How Managing Your Time Helps Prevent Last-minute Completion Of Tasks?

Are you the kind of person who's always late? Do you always have to text “I'll be there in 5 minutes” to the people waiting for you? You may have a time management problem.

There are psychological factors for chronic delay, but it's something you can change about yourself. Here's why persistent delays affect you and how you can begin to make a difference:

Impact of Delay on Your Life

Being late can hurt you in all areas of your life. Diana DeLonzor has studied the causes of delay and wrote about her findings in her book Never Be Late Again, saying that delay is seen as rude or even a way of showing strength by others. Still, this is often not the case. You may be the most affected by your delay.

Think about it. Your boss may scold or fire you if you're constantly late for work. You are late paying your taxes and will be fined, and if you are always late meeting your friends, you may lose your friendships because they will feel disrespected.

As you can see, the delay is a more serious problem than most people think. Delonzor says that delay habits are instilled from childhood and remain ingrained in yourself when you become an adult. As such, you can feel there's no way to get rid of it as if the delay is just a part of who you are. In fact - and yet - it's something you can change to stop its impact on your life.

Three types of late people

One of the most intriguing theories that Delonzor came up with was the different types of people who were late. She identified three main groups, all of which suffered delays for various reasons, according to the research.

1. The Deadliner

This person is always in an exciting state of rushing to meet the deadline. This type of person says that they are doing their best under pressure and cannot cope if they feel that they are wasting time; this means they may overload themselves with tasks or rush from one task to another without interruption.

2. “The Producer”

This person hates the idea of wasting any part of the time and is a great creator of to-do lists and inevitably creates lists that they can never hope to finish. Also, this type of person usually engages in “magical thinking.” This leads them to believe they can do more in one day than they can actually do in reality.

3. The Absent-Minded Professor

This type of person is easily distracted, and if they need to leave the house now, they will stop when walking out the door to focus on the twisted image or to close the curtains properly. People of this type are always late because they cannot prioritize what is most important. They often have some Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) or other attention disorder that makes it difficult for them to focus on what they need to do.

If you see yourself in any of these groups, then you have a delay problem that needs to be addressed, but fortunately, it's possible to change things, no matter how bad you feel about your problem.

How do you start controlling delays?

You may notice that you're really struggling to get anything done on time, but you also feel like there's not enough time in the day to get things done. You can handle this - as Gareth Johnson of Academized says - by taking it slow and analyzing the time: “I used to feel like I was working all hours of the day, but I couldn't finish anything. I started running late for deadlines, which, of course, I couldn't let go, and then a friend suggested that I record all my time over a week and see how I was really spending it.”

Recording time - according to an article by Nagesh Belludi - is the best way to know how to manage your time; record throughout the week everything you do in increments of 10 or 15 minutes. Ironically, this can be a waste of time, but still, the results are worth it. At the end of the week, you will have a comprehensive picture of how you really use your time.

Many people who have tried this method have been amazed by how much time they waste daily. Time passes and ends in many different ways without you even realizing it. You may spend ten minutes every day talking to coworkers when you should be working, or you may be busy browsing social media when you should be heading to pick up children from school. You may also waste time fixing unimportant things instead of addressing your main problem.

You'll also see that you're doing work that other people should really do. For example, you might be an executive, but you're still spending a few hours a week booking flights and hotels for a future trip despite having an assistant who can help you take on jobs like this.

Another problem that may appear in your weekly record is that you are wasting time because you do not have the right skills or tools to do the work at hand. If you spend a lot of time trying to navigate Microsoft Excel or you find it challenging to use a program that is not suitable for the task, you are wasting time, and you will either need to develop the skill or change the tool to restore that time.

Solutions

Now that you've collected this data, you'll have to decide what to do with it - what you do will largely depend on what you find in your record.

Here are some examples of actions you might want to take:

• If you find that you're wasting time being unproductive, you'll need to find ways to remove these unproductive activities from your day. The solution could be turning off your phone while you work to resist the urge to browse Facebook, or if your co-workers are taking up your time, you'll need to start setting clear boundaries, so they stop distracting you. Whatever the problem, you must find a way to solve it.
• If you're doing a job that others can do, you'll need to start delegating tasks, and you can hire an assistant. If you don't have one, it's time to hire an assistant. Delegating can be hard because it means you're giving control to someone else, but by doing so, you're taking back time you can spend on essential projects that no one else can handle.
• If you notice you're wasting time because you don't have the right skill or tool, get it. Many people put off learning a basic skill because they think they're too old to learn it or they don't really need it, yet the time saved once you know what you're doing is invaluable. For example, if you take an Excel course, you'll never waste time dealing with it again. The same is true for gadgets; it can be costly in the short term, but buying a suitable device means you won't struggle with an inappropriate or outdated gadget.

6 Steps to Better Manage Your Time

You already have the key strategies for managing your time better, and there are plenty of other strategies you can implement to help you conserve time better as well. Here  are some of the best things you can try as you look to change your mindset about managing your time:

1. Delegate household chores

It's not just about work. You need to let others take the reins, and if you're the kind of person who needs to take on all the tasks at home, you'll need to figure out how to let this go. It makes you late to deal with the really essential things.

Gina Harrison, a freelance writer at Assignment and a mother of three, agrees: “I was convinced I was the only one who knew how to organize and arrange the house. It meant that most of my time was spent trying to follow my children, and I had to learn how to delegate some tasks to them to arrange the house and save me some time. And once I got used to it, I discovered I could get a lot done with the time I wasted."

2. Do the most challenging job first

There will always be that job you don't want to do, and it's probably been on your to-do list for weeks. Keep ignoring them long enough, and you'll find that the deadline is soon. This forces you to complete them quickly. The best thing to do daily is to deal with the most challenging task first. The morning is when you are most productive and finish your work.

There's a famous saying by Mark Twain about swallowing a frog every morning. That way, nothing else you do that day will be more horrible, and if you “swallow the frog” on this task, you'll find it much easier to process what's left off the list.

3. Track how much you accomplish each day

A time log is a one-time tool, but it's helpful to track how much you do each day. Take the time to measure how much your business is producing at the end of the day. How much have you done? Is it less than usual? And why is that? Measuring results in this way will help you stay on track.

Many online tools can help you do this. If you're a content writer or a manager, a tool like Easy Word Count will be the easiest way to determine how much you've accomplished in a day. Track those results and use them to improve your performance.

4. Allocate the right time

If you're the type of person who allocates time without considering emergencies, you'll often find that you're running late because a minor glitch in your plans can trip you up. The best way to overcome that is to increase the time you think you must take.

If you think the journey takes 23 minutes, give yourself 30 minutes to complete it; this way, if you experience traffic congestion or any other problems, you won't be late. If you find that you arrived early, you can use this time to read, respond to emails, or tackle other tasks while you wait.

5. Task division

If you are constantly postponing your tasks, this may be because the task in front of you seems too huge and cannot be absorbed, which is common, but it can be easily addressed. Divide that big task into smaller components and focus on completing each small task individually. When you follow this approach, your tasks become more manageable, and you'll likely finish them quickly.

6. Avoid Divergence

If you're the type of distracted person, you'll need help focusing on what you really need to do, and if there's something you can't distract yourself from, remind yourself out loud about your main task whenever your attention gets distracted. For example, if you need to get out of the house and into the car, say, “I want to get in the car,” out loud when you start doing something else. You may feel a little silly to do this, but it can make you more aware of when you're distracted.

Use these tips and tools, and you can be more productive in your daily life; it is possible to end your delay forever.