Seven Time Management Sins
The seven deadly sins, also known as the capital vices or cardinal sins have been used since early Christian times to educate and instruct Christians concerning the failure of humanity. But have you heard of the Seven Sins of Time Management? They could also be said to be part of the failure of humanity.
Okay that might be a bit dramatic but still it’s important to recognize the Sins of Time Management and fix them quickly,
Sin # 1 – Brain overload “Brain Freeze” Keeping Too Many Things in Your Head A common time management mistake is trying to use your memory to keep track of all the things you need to do and places you need to be. If you are like me as your get older your memory fails you and by the end of the day you can’t even remember your name! The best way to keep track of things is to write them down! Use your tech to help you, not hurt you!
Sin #2 Chaos Junkie
You think you are great multitasker but really you are diverting efforts to many tasks instead of one; spreading yourself too thin. Our brains are not really wired for multitasking. We really don't like it. After you’ve written your goals and plans, bring your energy into focus on a single goal or plan. (a great book for this is called The One Thing by Gary W. Keller and Jay Papasan)
Sin # 3 – Tyranny of the urgent “Urgent Police”
Doing whatever is urgent Things that grab your attention tend to be urgent and they often don’t represent the best way to spend your time. Urgent things are not always important, and important things are not always urgent. When you focus only on the urgent things each day, you won’t leave enough time to deal with the things that are really important but not very urgent. Ask youself, "is this really Urgent and Important?"
Sin # 4 – Busy Work “Busy Bee”
Trying to do something so you’ll feel busy but accomplishing little or nothing. This is one of the worst ways you can waste your time, particularly when you don’t even realize you are doing it. Having a prioritized to-do list and a weekly plan really helps because you automatically assign more time to important things and less time to trivial ones.
Sin # 5 – Low ” hanging fruit” Priorities
If you find you are busy most of the day, but don’t accomplish the things that really matter to you..... you may be spending too much time on low priority items. You need to quickly realize that you simply cannot do everything that is available to them. Be selective with your time and consciously choose to spend it on what is most important. Prioritizing means taking conscious control of your choices and deciding to spend
Sin # 6 – Poor Planning
Poor planning is one of the main reasons projects fail, people fail, things get lost. When you don’t plan things get behind schedule people miss their deadlines. Without adequate planning, it is difficult to understand what it will take to complete a project successfully. You want to be successful you have to plan for it.
Sin #7- Indecision Vacillation, not only makes you nauseous but it make you time management fail. – Failure to weigh the alternatives or consider possibilities is a bad thing but when you spend most of your time weighing the possibilities and you can’t make a decision you lose focus and people lose confidence in you. Maintain your focus. Learn you don’t have to please everyone. If you can avoid these seven sins you will be on the road to better time management
