Monday 29 June 2020

Common Pitfalls of Time Management that one Should Avoid By Sanskriti Wadhwani

Common Pitfalls of Time Management that one Should Avoid :-
By Sanskriti Wadhwani

1. Denying you have a time management problem.

I’ve occasionally told myself, “If only I had more time I could have gotten to X, Y, and Z.” Of course, we can't have more than 24 hours in a day, so why waste our mental energy griping about this issue?
“Complaining that there is not enough time will never create more time. It just makes you feel better for a moment,”
“But it hurts you tremendously. Complaining about the lack of time prevents you from facing reality: something is broken.”

Stop saying that you don’t have enough time to complete your commitments. Instead, admit that you need to get better at managing your time and start experimenting with techniques that will help you reach your goals.

2. Neglecting to plan out your day.
“It’s important to plan out your day for maximum efficiency. You don’t have to know what you’re doing minute-by-minute, but try to set daily goals including tasks you’d like to complete, then prioritize them in order of importance,” 
Spend a few minutes in the evening laying out your clothes and prepping your meals for tomorrow. Reviewing your calendar will brace you mentally, save time in the morning and reduce decision fatigue. Whether you use a calendar app or jot-down a detailed to-do-list, planning out your day gives you structure so you aren’t scrambling to figure what's next.
3. Letting the “urgent” overtake the “important."

Distinguishing “urgent” from “important” is a challenge for most entrepreneurs. How can you put out a fire when you’re on your way to an investor meeting?
Take all of your tasks and place them into four quadrants:
  • To do first. These are the most important responsibilities that need to be done today or tomorrow.
  • Schedule. For important tasks that are not urgent, you can schedule them into your calendar.
  • Delegate. If there are essential items that are not important, you can hand them off to someone else.
  • Don’t do. What tasks aren’t important or urgent? Delete these from your lists or add them to a "would like to do if I ever get a chance."
4. Improper delegation.
Entrepreneurs pride themselves on being a jack-of-all-trades but you don't need to be involved with every single part of your business. 
Be aware of what’s going on but check your ego at the door and delegate the right tasks to the appropriate people.
If you don’t have a staff, outsource specific jobs to freelancers. For instance, you can hire a personal assistant to manage your calendar, email, social accounts or blog. Personal assistants can also take care of personal errands, recruitment and booking your flight and hotel for an upcoming business trip.

5. Having to wake up early.
Take a moment and read other time management articles. You’ll find one of the most common pieces of advice shared is to wake up early. As someone who practices habit -- I completely understand the rationale. Let’s say you wake-up an hour earlier. You can use that time to review your calendar, exercise, eat a healthy breakfast, read or clean out your inbox without getting distracted.
Here’s the thing. Setting your alarm to four a.m. isn't all there is to time management. It’s all about working around your peak productivity and setting aside blocks of time to focus on your priorities. Think about it this way. If you’re a night owl, you’re going to miserable if you start waking up at some unbelievable hour.
Plan out your days to work on your most important tasks when you have the most energy and focus. If your peak is at sunset, that’s when you should block out the time to focus on your most important tasks. It’s a much better strategy than fighting against your body’s internal clock.
6. Being inflexible.

No matter how well planned you are, you will get interrupted. That’s why it’s crucial that your calendar has some flexibility. For instance, the other day, everything was going according to plan until right after lunch when a high profile client reported some technical problems with our software.

7. Being “perfect.”
We all strive to deliver quality work, but constantly aiming for perfection is unrealistic. Often the pressure we put on ourselves to "be perfect" leads us to pressure other people about their issues. It's not worth it.

8. Over-and-under committing time.

We tend to miscalculate how long a task will take us to complete. We estimate something will only take an hour, then it takes closer to two hours. Sometimes it's the other way around but either way it throws a monkey wrench into our entire schedule. Whatever was supposed to get done today has to be pushed until tomorrow.
It’s not always easy to determine how long it will take you to finish a task -- but usually it takes longer than you think it will. The best idea is to keep a time log for at least a week to see how you spend your time. You can do this manually in a notebook or using time tracking software.
9. Cleaning your workspace daily.
Do I mean that you should leave food wrappings on your desk? No. Should you grab a file or tool and never return it to its rightful place? Of course not. The first is unsanitary, and not returning items to their home results in you spending a boat-load of time searching for misplaced items.
What I mean is that it’s acceptable to have a little clutter around your workspace. One study found that a messy desk can spark creativity. So, if you don’t have the time, then there’s no need to stress yourself out about a small mess. Personally, I set aside the last hour of Friday afternoons to clean and organize my workspace. The end of the week usually tapers off a little, and this is a soft productive task that still ends my week on a high note.
10. Working non-stop.
A lot of entrepreneurs pride themselves for putting in an insane number of hours at their startup. Elon Musk, for example, is known to work 80-some hours per week. The truth is regardless how much you have on your plate, everyone needs breaks to refocus and recharge. I've done the 80-hour weeks. It's brutal on you and everyone else.
Your break need only be a 10-minute walk between but try to unplug completely during non-business hours. Seriously, force yourself to take a break and unplug -- get a remote desk and move it up and down a couple of times a day. Walk while you have a meeting on the phone -- anything helps.

