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Time wasters – What kills our productivity at work? 31 Jan 2013

These days no one can afford to waste time at work. We need to speed up and improve our productivity at work in order to achieve better results, beat the competitors and survive. Productivity experts have come up with many effective ways to accomplish more in less time. However, even the best time management practices will not be able to help you, if you are still wasting time on pointless actions.

• Emails
  There is no doubt emails are a convenient way to communicate. However, sometimes it is much simpler just to have a short face to face or telephone conversation instead of sending back and forth emails. Plan a short meeting to explain the problem and answer all questions.
• Ineffective Multi-Tasking
  There’s a limit to how many things you can do at once without taking away from the quality of your work and, ultimately, slowing down the process. Use priorities and set work in progress limits to avoid bad consequences of multi-tasking.
• Meetings
  It is estimated that 50% of all time spent in meetings is wasted. What can you do make your meetings more productive? First of all, make sure you really need a meeting: if what you have to say can be easily shared in an email to the group, why get people away from their work? If you definitely need to meet you team, remember that the meeting should have a goal. Put the purpose of the meeting into an agenda and distribute it to attendees before the meeting starts. Finally, choose the meeting moderator who will ensure that the participants remain focused on important problems.
• Non-work related Internet Surfing
  Surfing the Internet is a common way to have a quick break from work. It is much better to leave this type of search for your lunch break or the end of the work day.

The awareness of our bad habits can help us improve the productivity at work. Here, we've presented only some of the most common time wasters. Let us know what is your and what you do to combat it.