Do you know that there are at least 5 time wasters that your boss never tells you? Even you may not aware of them too. By minimize these time wasters, you can at least save some your daily working time and enjoy your working life too. Below are the 5 time wasters.
1. Temptation to React to Interruptions
Every day in your work, you receive all kinds of interruptions ie. phone calls, walk-in customers, e-mails, urgent meetings and extra. Often, you are so tempted to response to these and treat them as important and urgent. This is also probably due the feeling of rude in declining the request for help from others. Of course, everyone is happy, including your boss, as you provide best service to customers and try to please everyone. However, you have to put down whatever things that you are currently doing to serve these interrupters and have to spend more time to recall where you have stopped when you get back to do your works again. Herbet Bayard Swope, first recipient of the Pulitzer Prize once said “I can’t give you a surefire formula for success, but I can give you a formula for failure: try to please everybody all the time”.
2. Always Say Yes
If are new to your job or like to please your boss, you tend to accept whatever requests from your boss without checking on your limit that you can handle. Another possible reason is you may be scare to decline the request. This is will increase your workload, working long hours and stress to yourself. The quality of your work may drop as you are overworked and tired. Therefore, learn to say “NO”.
3. Unorganized Workspace and Uncomfortable Working Environment
Highly productive workers work from clean and organized desk. Research shows thirty percent of the time is been wasted looking for something that is been misplaced at somewhere. Uncomfortable chair, obstruction and glare from your computer monitor will increase stress to your work. You will feel it when you are in hurry or cannot find your thing. Working long hour using non-ergonometric chair can cause stress and back pain to you. You always have the right to ask for more comfortable furniture and equipment to improve your working productivity.
4. Meeting
You may just attend meeting when you are requested to. However, have you checked what the agenda of the meeting are? Do you think there is something that you can contribute to the meeting? Otherwise, just politely excuse yourself from attending the meeting. In some cases, the meeting could drag on to discuss on some non related subjects which you are not required to contribute or involved. You can just ask the chairman of the meeting for any more topics that required you to involve, otherwise, just excuse yourself and leave the meeting room.
5. Indecision and Poor Decision Making.
One of the greatest time wasters in workplace is in making decision. Indecision and poor decision making will not just waste your time but others as well. Generally, 80% of decisions should be made the first time they come up. However, not all work decisions that are given to you, have to be decided by yourself as some are non critical and can be delegated to your sub-ordinates as part of staff grooming process while some unaffordable decision, you have the right to decline it. Decision Making requires courage as every decision has certain amount of risk of failure. You have to learn it and practise it more often. The reward for mastering decision making skill is great as all successful corporate leaders today are firm decision makers.
“You don't get paid for the hour. You get paid for the value you bring to the hour.” - Jim Rohn
Want to learn to identify more time wasters and techniques to improve them? Check it at the below website.
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