11. Never finding the time management system that works for you.
There is no shortage of time management strategies and hacks but there is no one-size-fits-all approach to the value of time. What works well for one entrepreneur may not be sufficient for you.
Experiment with various time management techniques until you find the system that works best for you. It will take some trial and error but until effectively manage your time, you’ll constantly battle the clock.

12.Failing to Keep a To-Do List.

Do you ever have that nagging feeling that you've forgotten to do an important piece of work? If so, you probably don't use a To-Do List to keep on top of things. (Or, if you do, you might not be using it effectively!)
The trick with using To-Do Lists   effectively lies in prioritizing the tasks on your list. Many people use an A – F coding system (A for high priority items, F for very low priorities). Alternatively, you can simplify this by using A through D, or by using numbers.
If you have large projects on your list, then, unless you're careful, the entries for these can be vague and ineffective. For instance, you may have written down "Start on budget proposal." But what does this entail? The lack of specifics here might cause you to procrastinate, or miss key steps. So make sure that you break large tasks or projects down into specific, actionable steps – then you won't overlook something important.
You can also use Action Programs   to manage your work when you have many large projects happening at once. (Action Programs are "industrial strength" versions of To-Do Lists.)

13.Not Setting Personal Goals.
Do you know where you'd like to be in six months? What about this time next year, or even 10 years from now? If not, it's time to set some personal goals!
Personal goal setting is essential to managing your time well because goals give you a destination and vision to work toward. When you know where you want to go, you can manage your priorities, time, and resources to get there. Goals also help you decide what's worth spending your time on, and what's just a distraction.
14.Not Getting Rid of Distractions.

Finally, you have to get rid of distractions if you want to make better use of your time. Lack of focus can be a huge obstacle to overcome, but you can make it easier on yourself by avoiding distractions.
Stop multi-tasking, turn off the television, move away from loud noises, put your phone away, and avoid social media in order to get more done in less time.
Another big interruption can be email. If you find yourself constantly checking your email out of habit, delete the app from your phone and close the tab in your browser when it’s time to work. Set up designated times throughout the day to spend a few minutes checking email so you don’t feel pressured to do it every 10 minutes.

15.Multitasking Overload.

The first use of the word “multitasking” dates to 1966, when it was used to describe a computer performing many tasks at the same time.3 In the 21st century, businesses seek humans with that same ability, and many of us try to work on multiple items at one time. Experts say this is counterproductive, and something of an illusion.

“Current research shows us that multitasking is a myth,” the McGraw Center for Teaching and Learning at Princeton University reports. “In actuality, we are switching back and forth between tasks. With each switch we pay a cognitive cost and a time cost: It takes time to get mentally back into the task, thus making us less efficient. When switching we lose the depth of our engagement, absorption.”

16.Lack of vision.
To manage your time effectively, you need to have a clear vision of what you are trying to achieve. This vision guides your goal setting, your priorities and your decision making. Many people set about trying to improve their effectiveness without a clear vision but they have little chance of creating the result they want, if they are not clear about the result that they want.
Having a clear vision at the beginning of the process is not enough. You must maintain your focus on the end result until the goal has been achieved. It may, at times, be necessary to adjust your vision but you must never lose sight of it.
Having a clear vision doesn’t just help you determine what you should be doing. Just as importantly, it helps you to identify all the things which will not get you where you want to go. All time management mistakes lead to one problem, spending too much time on things which don’t get you where you want to go.
__Conclusion:-
Maximising your effectiveness requires regular work. It is not enough to make adjustments once and expect that you will be effective forever. As your life and work evolves, your practices will change and you will need to conduct another review. There are some common time management mistakes which most people experience from time to time. The list above covers 7 of the most common of these time management mistakes. Take the time to review your practices. Ask yourself, honestly, if you are making any of these time management mistakes. If the answer is yes, review your processes and implement new strategies which will eliminate these mistakes. When you eliminate these time management mistakes, you will be left with more time to spend on your most important activities, helping you to improve your performance and your outcomes. That’s a large reward for a small amount of effort.

Sanskriti Wadhwani [ BBA-RM ]
Head school of internship 
Aircrews Aviation pvt. ltd. 


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