25 Nov TSLH #047: 12 Time Wasters and How To Defeat Them
Posted at 06:00h
in Newsletter
Read time: 4 minutes
Time management is still cited by my clients and many leaders as one of their top leadership challenges.
No matter what people get trained on, read or practice, it seems there is no shortage of events that derail our otherwise good intentions and that make us waste an awful amount of time every single day.
Some time wasters are externally caused, i.e., caused by other people and they impact us and our productivity. What’s more surprising is that there are also internally caused time wasters. Yes, you read correctly. Sometimes, we, ourselves, are inflicting self-pain, often being completely oblivious of how we “decide” to waste time.
I’ll share the most common 12 internally caused time wasters and give you quick tips to avoid them or at the very least, to be more aware of them.
Waiting for inspiration. As you may well know, procrastination is your worst ennemy, causing you to lose momentum, knowing that you need to do something, but always delaying taking action. Procrastination may come because you fear an outcome, or the task you need to tackle sounds so boring.
My tips:
- Break down your tasks into smaller ones that are easily achievable.
- Make a list of what you need to do and start working on that list.
- Get some peer support to help you work on a task.
Doing everything by yourself. No, you’re not a superhero, and although you may think that being the leader means you should do everything alone, doing so will only backfire. This will cause fatigue, stress, and possibly burn-out. Not to mention, it may derail your ability to lead your team significantly, because of the lack of results from being tired.
My tips:
- Delegate tasks and activities to the people on your team, together with the authority to make decisions.
- Collaborate more, understand who in your team or organization can do something better than you.
- Just accept the fact that you don’t know everything, be blunt about it, and let yourself be vulnerable: A great way to create trust.
Worrying about what people will say. One of the biggest saboteurs that people have – a saboteur is that inner-voice that is lying to you in order to not get you into action – is the fear of being judged by others. For every single thing we do, we fear what other people might think or say about it. If you are in that vicious circle, you probably don’t take action because of that fear.
My tips:
- Focus on what is good for YOU, not for others.
- Identify the lies that this inner-voice is telling you, and be fully aware of the fact that they are lies. Focus on the truth you know.
- Practice and use consistency in how you lead, explain your decision-making process to others, so that your decisions will be made with clarity and protected from any judgment.
Not living your life. Listening too much to others’ advice on what you should do or not do will ultimately make you unhappy. You may end up feeling tired, stressed, demotivated. This could happen if you are doing what you do because it was the wish of someone else (e.g., my parents always wanted me to be a …)
My tips:
- Listen to your heart and use it as a compass to live.
- Understand your values and what makes you tick, what matters to you.
- Do things that truly resonate with who you are.
- Learn to say no to things that drain your energy.
Being fearful. You can be fearful in a lot of situations: In front of the unknown, the daunting task, or just afraid of failure. Being afraid is a normal emotion, and it is OK to be afraid. What is not OK is to get into a panic mode and not do anything. When I climbed the Mont-Blanc summit in 2019, I was afraid: Of height, of possible mountain sickness, of the fact that I had never climbed a mountain before. These feelings stayed with me for the entire climb. However, I controlled them by focusing on my experience, the fact that it’s OK not be afraid, and the knowledge that it was also OK to fail.
My tips:
- Accept that mistakes are part of the learning process.
- Accept that fear in itself is not bad, it’s a feeling, an emotion, and you can be present with it. Just avoid turning that fear into panic.
- Share your fear with others to get support.
Complaining. Also know as “playing the victim” in my vocabulary. Stop whining about things like “I have a bad manager”, “I don’t like my work”, “My team is not engaged”, etc. Whining won’t change anything.
My tips:
- Take responsibility to work on your issues. You think your have a bad manager? Well, address the issue with them in a 1-1 (OK, don’t tell them they’re bad! Tell them what you don’t get from them and what you need).
- If you see a problem in an area beyond your scope of responsibilities, don’t wait for that problem to become your problem: Attack the issue, speak to people.
- When things go wrong, just don’t complain, and instead act!
Not finishing tasks. They will consume your energy and attention, always being there on your ToDo list, or you will get reminded about them regularly by other people. There is no way around this. You need to decide: Either do the task, or drop it completely.
