How to overcome your top time wasters

I facilitated a program called?Manage Your Time and Priorities?earlier this week.??

In the session, I asked the participants, “What stops you from accomplishing your priorities?”

Their response was unanimous.?

The participants said, “I never have enough time to achieve my key goals and priorities.”

Sound familiar??

I really stressed with this group that they couldn’t only blame others for wasting their time.

Rather, they need to reflect on their personal habits that need to change.?

My challenge to each of them was to look at their daily routine and identify where they are wasting time.??

Time wasters can include things like:

• Not goal setting properly
• Procrastinating
• Not scheduling your time
• Wasting time on low-priority items
• Not managing interruptions effectively

We spent some time discussing strategies to overcome the above issues in the workshop.

I then asked the participants to identify their top time wasters and brainstorm ways to overcome each one.

Their top time wasters were:?

• Unfocused meetings?
• Constant Slack interruptions?
• Too much email
• Asynchronous communications

When you look at this list, don’t you agree that with some new habits in place, you can save lots of time in each area?

For example, meetings can be much more focused with an agenda, written minutes, and a clear list of follow-up items and accountabilities.?

None of the above suggestions are rocket science.

My guess is that you KNOW that you need to have an agenda for your meetings.?

You likely have solutions for all of your key time wasters.??

But are you implementing them?

If you want to be more productive, it’s time to move from knowing to doing!

Think about your top time wasters.

Now, put in an effective strategy to overcome each one!