The Main Causes of Poor Time Management and How to Fix them

If you really care about your results, then you should never underestimate the causes of poor time management!

I am Family Man, father of three, a Manager and Trainer of Sales Forces, an Immigrant, a hard-working Industrial Electrician, a Financial Trader, and still a couple more under my belt,

I had plenty of chances to gather some strong evidence about some wrong “core mechanics”.😃

These are the “Enemies” that are making the reaching goals harder,

These are the main reasons why people abandon projects they were so passionate to start…

So, What are the Main Causes of Poor Time Management?

The Plan!

Ouch, how complicated! What if could we have a more holistic^*1, but still simpler idea of how this list of aspects integrates with each other before maybe going deeper into them?

Let’s try it making make good use of the OPA^*2 concept (Outcome, Purpose, Action) I learned as a kid from the great Tony Robbins…😊

Outcome : What result to expect from an activity

Purpose : Why it is important TO YOU to reach that result

Action : Plan of actions to accomplish the result

*1 Holistic : a vision, a way to implement things so that the whole results has more value than the sum of its parts

*2 Tony Robbin’s OPA : I found that they call it RPM (The Rapid Planning Method) nowadays. A quick research on google will do. Tony remains one of the all-time greats!

as you probably already know, I love telling stories or providing examples, because I truly believe this is the fastest way to generate that “picture in your head” to bring the point home clearly and usefully.

So Here’s Today’s Story! 🙂

You Are Doomed To Fail

In the Workplace : it’s Dayjob Time and a new exciting Project is about to be presented! Let’s give for granted that it’s your leader’s job to present the outcome of the project and why it is so important for the company to accomplish it. The managerial team will then kick in with a suitable action plan designed to achieve that outcome….so everything seems to be in place, right?

Now, you receive your piece of the action with a deadline to complete it.

But still various aspects of your task are unclear for various reasons (non-specific expectations from your supervisors, or lack of comprehension from yourself).

…So your particular goal is not clear enough to discard straight-on actions that wouldn’t help at all achieving it. (subtle, right?)

…Also, you do not share all the interest your Firm shows in the thing…

Free Falling…

This will bring to time wasted experimenting with too many solutions, many of them unable to bring you ahead. But still you want to prove your yourself to your boss, so you avoid delegating tasks as much as possible.

As a consequence, you follow many aspects of your assignment at once to stick with the incoming deadlines.

You want to deliver so badly that You did not take the time to plan the logical steps to make your work smooth and consequential, let alone to prioritize the steps so that one would naturally bring to the next.

This lack of clarity in the process makes you feel always in a rush, bouncing from one subject to another and since time seems never enough.

As a consequence, you skip your pauses to save time to throw at your work, only to come in the end so exhausted that the 5-minutes pause you intended to take to recover turns into one whole hour+ sliding on TikTok……do you start to see the pattern here?

(wait a second…Time management is here exactly to help you reduce stress! – More following the link).

You are doomed to FAIL!!

Hey, You’re absolutely not alone! Most of us have been there, me for sure in first line…

Can You Fix Poor Time Management?

This is exactly what this post is designed for: fix poor Time Management issues (for good!)

Well…in reality this article could go on forever… Keep in mind always that Time Management is a tool to pursue a particular, specific goal.

So there are strong correlations between the two, though they have precise differences between them.

That’s why having clear in mind not only the goal itself you’re after but even more the power of why you are after it it’s going to turbocharge your attitude toward the project and push you to perform at the best of your possibilities.

Seems complicated? No, not at all: let´s start straight away.

1 – The Outcome is Not Clear and/or Not Motivating

Isn’t this self-explanatory?

The clearer the goal, the more time you will save in pursuing it as you will be able to immediately discard strategies that don’t fit the goal itself and/or your personal attitudes.

And what’s more, a clear goal will be more than able to punch your emotional ribs, giving you waves of excitement as opposed to annoyance or even worry.

With time and practice you buid new mechanics to boost your engagement.

And that goes for the annoying things as well for cooling you down if you are too much “over the top” and reckless on the juicy ones…

Let´s get back to the example above : maybe you do not share all the interest your company shows on this new project..

