Shabbar Suterwala   Soft Skills Trainer,...
Five Time Management Mistakes that Wastes a lot of Time
 
By: Shabbar Suterwala
 

Have
you heard people say “Time Flies”, “There is no Time”, “Where is the
Time” and sort of pharases. In my career of conducting Time Management
Workshop, I have experienced some of the major flaws that people do
which becomes an excuse for the above mentioned pharases.
 
 
 
For all those who would like to master their time management skills, must avoid these 5 major Time Management Mistakes.
 
 
 
1. Procrastination:
 
Those
things which have to be done now are being procrastinated of being
postponed. This is one of the traits which is not outside but within
us. We have made up a habit that we will do it later as it is not
urgent now, we keep on delaying it till one day it becomes burning and
urgent, and then we have no choice to act on it. At this point of time,
we have to leave aside something that was important but not urgent to
complete this task.
 
Many
of the corporate executives also get a kick from doing something that
is urgent, they love to take pressure, their common phrase is “ohh,
don’t worry there is still a lot of time”.
 
 
 
2. Do it Myself Attitude:
 
 "This
is too important. Better let me do it." "By the time I show them how to
do it, I will finish it myself." There are these executives and
managers who always want to be in the thick of the things. They also
get a feeling of threat if some one else starts doing what I do. Some
have this misconception about their indispensability.
 
 
 
3. No Clearly Defined Goals:
 
Because
we do not know what to do, we keep on doing whatever comes our way. We
keep on working very hard but still do not get results or the sense of
achievement because we never have defined what we want to achieve. “A
journey of thousand miles begins with the first single step.” We all
want to take the first step and we are ready to take it, unfortunately
we have not defined our journey so we do not know in which direction to
take the first step.
 
 
 
4. Not taking Decisions:
 
One
of the major mistakes which waste a lot of our time is in-decision. We
keep on procrastinating our decisions. We do not take the right
decision at the right time be it with our professional life or our
personal or social life or be it related to our health. And
unfortunately many of our decisions are not our decisions at all. They
are being imposed on us by our boss, colleagues, family and friends. We
also have this urge to be perfect at time and we need a lot of data and
testimony to justify our decisions and also always we want to be right
at all the time so we remain in-decisive.
 
 
 
5. No Action:
 
This
one is the giant of the time waster which waste chunk of our time. We
do not Act on our Goals, we do not take any action on the decisions we
make. Many a time people decide to change their habits and behaviour
but seldom they take any action step on their plan. So no action – no
results. Some times people who do not have clarity of goals, do not see
the destination, so, if this set of people act today and cloud sit with
a book and pen and start writing down their goal, probably this action
step will bring them closer towards their goal.
 
 
 
So if you want to start managing your time, start managing the above five mistakes. So here is your short brief powerful action plan:
 
 
 
Step 1: Stop Procrastination
 
 
 
Step 2: Empower people around you
 
 
 
Step 3: Write down your goals of paper
 
 
 
Step 4: Make those tough decisions
 
 
 
Step 5: ACT now on the above 4 steps.
Dec 5th 2008 10:26