My tips:
- Use techniques like the Pomodoro or the Frog to work on tasks that tend to stay unfinished.
- Be clear about a task: Either decide to do it and then plan for it; or decide to drop it, and then delegate it to someone or cancel it completely.
- Use the Eisenhower Matrix to make sure you work only on tasks that are important but not urgent.
Trying to please everybody. This one is fairly easy: Everybody is different and will have a different opinion. Whatever you do, there will always be people who will disagree and criticize you.
My tips:
- Accept that people have different views on things and don’t stop taking action just because someone disagrees with you.
- Be consistent and clear about what you will do, and communicate openly about it.
- Be curious about different opinions you may hear, as they might create new perspectives of seeing a decision or an action. This could fill you with very valuable new information or data.
Comparing yourself to others. This is unfortunately something that more and more people do, lured by social medias who seem to display only very successful people, who have no problems in life, who turn everthing they touch into gold, etc. The truth is that comparing yourself constantly to others is unproductive. Comparison will leave you bitter, jealous and insecure.
My tips:
- Focus on your strengths, your experience, what you have accomplished in life or at work. Be proud of you, this is YOUR experience, nobody else’s. Don’t let the (apparent) success of others blind you.
- If you want to compare, work the opposite way: Take your successes in any given area and see how the people you’re trying to compare to have not reached similar successes in those same areas.
- Be aware of what you control and what you don’t control in your life: Your successes and experiences are the result of many events. You controlled some of them, and did not control others. This is the same for everyone.
Repeating the same mistakes. As I usually say to the people on my team when I start working with them, “Making a mistake will happen, and this is OK. What is not OK is to not learn from the mistake and keep making it again and again.”
My tips:
- Learn from every mistake by reviewing what you could have done better, what you can do differently next time, what support you may need.
- Turn each mistake into a learning opportunity, ask yourself “What is something I am learning?”
- Admit your mistake so that you get support understanding how to not repeat it the next time.
Being a perfectionist. This is again a form of saboteuring yourself, by convincing yourself that you cannot complete a task because you have not fully planned for all contingencies, or you still need to prepare for that presentation, or you need to read for the nth time the text to make sure it’s perfect. Perfectionism will rarely take you to where you want to be as a leader.
My tips:
- Use the 80/20 pareto rule: Focus on the 20% of time and actions that will give you 80% of the result you aspire to.
- Be critical about what you are trying to do: Will reading the text for the nth time really add any value to it? Do you really need to know all the facts before completing an action?
- Reflect on the Facebook motto: “Done is better than perfect!”
Lacking priorities. Not prioritizing or accepting all requests will make your life miserable in the long run. You really want to avoid getting involved in the cases that aren’t important for you.
My tips:
- Use the quote “Your lack of planning is not my emergency!” with people who tend to ask a lot from you, especially in an urgent mode.
- Use the Eisenhower Matrix to focus on the important and not urgent tasks, those that matter to you.
- Learn how to say No in a polite and respectful way, so that people value your time and don’t waste it.
It is key to be aware of all the opportunities we have in life or at work to waste time. The good news is, there are multiple ways to avoid the time wasters. I have given you many tips you can easily implement to counter these time wasters. You don’t need to start on all of these – Remember, you don’t want to procrastinate because the climb seems too abrupt. Instead, start with one of the time wasters, and practice my tips until you’re satisfied that you can defeat the time waster. Then, go to the next one!
I wish you a great read. I’ll see you next Saturday!
TL; DR (Too Long, Did not Read)
12 time wasters and how to defeat them
- Waiting for inspiration.
- Doing everything by yourself.
- Worrying about what people will say.
- Not living your life.
- Being fearful.
- Complaining.
- Not finishing tasks.
- Trying to please everybody.
- Comparing yourself to others.
- Repeating the same mistakes.
- Being a perfectionist.
- Lacking priorities.
Whenever you’re ready, there are 3 ways I can help you:
1️⃣ Work 1-1 with me to step up as the authentic leader you aspire to be.
2️⃣ Hire me to help you build a high-performing team.
3️⃣ Start with my affordable digital courses on Mastering Difficult Conversations for Leaders and Goal Setting