Adopting the right time management habits and routine for your business is essential for maximum productivity. Obviously, if you don’t have the time or can’t manage it appropriately, you will always be behind.
Here are five common bad time management habits you must quit now for better business success:
Creating Variable Deadlines
If your deadlines are not strict or hard, then you are only doing yourself a disservice and further using up and wasting time. More so than if you didn’t set one in the first place. Every time you move that deadline, you use adequate time to focus on action instead. Set firm ones to keep you on track and find the discipline you need to be a business owner.
Utilizing the Wrong Tools or Too Many
Tools are great until they are not. With any technology or resources, even if they work great for others, it doesn’t mean it will automatically be right for you. Each person and business is unique and needs to be studied, tried, and tested.
Doing Easy Tasks First
Don’t use your most productive time on easy or brainless tasks. Just because it’s easy doesn’t mean you should get it out of the way. Use these tasks at the end of your day, or when you don’t need to focus on a bigger or better project that brings you closer to your main objectives.
Just imagine you start your workday full of energy, ready to tackle your most demanding project but then fall into the never-ending rabbit hole of emails. Your energy is drained before you know it, and now you have to slug through your work to reach your deadlines. Affecting the quality of your work and likely decreasing your willpower. Making you create excuses to give you permission to change your deadlines and delaying any results that truly make you productive.
Zero Time Tracking Tools
If you are not tracking the time it takes you to complete each task, you are not planning appropriately. Effective time management and planning include understanding precisely the time you need to get it done and then applying fifteen to twenty extra minutes to account for the unexpected.
Being Someone That You Are Not
Trying to go after all the latest trends or following the advice of everyone around you constantly without taking a break, being dishonest with yourself, and not being true to yourself is a recipe for disaster.
Their habits may work for them, but that doesn’t mean it’ll be the most valuable or comfortable for you too. If you keep doing things just because everyone else is but unhappy and uncomfortable about the process, your business and customers will see it too. Always be honest with yourself and keep the journey more personal for more success.
Don’t let these bad habits control your life. You have what it takes to do and be better as long as you put in the work and take a moment to reflect.