You will hardly meet a person who doesn’t wish to be have more free time. Daily routine eats up too much of our time rarely leaving us an opportunity to do what we really enjoy. Yet, some people actually manage to find extra time for their favourite activities or at least, for a proper night’s sleep. We bet you would like to know their secrets that is why we dedicated this article to the signs of poor time management and explained the way you can improve it.
Being in a constant hurry
The majority of us are living in a rush. Waking up already tired, crazy packing for work, stressing about being late are the things we are experiencing in the morning whereas this is just a beginning of a day. Needless to say, spending each and every morning in such a mode can drain out anyone and will certainly leave you without any energy for dealing with the rest of the day.
In fact, a constant hurry is a major symptom of poor planning. First of all, you should try to wake up earlier in order to have an opportunity to start your day in a more pleasant way. If you have a long list of meeting planned for day, don’t forget to include some time for breaks between your appointments.
Of course, someone might say it is impossible since their rush is the result of a really busy schedule. If it is so in your case, you should rethink the tasks you are taking and decide which is more important for you. A useful tool for this purpose is learning to be assertive which we describe below.
Note that reducing a hurry is vital not only for your psychological well-being but also for your physical health.
You almost do not use the word “no”
When one is speaking about being assertive, he or she is thinking about saying “no” to other people. Definitely, this is a crucial skill which everyone should acquire.
Being assertive doesn’t mean that you are not willing to help other people, it means that as a human being, you are not able to help everyone you want. In addition to it, when it comes to your working environment, assertiveness is also vital for protecting yourself against being overloaded with tasks for which you might not get any financial profit.
Although being assertive is really beneficial for an individual, it is not thus easy to tell “No” to your friends or relatives whom you don’t want to offend or to your boss for fear of appearing as a lazy or irresponsible employee. If you have difficulties with being assertive with other people, try refusing from doing particular things first.
The list of things you should say a decisive “No” are:
- the tasks that can be easily automated or there is another person who is responsible for them or have more expertise in the topic;
- unproductive activities, for instance, reading gossips online or regular watching TV shows and series;
- distractive activities including social networks and checking the websites of online shops when you are not planning to buy anything.
Undeniably, you should resign from doing the things that differ from your values in the first place.
You often work till late hours
Certainly, there are moments when everyone has to deal with some unexpected situations and spend evening or nights on finishing their work. It can happen from time to time depending on your job, but it assuredly can’t be a regular practice.
Surely, you might be a real night owl working especially productively at night, but heed the difference between starting working on your task at late hours after having a sufficient sleep and trying to finish them after a long day of working. The bottom line is to limit your working hours since only in such a way you will be able to work efficiently.
One of the solutions for this issue has already been described above which is being assertive.
People regard you to be an irresponsible person
Hearing accusations of being irresponsible is rather unpleasant and you might really get offended by such words. Even so, the best thing you can do in such situations is considering your own behaviour.
In point of fact, people rarely call someone feckless without any reason and, in all likelihood, your own behaviour is a real culprit for your getting such an unfortunate description from your colleagues or friends.
Turn over the reasons for missing the deadlines constantly in your mind and you might find out interesting things about yourself. You might be a really diligent and industrious person, but you might not be able to estimate the time needed for completing a particular task realistically. For instance, it might be so because you are afraid to ask more time for particular work.
If this is the case, try not to stress yourself and don’t set harsh time limits for your work. Remember, it is better to ask for a larger amount of time at the beginning then ask of extra time when you are close to the deadline.
A sure thing, you might be just procrastinating too much and its result is poor productivity. Then, you should start from disciplining yourself, and the tool of saying “no”, especially to useless activities and distractions is a good point to begin with.