Signs and Symptoms of Poor Time Management

Time Management is a learned skill, necessary to find success in most areas of one's life. If you effectively manage your time things get done in a timely manner, you are less stressed, you find more time in your day, week, month for important things, and you're mind is clear and open to opportunities that the universe presents to you. It allows you to create goals, dreams, visions of the future. It ensures you have the ability and time to work toward those dreams. People find they have more time for the people in their lives, to nourish their relationships, and build stronger connections. It allows people to rest, relax, and helps people sleep better at night. The list goes on and on at how effective time management impacts a person's life in the positive.

Ineffective time management has a negative effect on people. How effective is your time management? Do the positives above fit you or are they what you're striving to achieve? Do you show signs of poor time management? Recognizing how effective you are in managing your time can help you to learn the skills necessary to improve your time management. Below is a list of signs that indicate poor time management.

• Missed appointments. This is an obvious one. Are you a person who is constantly missing appointments, late for dates, known to be late to a party? This isn't a fashionably late, I planned this kind of impression but a consistently late, I've got a time management problem. Being late has a deeper impact then how people perceive you but it also hurts the individual that is consistently late because they are stressed.
• Forget tasks. This one can be a little more subtle. Perhaps you think you're just forgetful. It happens. But 'forgetting tasks' is a sign of poor time management. Good organization is an indication of good time management and if a person is organized they probably have a system in place to remember what needs to be done (usually in the form of a schedule or to do list). 
• Missed deadlines, don't make deadlines, and paying late fees or penalties are more signs of poor time management. One of the essential learned skills in effective time management requires a person to create a schedule and adhere to that schedule. This makes missing deadlines and paying late fees a thing of the past. This also requires a person to make deadlines for goals.
• Lack of goals, vision, and/or dreams. This is perhaps one of the most damaging impacts of poor time management, second only to stress (which I like to call the silent killer). Imagine a world where the future looked bleak, one of the main causes of this bleak outlook on the future is not having goals, dreams, a vision or success plan to get to the desired future. These are important factors to keep a person moving forward. It is so important that when I meet with a client for a consultation it is one of the first things we look at. First, the potential client analyzes the balance of the most important areas in their life and then they talk about their goals, dreams, visions of the future, specifically for the low rated areas in their lives. It is a starting point. If you can dream it, you can make it happen... but there are steps that need to happen to get there and that is where the goal planning comes into place.
• Chaos is common place in your life. This can range anywhere from always putting out fires, messy home/car/work area, can't find things or things are misplaced, inbox is overflowing with messages, you're constantly trying new apps or systems to get things under control which spread you thin and creates larger messes because things are all over the place... sound familiar? Lack of organization plays a role in this area of time management. Organization is another essential part of managing time. 
• Constantly feeling stressed and overwhelmed. This stems from many things. Perhaps tasks keep piling up and you're not getting anything done, procrastination comes out to play or worse you feel so stressed and overwhelmed you just throw your hands up in the air and do nothing. This is very real and very damaging. 
• Unable to relax or sleep. I've often found a connection between relaxation/sleep and poor time management, especially in the case where a client can't turn their mind off at night to allow them to sink into the regenerative abyss of sleep. Having good time management skills can often times help in this area because you're mind is able to relax, confident that the things on the mental 'to do' list will get done.
• Making promises you can't keep, can't say no, task overload to the point you're working during meeting, having to work late, and living in the 'head down' mode. Sound familiar? An individual with good time management skills knows what they can handle and what they can't. They rarely get caught up in a position where their back is to the wall and they can't perform and if they are heading down that path they are able to identify this and delegate tasks to others or ask for help in order to get back on track. A person with good time management generally knows their limitations and has the clear mind that is necessary to fix most traps they fall into.
• Poor performance, indecisiveness, and perfectionism which often leads to missed opportunities are other signs of ineffective time management. 
• Lack of energy, feeling impatient, stressed relationships at home and in one's professional lives also often stem from poor time management. Sometimes these come from other areas but one root cause to problems in these areas is time management.
• Doing everything yourself is also a sign of poor time management. A good time manager understands how to effectively delegate. 

There are other signs but these are the big red flags. If you find yourself fitting into one or more of these categories a look at your time management skills is very important. You may be stressing yourself, your work and home relationships needlessly. Let's face it. We all would like life to go smoothly. If you had the ability to make small changes now that could impact your life on so many fronts wouldn't you want to do so?

I have designed a series of posts on this topic that will be released over the month of December and January. If you are struggling in these areas subscribe to this blog via email at the top right hand side of this page so you don't miss out on any of the upcoming posts. Also please take a moment to pop over to my Facebook page, check out the posts and give it a like here. I do a monthly giveaway with my newsletter subscribers, sign up here.

If you think you need help right away check out my website here, send me a request for a free consultation at the right hand side of this blog and lets see if personalized coaching is a good fit for you. Through the month of December and January, while this series of Time Management posts are happening I'm offering my coaching sessions and packages at 30% off for any clients seeking Time Management help. Check out my packages here. The coupon code for the discount is MANAGEROFTIME

Some future posts on this topic will include:

• Why Time Management Fails
• How to self analyze your time management skills
• Time Management Case studies
• Common steps to get on track with Time Management

As I mentioned above, effective time management is a learned skill, it's not something a person is born with. It takes time to cultivate but the rewards are far greater than the pain of changing the behaviors that are obstacles to achieving your goals in this area. I believe it's also a foundational skill to building a successful life plan. It's why I choose this one to focus on first. I hope you found this post valuable. Thank you for subscribing and taking the first step to making a change in this area of your life. Have a wonderful day.