It drags us away from important but usually hard and tiring work and pushes us to focus on something pleasant and easy. As you see, procrastinating is a true MONSTER.
You can fight it by committing to assignments, improving your learning behaviors or practicing best time management methods. And always remember: “Don’t put off until tomorrow what you can do today” :)
2. Lack of Break Time
People can’t work constantly. Lack of breaks causes productivity fall and raises level of stress. It is proven that our mind can’t think clearly longer than 90 minutes. After that time we just start to procrastinate and don’t focus anymore.
For the best results, take a 15-20 minutes break for every 50-90 minutes of work. It is important to get away from the computer. I recommend short walks, petting a cat or gymnastic exercises — movement is beneficial for your psyche and your body — not only does it refresh your mind, but also gives you kick of pure energy.
3. Multitasking
Even that doing many things at the same time seems like being on the ball, it has really terrible impact on your productivity. Studies show that people who practice multitasking are more likely to get distracted, make more mistakes and can even get fat"!
Key to the success—start working on one task and focus on it. A little tip: You can try the Pomodoro Technique.
4. Perfectionist’s Nature
Constantly have a need to correct something you did for thousand times
because you feel you can do better? Every perfectionist knows this scenario. Unfinished projects at the end of the month because of little things: changing fonts 10 times, suddenly background color seems to bright… This kind of nature is a killer for your productivity.
For better time management you need to learn how let go of things that take too much time to figure out and stop you from finishing the project. First feeling is usually the best one — don’t overthink and overdo.
5. Not Tracking Time
Are you the kind of person who checks their email too often or surf on the web too much? The one who doesn’t really know how much time any project take? Lack of important data on how your time is spent can ruin your planning process.
Numbers can’t lie so time tracking is crucial here. “When you look at a list with numbers of how you’re spending your time, that’s when you can get more strategic about what you can eliminate or simplify", says Medlock – president of Smarter Training Matter.
6. Lack of Task Prioritization
Most people don’t realize the importance of planning tasks in order of priority. In most cases, we think that it’s more tempting to start with easier and less important activities, even though the harder ones are usually more important and urgent to do.
Remember that prioritization is the key to productive work. Analyze your tasks, develop a transparent plan for task prioritization and stick to it. You will see the significant boost in your productivity.
7. Taking too much work
Being overloaded with work drags you away from being productive.
Constantly thinking about the work that need to be done, rush and stress raises adrenaline level and effectively blocks clear thinking.
STOP! It is time to look before you leap. Analyze the work from last month, the time consumption of every project and start to adjust your schedule to your capabilities. A time tracker for measuring and analyzing data will be a great help here.
8. Too many distractions
Last but not least, and very popular problem with keeping productivity on high levels along the way is having too many distractions. Nowadays, people keep getting distracted easily because of tons of stimuli bombarding them from every corner. Facebook, TV or Ads are constantly starving for your attention.
Remember what your goals are and what you’re aiming for — this will help you focus and eliminate distractions.
Now you see how many things stand on the way to good time management. Do you practice any time management? What mistakes do you struggle with? Share your thoughts in the comment below!
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