How to Identify and Avoid Time Wasters.
Time is a very valuable resource for any organization, but it has the peculiarity of being a finite resource, once it is used it cannot be recovered, bought or created. The poet Virgil anticipated this: "fugit irreparabile tempus" (it escapes, irretrievable time).
?Proper time management is essential to being agile and enhancing efficiency, and the achievement of objectives within the deadlines set. However, there are a series of habits which we often perform unconsciously, that make us waste time, reducing productivity and efficiency; they are the Time Wasters.
?In this article we’ll share with you some of the most common Time Wasters in the workplace.
Time is Money.
?Time is money is one of Benjamin Franklin's most frequently used phrases in the workplace. Before going on to identify time thieves, let's make a small note of its importance for organizations:
Identify Time Thieves. An Invisible Robbery with Very Noticeable Consequences.
?Distractions, the Tik Tok video that went viral, endless meetings, documents you can't find... There are many Time Wasters that reduce our efficiency, diminish concentration and give rise to days when you have the feeling of not making any progress despite spending eight hours at work. Let's take a look at some of the most common Time Wasters in the workplace:
1- Lengthy and Unnecessary Meetings.
?Most employees feel that more than half of the meetings that are scheduled could have been resolved digitally, or they were invited to attend when it was not really necessary. Let's be clear, it is not always necessary to have a meeting.
In our Agile Methodology there are a series of meetings with a predetermined duration, purpose and participants. That’s the trick for a meeting to be efficient and not a waste of time:? they must have a clear objective, the necessary figures must be present and they must be completed in a determined period of time.
This is one of the biggest time thieves in the workplace. If you want your meetings to be agile and effective, we recommend our article "Meeting madness" in which we share the keys to success.
2- Not Setting Goals.
Working without having clear objectives to be achieved can lead to erratic behavior where tasks are started that are never completed. A system in which tasks are identified and associated with specific objectives is the solution to avoid wasting time or "working to fill hours".
To avoid drifting, we recommend the use of OKR's, a map that puts companies and teams on the same path, prioritizing tasks and leading to their achievement, as well as being able to measure the progress of each one of them.
3- Multitasking.
Multitasking has become a way of life in many areas; it affects our leisure time, our relationships and, of course, our work environment.
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Its consequences are disastrous for our productivity, since this constant change in focus directly impacts our capacity for retention and concentration. There is a loss of 20% of the time dedicated to task switching that could be solved by focusing on completing one task before moving on to the next.
Constant context switching leads to burnout that causes mental fatigue and lack of concentration. Multitasking would be one of the biggest time thieves we have to fight.
4- Social Networks.
Are you one of those people who has notifications on your phone every time someone posts, comments, replies or likes your publications? Social networks are another of the most significant thieves of our time. We look at our phones on average 150 times throughout the day and a large portion of that is to respond to messages and log in to social networks.
According to the Tomi Ahonen Almanac panel, released by Oracle's marketing division, we can't stay away from our phones for more than 6 minutes.
Is it really that important to know what one of our contacts is eating or where they spent the evening? Surely it can wait until we have a break to catch up.
5- Email Overload.
Surely you are familiar with this scenario:? you start your work day or come back from vacation and you find yourself buried under a mountain of emails, which are often redundant or even unnecessary.
Let's not be part of this chain; the solution is to send only those that are necessary, structuring them in the clearest possible way, compiling all the information in one to avoid having to create long threads, and copying only those who really have to receive that information.
6- Not Delegating.
If you find yourself needing to constantly review the work of your employees, something is wrong. In an agile environment you have to trust the work of empowered teams that have autonomy to make decisions. To be able to assess the achievement of the objectives there is a whole methodology with which you can have control while delegating responsibilities and allowing the Squads to feel empowered and capable. It’s undoubtedly a great waste of time that also affects the confidence and autonomy of workers.
7- Disorganization.
This has affects on many levels, if there is no consensual way of working and each person does things "his own way" there will certainly be a great waste of time until people understand each other. On the contrary, if an organization embraces a methodology that serves as a guide for everybody, the work will be done in a smooth and organized way.
On a staff level it’s also very important to have an organization that allows us, for example, to find documents without spending half an hour opening folders; this can be as simple as naming files in a way that makes it easy to identify them, organizing things in a meaningful way and trying to avoid the confusion that comes with duplicating files without knowing which is the latest version.
You don't have to be Marie Kondo, but it's not a bad idea to learn a little from her sense of order.
In our Agile Management System methodology we teach teams and organizations to work better, thanks to an orderly method with clear objectives, empowered teams and a lot of transparency. Want to start making better use of your time? Don't write it down in that to-do list you always postpone and call us now!