Recognizing Your Time Wasters
Wasting time can be frustrating, annoying, and, at time, can be a barrier to success.
There are differing opinions on what constitutes wasting time. Some people may consider watching television a waste of time. For others, time spent watching television serves as down time, a chance to relax and re-charge their personal battery. But I think that we can all agree that there are certain activities that not only serve no real purpose, but also actually hinder our progress in life.
How many of these time wasters do you recognize in your life?
Looking for things. I read once that the average person spends over two hours every day looking for things. From misplaced keys to lost information, looking for stuff takes up a lot of time. I once forgot where I parked my car in a large parking lot, and spent nearly an hour trying to find it. I think that two hours a day may be a very conservative estimate. [This is the time waster that I’m currently working at reducing, if not eliminating, in my life.]
Perfectionism. Rarely is perfectionism attained. Even more rarely is it even required. All to frequently perfectionism is an excuse for wasting time, which in turns causes us to have less time to spend on other pursuits. It’s okay to settle for less that perfect. Excellence is usually just fine.
The “I’ll do it over” syndrome. Think of this as the opposite of perfectionism. It’s where you throw together something as a first effort saying you’ll have time to do it right later. Poor work is rarely satisfactory, so just make time to do it right the first time. That age old question hits the nail on the head, “If you don’t have time to do it right the first time, when will you have time to do it over.”
Failure to ask questions. If you don’t understand a task or assignment, but nonetheless proceed as if you do, it can lead to time wasted in figuring out the project, as well as the time required to fix things when you realize that you’ve done it wrong.
Failure to group like tasks together. If you’re going to the store to buy bread, you’ll pick up milk and coffee while you’re there, rather than making two additional trips. Extra steps to accomplish the same thing are wasting time, energy, and resources.
Micro-managing. When you do work that other people are responsible for, you waste your time and theirs. Helping someone is never a waste of time. Doing someone’s job, however, is. If someone else owns the job, let him or her do it.
Are any of these you’re favorite time waster? What are you trying to do to get it under control?
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POSTED IN: Leadership Skills, Uncategorized
1 opinion for Recognizing Your Time Wasters
matthew munyao
Jun 6, 2008 at 2:52 am
great article . loved the analytical approch used
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