Time is a social construct. But we need to spend it wisely to finish our tasks. With time management mistakes, we can feel stressed out and overwhelmed.
In Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Dumbledore said, “Time is a curious and a funny thing.” And we cannot help but agree to the statement. As a reader of the book, we saw that one can achieve a lot with proper utilisation of time.
However, we also saw, if one needs to take up work that can be managed within the time frame.
The most disciplined person like Hermione took up the course load and could not manage it; hence her schedule was cluttered even by using a time-turner
.
Well, we are not lucky to have made this invention yet. Therefore, as working professionals, we need to monitor and manage our time to not be overwhelmed with stress.
These time management mistakes cause stress and lower your productivity. It causes inefficiency in our professional and personal lives. We end up losing our work-life balance.
Due to time-management mistakes, our relationships and pursuing personal interests become haphazard. We only focus on finishing our work and have no time left for ourselves.
Well, this can be fixed by understanding the mistakes we are making in time management and resolving them.
Here are the top time management mistakes we are making that is causing us stress:
1) We think we have enough time to complete a task
Time is both subjective and relative. When we are given a task, we think we have enough time in our hands to finish it. The problem here is that we tend to overestimate our capacity to finish the tasks given to us. Hence, at the eleventh hour, we are crunching to complete the tasks.
The solution here will be to understand our capacity and limitations to finish a task. We must keep surplus time in hand to complete the task, rather than delay it.
2) Focussing on quantity over quality
We are in hurry to complete our tasks and get over with the day. Well, this leads us to focus on just finishing the number of tasks rather than looking at its quality.
Quantity has no value if there is no quality in the tasks.
Without quality, we have to work double on the tasks and iterate constantly; hence losing more time.
Therefore, rather than just finishing tasks haphazardly, we can take more time to ensure it has quality. This has a long time benefit as your workload will not increase in the future will feedback and iterations.
3) Multi-tasking
There is a big misconception that multitasking is equivalent to hustling. We do tasks simultaneously; this clutters our productivity and induces stress. We do not get a breather or allow ourselves to take a break as we are multitasking.
The brain needs rest when it switches from one task to another. When this does not happen due to multitasking, we feel stressed and overwhelmed. Our self-deception mechanism makes us think that we are hustling, but in reality, we are struggling to deliver quality work.
Our brain is not designed to multitask. We should take one task at a time and finish it. Before we switch to another task, we need to take a break to rejuvenate our brains.
Leaders also make this mistake by doing everything by themselves; therefore to manage their time, they should delegate tasks to team members.
4) Being too much in our own head
Often we plan but fail to execute it. When the day ends, one might not understand where the time has been used. This is because, after planning, we spent most of the thinking and imagining activities in the future. This is maladaptive daydreaming, where we feel good by imagining ourselves to be successful.
This leads to spending too much time inside our own heads and not taking action in the present time.
By doing this, we lose out on time. However, this is the most difficult time-management mistake to be fixed easily.
One can constantly remind themselves if they are spending too much time in their own head.
Another technique is by measuring time for every activity or task completed at the end of the day. Through this, one can calculate where the time has been spent productively or unproductively.
5) Scrolling through social media
When we scroll through social media or watch our favorite Tiktok videos, our brain releases dopamine, giving us instant pleasure.
To feel gratified, we discard our work. However, through dopamine detox, we can fix this.
This includes setting an alarm for scrolling social media and also rewarding yourself to watch videos only after finishing the tasks.
Also, tell us your opinions about how we can track and manage our time better. For more such content, join the Fuzia community today or simply Download our App.