What Causes Your Bad Time Management?

You may think you know the answer to that one...not being on time! But that's not necessarily true. There may be some elements of your personality and working methods that are making it very hard for you to meet deadlines. Here are some of the common time management flaws - if you can recognise them in yourself, it may be time to make a change.

You never say 'no', and make yourself too accessible

If someone is ambling up to you and you know they are going to ask you to do something to help them, do you ever say "I'd love to, but I'm very busy with a deadline right now", or do you smile greet them, say of course you can help, then find that you've taken on too much?

A bit of assertiveness training may go a long way to correct this time management flaw. Yes, it can be hard... that ambling smiling person may be your boss! But sometimes, you've just got to learn to say no.

Being too accessible means always answering the phone or constantly being on call. If you're really up against the deadline, you should have your calls screened for a while, or put an out of office on your email saying you're very busy and will get back to people later. So long as you don't abuse this privilege of having some of your own time, there is nothing wrong with this approach to time keeping...after all, senior managers do this quite often.

Not being able to prioritise or recognise what's urgent

The easiest way of managing your time is to schedule in your workload by the due date, which most people do in their calendars, but this doesn't help you prioritise. If you find yourself doing a routine task such as watering your desk pot plant while a deadline looms in the next 24 hours, you're acting out of habit and not out of priority. When you list your tasks, list them in the order of importance, not deadline.

If you're not distracted, you procrastinate

Okay, so to meet a deadline you've turned down any efforts to delegate to you, you've put the phone on hold, you've locked yourself in a quiet office for an hour because you must, must, must finish that piece of work.

If you start fiddling with your mobile phone, pacing, doodling, or any other procrastinating activity...nip it in the bud. You may not even realise you're doing it, and it may take someone else to point it out, but there are a thousand things to do, all of a sudden, when you're faced with the thing you MUST do.

Perfectionism and fear of failure

Anxiety or stress about being perfect or doing a perfect job can cause you to spend much longer on it than needed. Do you write a report (which is essentially completing the task asked of you, as far as your boss is concerned) but then waste another hour in finding a lovely plastic folder to put it in, reading through it again to check, adding things that aren't needed, or any other 'polishing'? It's not always a good idea. By all means, do it if you have time, but if not, nobody is going to complain if you have completed what you intended to.

If you recognise any of these time-management killers, then congratulations...identifying them is half the battle. Ask colleagues to point out when you're slipping back into your old habits, and you can help to form effective new ones...that are on time, every time.