But you know for sure that if you stick to the schedule and provide a solid overall performance you will be able to ask (and receive) a couple of extra day-offs to spend with your loved ones (or even some more benefits).

Plus, your reputation as a competent professional will rise and consolidate itself.

Not a bad trade-off, don’t you think?👍

In two simple words “BE CREATIVE”.

2 – Overloading | Poor Delegation Skills

This deal with different psychological aspects of your personality as well as the environment you are in.

There are indeed tasks that are complex enough themself without your help! (A good example is everything related to sales!!!) 🤣

For instance, I am the sort of guy that loves to take on big, complex stuff just to prove to himself and everybody out there that he “can” (and therefore he is worth…) – Sound familiar?

“Hi, I am maxx, and I am a workaholic…..” (Yeah that´s me…)

…I had to deal with overloading so many times…

In the end, I learned the hard way that your contribution as a single person will never outrank that of a decent team, let alone that of a GOOD team.

And you can be part of or start an amazing team practically in every environment.

At home with your family just as with your group of friends, in sports teams or at work.

The key here is that :

Again, I was a Manager myself. And I saw that happening times and times again, from the good and the bad side.

If you are in a healthy environment you will not feel your competence (yourself as a person) at stake asking for help or clarifications on a particular task.

Nor will the people around you hold any relevant information, because everybody will aim naturally for the best performance of the whole team.

This will have you delegate chunks of your tasks without any anxiety since you will have trust in your colleagues, not envy or resentment.

Of course, there will be situations of stress to manage, but the overall positive vibe will help drastically to resolve them fast.

This will become a habit. And a very good one indeed.

3 – Multitasking

This is a sign of our times. We are so doomed to “do/have it all, now!” nowadays that it seems for us unproductive to focus on one specific set of actions to complete a single specific assignment.

This is what I found myself after years of multitasking-mayhem :

Now do not take my words for granted and try it for yourself:

Set a day for the experiment and try to make what you normally do multitasking.

(One specific task completed, up to the next)

And please do not cheat! 😊 I am not saying that you have to stare at your coffee machine until the led turns green and you can push the button to make your Cappuccino.😁

I am referring to the concept of completing the tasks that need your full attention without overlapping them.

You will most surely find that you will need so much less energy to go through your day.

You do not need to come exhausted every evening, thinking to save some time (if any) you will not be able to enjoy anyway…

4 – Pauses | Not Sticking to the Plan

This is another aspect related to your own personality. No one like to bash himself to go on with something when the fatigue shows itself.

Still, I had to learn to discipline myself to include regular pauses in my daily schedule. (and by the way, a good place to start is the Pomodoro Technique).

Now, the key to implementing this is observation : observe closely.

Like an outside person, investigate what happens to your physical and intellectual skills if you allow yourself a 5 min break every 25-30 of intense, focused work.

Compare your results in both cases. Amaze yoursel!

Though I have still miles to go until I get it for good (this is one of my worst weaknesses), I am always astonished realizing how far a simple adjustment can go. Do yourself a favor: try it….. and let me know!

And referring to “sticking to the plan” let me ask you : what is the point in investing time to learn the skill, taking your time to plan your day….and then start doing whatever comes to your mind at the moment? Sorry, I don’t get it….maybe you can help me understand… 😀

5 – Not Prioritizing

If you start to take the above points home, the concept of prioritizing will take good care of itself. Sometimes it will be logical to prioritize tasks since the previous ones will allow working on the following ones. Or other times you will simply develop a “feel” that will instantly make clear the perfect task to do next.

Come on, you do it already a ton of times every day, from preparing your breakfast to dressing yourself for an evening out. Prioritizing tasks to improve productivity is not that much different.

Again, the point here is to REDUCE STRESS as low as possible (no, it will never leave completely…)

6 – Allowing Distractions

A sneaky one, I know.

If you are personally committed to the outcome of the task (the WHY), then distractions shouldn’t be an issue.

Instead, you could find yourself losing track of time and not taking pauses at all…(Hellooo!! That´s ME!) 😂

The problems start when the task is annoying, particularly hard, or not providing some result as you go ahead.

