Big projects look overwhelming and often lead to stress and procrastination.Time management tips:<ul><li>Break it down. Whenever you start a new task, break it down into steps that you can complete in 20–30 minutes, even if they look trivial.</li><li>Develop a logical sequence. Complete tasks in order, one by one, to feel the progress.</li><li>Review your progress regularly. Break your tasks into an easy-to-follow steps. Or use task boards like <a href="https://www.actitime.com/getting-more-efficient-with-actitime/kanban-system/">Kanban</a> to visualize your progress.</li></ul>

17. Not Breaking Down Big Projects

We all have 24 hours in a day and limited energy capacities as human beings.
Time management tips:
<ul>
<li>Outsource. Weigh the opportunity costs, take some load off your shoulders and focus on hign-impact activities.</li>
<li>Automate your routines as much as possible.</li>
<li>Delegate a part of your workload to other team members to teach them new skills and grow a reliable assistant.</li>
</ul>

10. Doing Everything On Your Own

Time management tips:<ul><li>Follow the <a href="https://oxfordre.com/psychology/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190236557.001.0001/acrefore-9780190236557-e-12">Goal-Setting Theory</a>: set specific, difficult and challenging goals.</li><li>Review future plans. Even if you aren’t excited about your current project, a long-term perspective may provide you with motivation to keep on going.</li><li>Trick your brain. Whenever we accomplish a task, our brains release dopamine, which is connected to feelings of pleasure and motivation. Break down your tasks into small goals to keep yourself motivated during long-term projects.</li></ul>

19. Being Unmotivated

Habits are routines that you do with little or no conscious thought, also meaning little energy investments.Time management tips:<ul><li>Build the habit loop. Choose a trigger, execute the routine and do something enjoyable afterward. Let’s say at 10 a.m. you have a standup meeting (trigger). Next, you disable notifications, put your headphones on and attack the most demanding task (routine). After that you go for lunch at around 2 p.m. or whenever you are done. </li></ul>* check <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1847941834/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl">Atomic Habits</a> by James Clear

15. Doing Routines Instead of Habits

Regardless of our occupations, many aspects of our jobs are repetitive and open to automation.Time management tips:<ul><li>Improve routine tasks. Review your routine activities regularly and brainstorm ideas of how you could tackle them even more effectively.</li><li>Automate management routines with time and project management tools. </li><li>Use automation tools. Automate routines in your web apps with tools like <a href="https://zapier.com/">Zapier</a> and <a href="https://ifttt.com/">IFTTT</a>. </li></ul>

16. Avoiding Automation

On the one hand, an increasingly digitalized lifestyle shortens our attention span and concentration abilities that can be <a href="https://time.com/3858309/attention-spans-goldfish/">compared</a> to those of a goldfish. On the other hand, modern tools can save you hours if used wisely.Time management tips:<ul><li>Use technology to plan your day. Consider <a href="https://www.lifewire.com/free-online-calendars-1357935">online calendars</a> and scheduling apps for personal time management purposes.</li><li>Try <a href="https://www.actitime.com/time-tracking/how-to-stay-focused-with-a-time-tracker/">time trackers</a> to get new productivity insights.</li><li>Consider <a href="https://www.actitime.com/software-collections/project-management-tools/">project management tools</a> to manage team performance.  </li></ul>

20. Not Taking Technology Along

Perfectionists strive to deliver high-quality work, but their high standards cause stress, burnout and anxiety in the long run.Time management tips:<ul><li>Get comfortable with imperfection. Ask yourself: "Am I being productive? Can I get more results with a handful of imperfect tasks?"</li><li>Reflect on your progress on a weekly, bi-weekly and monthly basis.</li><li>Ask for perspective and support. Show your work to your supervisor to learn if you are doing good and the current quality of work is sufficient.</li></ul>

1. Being a Perfectionist

Develop strategical thinking and set short-term goals to achieve extraordinary results.Time management tips:<ul><li>Develop awareness. Think about how your time and efforts you invested today will contribute to your tomorrow’s reality and bring you closer to your goals.</li><li>Use 7-minute rule. Spend 7 minutes in the morning to plan your day and 7 minutes before you go to sleep to review your day and prepare a plan for tomorrow.</li><li>Review your progress. Use tables, charts and reports to see how you are doing.</li></ul>

5. Never Thinking About Tomorrow

Most of us tend to underestimate how long projects and tasks will take us to finish. Time management tips:<ul><li>Calculate your <a href="https://medium.com/swlh/your-schedule-needs-a-buffer-3930bebc0cfa">fudge ratio</a>. Build a list of tasks, estimate and track time against them. Then add up your total time spent, divide it by the total estimated time and multiply the result by 100%.</li><li>Assume the worst-case scenario. Include possible interruptions and roadblocks into your estimates.</li><li>Have someone else estimate for you: we make more accurate estimations for others. </li></ul>

11. Being Bad at Estimating Time

<a href="https://www.realsimple.com/work-life/life-strategies/time-management/attention-management">Attention management</a> - the ability to recognize your brain state and consciously shift yourself into the state that will serve you best at the moment.Time management tips:<ul><li>Control your environment. Communicate to others that you try to stay focused. </li><li>Review your attention-stealing habits. Background TV noise, checking out phone notification - identify and eliminate these. </li><li>Exercise and meditate to improve memory, concentration, and mental sharpness, reduce mind wandering, boost focus and memory</li></ul>

