Life can get hectic.

And even that is an understatement! Over the past few weeks, I have been deeply involved with milestone moments with both family and work.

During the ‘off’ season, even though it is seen as a time to relax and unwind, it can sometimes be as hectic as peak work season!

At least that’s what I have found during many moments in the past few weeks.

Maximising our time and being efficient with how we spend it is as important in the ‘off’ season as it is when we’re back ‘on’. To this end, I felt it would be a good time to reflect on time management, and how we can avoid some common pitfalls.

When we manage our time well, we’re exceptionally productive at work, and our stress levels drop.

We can devote time to the interesting, high-reward projects that can make a real difference to a career. In short, we’re happier!

The exact opposite happens when we don’t manage our time well. So how can we avoid those mistakes?

Mistake #1: 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!)

Mistake #2: 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!

Setting your own goals 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.

Mistake #3: Not prioritising

You are often already working towards a deadline, but somehow someone land on you with a crisis that they need you to deal with right now… but how do you negotiate this when you’re already busy with something else that is important?

Sometimes, it’s hard to know how to prioritise, especially when you’re facing a flood of seemingly-urgent tasks.

But when you do make the effort to rank your to do list, in harmony with your personal goals, you become better at managing your time.

Mistake #4: Failing to manage distractions

How many minutes and eventually hours do you lose per day due to distractions?

Think how much you could get done if you had that time back.

Whether they come from emails, social media chats, colleagues in a crisis, or phone calls from clients, distractions prevent us from achieving goals, which is the satisfying and seemingly effortless work that we do when we’re 100% engaged in a task.

If you want to gain control of your day and do your best work, it’s vital to know how to minimise distractions and manage interruptions effectively.

You should also learn how to improve your concentration even when you’re faced with distractions.

Mistake #5. Procrastinating over tasks

Procrastination occurs when you put off tasks that you should be focusing on right now.

When you procrastinate, you feel guilty that you haven’t started key tasks; you come to dread doing them; and, eventually, everything catches up with you when you fail to complete them on time!

One way to combat procrastination is when you know what your goals are and you have a clear plan and to-do list to get to them.

Continue finding out more!

So do you make any of these mistakes? Do you agree or disagree with any of them?

Click here to read part 2 of this post where we look at the next 5 common mistakes you might be making when it comes to time management.

References:

Mindtools.com

Photo by Crew from Unsplash