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Top 10 Time Wasting Activities (from )

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"Most of us do not realize the time and energy that we waste on useless activities that form part of our schedules. In order to be an effective performer avoid these top 10 time wasting activities to increase productivity and become successful." More tips and answers at www.jobxray.com

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Page 1: Top 10 Time Wasting Activities (from )

Interview Questions, Answers and Tips! www.Jobxray.com

Correct, comprehensive and effective insider tips for job seekers, www.jobxray.com is your single stop for answers to all the tough, sometimes bizarre questions that interviewers around the world can test you with. Job Interviews carry high stakes and can be extremely stressful given the high stakes that they carry. Interviewers can be moody but overall, interviews follow a definite structure. After personally conducting countless interviews and reviewing 1000s of resumes I have squeezed all the tricks into the easy to follow www.jobxray.com Here is one popular article from my blog -

Time Wasting Activities – Top 10

There are many hurdles to success but there is one big challenge that affects both employer and employee alike, time wasting activities.

Whether you are driving efficiency in others or conscientiously working yourself, such time consuming actions eat into productive time and hamper growth.

To make matters worse, many of us do not realize the impact of such wasteful actions until much after; missing deadlines, poor quality work, frustration, anger and enormous amounts of stress are some of the damaging results that are borne out of such behavior.

Let’s look at some of the main culprits that should be avoided for efficient time management and maximum productivity:

1. Telephone calls

A necessary evil, phone conversations are an efficient alternative to meetings. Many issues and doubts can be quickly clarified by simply calling the relevant person for the information. The challenge arises when individuals start using the phone for gossip and non professional conversations.

Although some organizations keep a tight check on the use of the office phone by monitoring calls, time wastage through extended personal calls should also be curtailed.

Page 2: Top 10 Time Wasting Activities (from )

Interview Questions, Answers and Tips! www.Jobxray.com

2. Meetings without an agenda

Dislike them as much as you want but meetings are a reality that every organization needs to embrace. Meetings are held so that people can discuss issues as a group and make a decision. But this is not always achieved because most meetings lack an agenda or don't clearly state their objective.

One key attribute of effective time management is to have a clear agenda driving every meeting.

3. Under / Over planning

Success mandates efficient planning as it guides the team to work on prioritized tasks and towards a common objective. However, sometimes tight deadlines make managers skip this strategic step in an attempt to save time. The most common outcome is that the team loses its way and an enormous amount of time is wasted in analyzing the situation and backtracking – plan in advance to mitigate such situations.

Another mistake that some individuals make is to dwell over the plan for long periods of time. Create a plan and start work – it is not possible to envisage all possible hurdles and it’s recommended that you start when you have the basics covered.

4. Unstructured processes and policies

Ambiguity is a mammoth time waster and in most organizations there are numerous policies and processes that one needs to adhere to. If there is lack of clarity in these procedures, individuals can wastefully spend a lot of time trying to find the right way out. While not everything can be laid out on paper, it helps to have a frequent reminder letting all members know about the best practices.

5. Lack of delegation

Too many cooks may spoil the broth, but one cook doing the job of many will fare no better. Attempting to do everything by yourself may not the best option as it not only prevents you from focusing on the priority but also compromises the time that you can spend on each task.

Calculate the time that needs to be spent on each task and try to get the right person for it. Effective delegation is a great tool for success.

6. No prioritization

An important outcome of planning is a prioritized list of tasks that need to be done to achieve the objective. Without prioritization you may miss working on critical success factors resulting in an overall loss of effort and time.

Page 3: Top 10 Time Wasting Activities (from )

Interview Questions, Answers and Tips! www.Jobxray.com

7. Excessive paperwork

Avoid unnecessary paperwork as it is time consuming and also more challenging to store and keep track of. With the advent of technology almost all processes are computerized and one must attempt to digitize as far as possible.

8. Procrastination

Putting things on the backburner most often results in having to redo the work with latest updates. Once you’ve prioritized your activities put timelines and start working on them.

9. Inefficiency or incompetence

Employing the right set of people is a challenge for organizations across the world. Not easy to do, having the right person for the job eliminates time wasting activities such as questions, doubts and simple mistakes. Managers often get frustrated with such employees and end up doing the work themselves or delivering it with lower quality. Clearly outline the job profile at the time of interviewing and instruct the hiring managers to interview intelligently.

10. No communication

Clear, consistent and continuous communication is critical in avoiding wastage of time. This delivers a two pronged advantage; on one hand it saves time spent by managers in clarifying doubts and correcting mistakes, and on the other hand it helps the team to work correctly and not waste time on useless tasks.

Time is money and more importantly, cannot be recovered if lost – use it wisely.

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