9. Not Practicing Attention Management

Review not only your daily and weekly performance but look into monthly and half-year reports to get a birds-eye view of your efforts.Time management tips:<ul><li>Avoid <a href="https://www.lifehack.org/articles/communication/how-the-sunk-cost-fallacy-makes-you-act-stupid.html">sunk cost fallacy</a> — investing too much time into ineffective tasks. Question the efficiency of ongoing tasks. </li><li>Review your schedule regularly. Review daily schedule to plan your workload. </li><li>Build a <a href="https://www.skillsyouneed.com/ps/planning-personal-development.html">personal development plan</a>. Document your goals, plans, skills to master. Review your progress regularly to make sure you stay on track.</li></ul>

7. Lack of Regular Time Management Review

Time tracking reveals unexpected trends and insights and ecourages a more strategic approach to time management. Time management tips:<ul><li>Pick a time tracking tool: a timesheet app, a desktop time tracker, a mobile app, a <a href="https://www.actitime.com/browser-extension">browser extension</a> or a stopwatch timer.</li><li>Track even the smallest tasks like phone calls, meetings, coffee breaks, distraction time.</li><li>Review your performance regularly with charts and reports. </li></ul>

6. Not Tracking Time

Emails, notifications, social media, paper clutter, low-priority tasks - learn how to manage these effectively. Time management tips:<ul><li>Define your boundaries. Make time for phone calls and emails, use chat statuses to communicate when you are available, and, most importantly, schedule time for demanding tasks.</li><li>Learn to say no. Avoid participating in team chit-chats and postpone low-priority tasks.</li><li>Schedule work time, self-care activities, guilt-free time. </li></ul>

14. Not Managing Distractions

Without mastering hard and soft skills, no amount of time management advice can make you grow faster and achieve more.Time management tips:<ul><li>Hone your professional skills. Review your skills regularly, think of how you could improve them, what additional skills you could benefit from.</li><li>Know your tools. Learn shotcuts and make use of tiny features. </li><li>Improve your soft skills. Be more conscious about how you deal with feedback, communicate, learn new things, adapt to changes, work through conflicts.</li></ul>

13. Not Mastering Your Skills & Tools

Our average working memory capacity is <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2864034/">limited</a> to three to five items. Anything that exceeds these limits has a high chance of falling out of our brains.Time management tips:<ul><li>Use external storage: organizers, notes, task apps and software to unload your mind and come back to these tasks when needed.</li><li>Use collaboration software to brainstorm and discuss ideas with your team.</li><li>Simplify everyday choices. Reduce the number of everyday choices not to waste your energy on trivial decisions.</li></ul>

18. Not Conserving Your Brain Power

Persistent exposure to stress can put your health and performance at risk.Time management tips:<ul><li>Identify your stressors. Practice journaling, search for patterns and look into ways to cope with stress.</li><li>Develop healthy responses to stress: exercise, yoga, meditations, hobbies, favorite activities, quality sleep.</li><li>Set boundaries. Stick to your working hours and leave work at work. </li></ul>

8. Not Being Able to Cope With Stress

It happens to the best us when our minds are wandering, making us unable to concentrate.<h2>Time management tips:</h2><ul><li>Use peak performance time. Use the most productive parts of the day to do the most demanding tasks.</li><li>Take breaks - they refresh your mind, replenish mental resources, restore motivation and reduce decision fatigue.</li><li>Limit your social media time. Social media and search engines narrow our attention span and our ability to focus.</li><li>Practice single-tasking. Try using task timers.</li></ul>

2. Not Being Able to Concentrate & Maintain Focus

Busy time doesn’t bring you closer to your goals, making you feel anxious and unsettled - maximize the productive time.Time management tips:<ul><li>Apply the <a href="https://learn.g2.com/pareto-principle">Pareto principle</a>. Focus on 20% tasks of the highest value that give 80% of results.</li><li>Consider the <a href="https://www.calendar.com/blog/using-the-4ds-of-time-management-to-your-advantage/#:~:text=If%20you're%20unfamiliar%2C%20the,the%20things%20that%20really%20matter.">4Ds technique</a>. When a new interruption shows up, delete, delegate, defer or do it now.</li><li>Try the 1–3–5 strategy. Commit to 1 big task, 3 medium and 5 small tasks every day.</li><li>Set agile results: Focus on 3 key results to achieve over a week, month or year.</li></ul>

12. Being Busy Instead of Effective

Without vision, you can't create the results you want and feel joy and excitement to keep on going.Time management tips:<ul><li>Get a bird’s eye view. Think of how your tasks at hand contribute to your personal or professional goals. Maintain your focus on the end result.</li><li>Identify time wasters. Notice activities that don't move you forward and turn your focus to the things that matter.</li><li>Create a <a href="https://www.projectmanager.com/blog/contingency-plan">contingency plan</a>. Be ready for the worst-case scenarios.</li></ul>

4. Lack of Vision

A never-ending circle of tasks may feel devastating, cause stress, depression and burnout. Time management tips:<ul><li><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Eat-That-Frog-Great-Procrastinating-ebook/dp/B001AFF25W">Eat the frog</a>. Do the most important or challenging task first thing in the morning.  </li><li>Try <a href="https://www.nifs.org/blog/productivity-hacks-prioritize-tasks-with-the-ivy-lee-method">Ivy Lee Method</a>. Create six-item lists for each day sorted by priority. Complete items one by one and move unfinished tasks to the top of the next day's list.  </li><li>Narrow down your list of tasks. Prioritize activities that will deliver the best returns.</li></ul>

3. Scheduling Tasks Ineffectively

Smart time management enables you to work smarter, not harder so that you get more done in less time. If we could squeeze this concept into a single piece of advice, it’d be the following: think…

11. Being Bad at Estimating Time

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