Time wasters

Most people complain about the amount of time that is wasted at work.

Look at the list below and see if anything seems familiar!

Top twenty time wasters

1. Drop-in Visitors
2. Telephone interruptions
3. Lack of clear authority/responsibility in my job
4. Too many regular meetings and too many unscheduled meetings
5. Amount of correspondence and paperwork
6. Day-to-day crises
7. Poor performance of staff
8. Lack of co-ordination/teamwork between sections/departments
9. Multiple bosses, no clear reporting relationship
10. Talking with colleagues
11. Report writing, report reading
12. Checking that work is completed
13. Involvement in minor issues
14. Travelling
15. Poor filing system
16. Too much reading to get done
17. Personal difficulty in scheduling or planning
18. No clear performance measures/standards
19. Unclear, indirect or ambiguous communication in the organisation
20. Shifting priorities in my work

When you review this list you can see that some of the issues relate to your organisation, some to those people around you and some to you yourself. Consider your work situation and try to get clarity on the areas of time wasting you can have some control over and do something about them as soon as you can. The larger issues may take longer and involve you developing a strategy to deal with them. You can learn about how to develop these time management strategies on our 1-day Time Management training course in Brighton, Sussex.

Ten ways to waste your OWN time

Naturally you never waste your own time, do you? It is always the fault of other people. GET AWARE and BE HONEST! Of course, we waste time on occasions; we all need ‘down time’.

Look at the list below and do a self-check.

1. Reacting to circumstances rather than having a contingency plan
2. Doing unproductive things from sheer habit
3. Leaving jobs unfinished for no particular reason.
4. Being easily diverted from your objectives by the demands of others
5. Planning less important but attractive tasks before important ones.
6. Doing tasks which could be delegated.
7. Persisting with projects which are clearly not working out
8. Trying to work out what your boss meant rather than getting it clear in the first place
9. Doing things that are not actually part of your job
10. Having an “open door” policy.

There will be times when some of these ‘activities’ can be legitimate but be careful not to go too far!

Related posts:

1. Why Manage Time?
2. Developing positive time management skills
3. Controlling a Stage (CS) PROCESS
4. Managing Product Delivery (MP) PROCESS

Similar resources you may like

Related posts:

1. Why Manage Time?
2. Developing positive time management skills
3. Controlling a Stage (CS) PROCESS
4. Managing Product Delivery (MP) PROCESS

Tags

sussex, Telephone interruptions, time management strategies, Time Management Training, time management training sussex, time wasters, wasting time

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