8 Common Time Management Mistakes to Avoid

How come some people accomplish more during the same 24 hours than others? If this question bothers you more often than you’d like and it seems that you’re constantly short on time, you’ve come to the right place.

Top achievers know the secrets of effective time management and utilize them every day, avoiding the caveats that many of us fall prey to. Here is a list of the 8 most common time management mistakes and how to avoid them starting tomorrow.

1. Not prioritizing tasks

Mastering prioritization is the first step towards effective time management. It’s simply impossible to do everything at once, and if you can’t tell an important task from an urgent task, it’s going to cause issues.

Common prioritization techniques include the A-F grading system, where A represents a top priority task and F the lowest, and the three-step system (top, medium and low priority). Prioritization isn’t as simple as it sounds though. It involves a lot of trial and error, perseverance and practice.

A good place to start is your own experience – what is it that makes the most (positive or negative) impact on your project? Those tasks have to take the top spot. Start with that and move down the line. Keep in mind that poor prioritization is a part of the learning process. If you notice that your system is ineffective, go ahead and change it, just like you’d change the direction of the project based on agile principles.

Lastly, don’t get caught in the caveat of constantly trying to prioritize tasks instead of actually doing them. If you’re not careful, you might find yourself spending more time trying to figure out what to do, instead of working on it. Start with something, and adjust as you go.

2. Not taking advantage of to-do lists

Once you’ve set your priorities, it’s time to schedule them in an effective manner. In case you’re unsure whether to-do lists are even worth it, let me tell you that studies have proven that people tend to perform better when they have written down what they need to do. It’s that simple.

Allocate enough time to each task that you plan to complete, and write them all down. If you know you’ll be taking short breaks in between tasks, include those as well. Disregarding those little things will eventually add up and suddenly, you’ll find yourself an hour or two short. This is exactly what you’re trying to fix, right?

Project management software can be very handy in those cases. Tools like Wrike, EasyProjects and Monday are not only designed to streamline your projects, allowing to keep everything under control and manage a plethora of tasks effectively, but also serve as a private dashboard, where each person can create a to-do list to always have it nearby.

3. Underestimating the time you need to get something done

This is a common pitfall for many project managers, mainly because they are concerned about their reputation. Psychologically, admitting that you need more time and energy to complete a task which, in theory, can be done much sooner, is troubling. If you can’t make it, then you’ve failed, or at least that’s what we think.

But the truth is that different people have different capabilities and when somebody shines in a given area, they likely don’t in another, and that’s quite normal. Undervaluing tasks simply because you think you should be able to complete them faster is not only putting you under a lot of stress, but also messes up your whole day.

4. Multitasking

Multitasking is among the worst (if not THE worst) enemies of a project manager. Doing multiple tasks at once isn’t going to help you finish them sooner. In fact, it will have the opposite effect.

Numerous studies have proven that multitasking decreases productivity and efficiency, because our brains are designed to take care of no more than two tasks at a time (try drinking coffee, talking to somebody and making a project report, I guarantee, your coffee will get cold, you’ll get annoyed, AND there will be multiple errors in the report).

Eliminating multitasking (or at least doing no more than two tasks at a time) will not only let you focus on each individual task with your full strength, minimizing potential errors and accelerating completion, but also help stay focused a lot longer. Switching from one task to another frequently soaks a lot of energy, and it adds up very quickly.

5. Procrastination

I know nobody likes this term, and even less people would like to admit that they procrastinate. I also know that this inevitably happens to even the best professionals out there and it’s among the top reasons why projects fail.

Now trying to eliminate procrastination altogether may prove to be a little too short of impossible, however, limiting it is what you can and absolutely should do. Do you enjoy watching YouTube videos? Then set a time limit and watch 2 or 3 instead of going through the whole channel. Do you love socializing? Then chat with your friends for a bit, but don’t let it get to a point where you’re mindlessly scrolling your news feed thinking, “just two more minutes.”

6. Disregarding breaks

If you’re working for 8-12 hours straight every day and hope to maintain the same level of concentration, efficiency and motivation, you’re doing it wrong. It may seem counterproductive, but incorporating little breaks into your routine will actually boost performance and help achieve better results in the long run. Moreover, staying concentrated for extended periods of time makes you a lot more prone to errors and clouds your judgment.

Our brains weren’t designed to stay focused on a single thing for 8 hours straight, and trying to outsmart yourself is only going to hurt you. The only reasonable solution is to take a break every hour or two, and do something not related to work – eat, walk, get a cup of tea or coffee, socialize or even just sit back, relax and do absolutely nothing. This will help clear your head and build up psychological energy to carry on with renewed efficiency. These breaks should be scheduled, not random, so that you know when they are coming, and can plan accordingly. Random breaks are just as bad as bring distracted.

7. Ineffective scheduling

It’s important to remember that each person is unique in more than one way. This is especially true when it comes to productivity and the way we work. For instance, some people feel at their strongest and accomplish the most amount of work in the mornings, while others are at their fullest potential after lunch, or in the evening.

A great way to improve your time management is to identify those peak times for your specific case, and allocate all of the top-priority to-do’s for that time of the day. This will not only help complete more tasks in less time, but also minimize the amount of potential errors, meaning you won’t have to triple check your work afterwards.

8. Not delegating tasks to others

Here is another absurdly common, yet highly overlooked, time-killer. Generally, there is a huge difference between “completing a job/task” and “having the final version ready”. Take writing, for instance. It usually takes me anywhere between 3-5 hours to complete a draft, but the job doesn’t end there. There is a lot of editing, proofreading, formatting and polishing that has to take place before its ready to go live, and it can take around 2 hours, give or take. Guess what though, you don’t need to be at your fullest potential, or even an expert, to do all of the above – it’s just a matter of attentiveness at that point.

Of course this isn’t true for each and every task in every project, but what I’m trying to say is that delegating the details can be a really powerful time management tool. Whenever you can, try completing 90% of the job and delegate the polishing to another team member. This will not only help save a lot of time, but also allow you to clear your head and move on to the next task much faster.

Conclusion

Time is the most valuable resource for any professional out there, but having good time management skills is simply essential for a project manager. Putting in even a small effort into identifying and overcoming your most significant time-killers will definitely lead to substantial, prompt and consistent results. It’s not going to happen overnight, but once you get the hang of it, you’ll be unstoppable.