1. Start planning carefully the task, allocating a fair amount of work time and pauses.
2. Make sure to complete the planning phase to the end, without unclear sections.
3. Your plan has to include a specific time after which you will call it a day and dedicate the rest of your time to your own things.

This is critical. You have to stick to the plan also regarding the moment your working day is over.

And one size does not fit all, I get it…As an employee, you will have maybe to foresee room for some “elasticity”.

But I am sure you get the point. Following the schedule will definitely reduce stress and fatigue, so you will be naturally less inclined to distractions.

As an additional help, keep your fonts of distractions away : turn off your cellphone, and your PC as well if you do not need them for strictly work-related reasons.

This will go for everything else that could drive you off track too (radio volume too loud, distracting noises, etc.).

Remember : there are only a bunch of hours left until your workday is over and you can fully enjoy all the things you love.

…And please do it, because you earned it all with your commitment, your engagement, your unique passion.

7 – Skill not Properly Developed

There’s no doubt that Time Management is a high-level professional skill. But it doesn’t have not to be confined to the toolbox of a company’s managers and leaders…

It indeed is a “god sent” for everybody to learn, given that one works holistically on other aspects always overlooked in this era of “getting things done” (….sometimes just for the sake of “getting things done”!).

Nonetheless, learning and implementing (learning to use effectively) a high-level difficult skill is a very hard task.

For instance, it’s not surprising at all that young students have the hardest time managing their time successfully.

The reason for that is that this skill involves the control/command functions of the prefrontal cortex, which completes its development after their mid-late 20s.

But many adults have it not easy either….

Most of us learned bad habits (like procrastination for example) and never invested the time and “did the reps” necessary to ingrain better skill into their “default system”!

Here the solution is easier than it seems: You have to start doing it!

And start it as simple as you can.

Pen and paper will do. I guarantee you: it will not only bring much more clarity to your day but also release much of your habitual fatigue.

And like for everything else, the more you do it, the more you learn about it.

On the other hand, if you are already more advanced, you can boost your effectiveness even more by implementing technology. There are numerous apps you can employ that can help you with your own particular necessities (check the link out).

8 – Procrastination | Bad Sense of Time

The everybody’s favorite! procrastination is a multi-faced and complex psychological issue.

Without going into a deep academic dissertation, suffice here to say that plain laziness and some addiction to one’s own endorphins are the nasty parents of this bad boy….

Plus, many of us are still in our infancy when it comes to planning.

We attempt to estimate the time we need to complete an activity… just to find ourselves drowning under a sea of obligations and no time left to complete any of them (Do you?…)

Here I can propose you three strategies that proved themselves time and time again to ignite a positive change :

1. Chunk the task into the smallest pieces possible. This will reduce the psychological refuse of having to deal with a gigantic assignment, and it also makes pauses and breaks much more plannable (between the chunks!)
2. Reward yourself with something great if you will complete your assignment on time. And then only.
3. Find an accountability partner. Man, this is sooo powerful! Everyone is terrified of looking bad in front of others. Make sure you trust and respect your partner. He is investing his time for your good.

9 – Slavery of the Unexpected | Urgency Addiction

We all know Life is unpredictable. Unexpected things present them anytime.

Do you see the power of planning here?

If we are not used to planning, then we are naturally doomed to react to the minute-to-minute happenings of the day.

And when the unexpected comes, and it all starts to get crazy!

We have no other option than swim with the current, futilely trying to gain control over the direction it will bring us.

Well, it is clear that nobody can plan everything, and that no plan will work without a single issue…

But the problem here is that we are allowing any happening to steal the priority from what is really important to us.

At the very least delay your intervention until later, when your assignments for the day are completed.

Families are a big issue in this regard since broken furniture, pipelines, appliances and bicycles can happen every day.

(Sorry, this souns autobiographic a bit…because it is!😁😁😁).

Make who is around you understand the importance of what you are doing. This is paramount!

Or you are normally praised for resolving different issues at home or at work, aren´t you?

Well, make sure this won’t evolve into an Urgency Addiction, where you subconsciously search for problems to solve and get rewards for that (damn Dopamine!! 🤣).

Would you like to share your point of view on the subjects? I would love to hear from you in the comments!