5 Time Management Mistakes You Might Be Making (And What To Do Instead) 

Time management isn’t about bragging about how busy you are.   

It’s about making mindful choices with your time, mastering your procrastination and prioritisation. If you’ve ever felt like you’re on a hamster wheel and not getting anywhere, you’re not alone. 

As a time management coach, these are the common issues often show up in coaching sessions I run with leaders and business owners. They quietly waste time and drain energy. The good news? They’re all fixable.

Time management tips: 

• Ask yourself mid-task: “Is this good enough to deliver results?” (Sometimes done is better than perfect.) 

• Track your time. Where are you spending too long on low-impact tasks? 

• Accept that small imperfections won’t always matter to the outcome. 

• Start recognising that mistakes are useful. 

2. You Can’t Focus, Even When You Try 

Lack of concentration leads to rework, poor decisions and long hours. If your brain keeps task switching between tabs, emails and messages, research shows that it will take you 3 times as long to complete that task had you not been interrupted. 

Time management tips: 

• Identify what’s distracting you. We use diagnostics to establish value drivers that cause you to procrastinate. 

• Work in your peak focus window. Be realistic about when your peak interruption times are and avoid focus time activities during interruption time. 

• Use the pomodoro technique and take some solid breaks.  

• Start the day with only three goals. Yes three! If you knock them off early, great! 

• Limit your exposure to social media during work hours or set a time when you do so. 

3. You’re Scheduling, But Not Strategically 

A long to-do list isn’t a plan, in fact it’s demotivating when you haven’t made a dent in it by the end of the day.  

Time management tips: 

• Avoid the urgency trap. Urgent doesn’t always mean important. Defer what you can with a system to have those tasks come back to you in a timely manner (ask me how). 

• Use a prioritisation grid to be more mindful (see the link below to our free tool). 

• You can ‘Eat the frog: do the hardest task first each day or you can break down the hard thing into ‘digestible’ small, bite size pieces.  

Poorly managed and prioritised emails can be costing you 2 hours per day.  

4. You Don’t Know Where You’re Going 

If you’ve found yourself saddened by not completing goals or procrastinating due to lack of motivation, it could be an issue with your mission, vision and purpose.   Without direction, your time management tools won’t help. Like big corporations, we need them too. We need to be strategic (dreams then goals) and operational (plans and tasks).  

Time management tips: 

• Ask yourself “At the end of the day, what really counts”. 

• Use the Ease & Impact tools to be more mindful about where you place your energy.  How difficult is the task and what kind of impact does it have on your big picture? 

5. You’re Not Thinking About Tomorrow 

Busy people often default to just surviving the day. But without looking ahead, you stay stuck in reactive mode. 

Time management tips: 

• Set the targets and work backwards. 

• Review progress visually—charts, checklists, anything that helps you see movement. 

• I’ve never tried this but maybe it’s one to consider. It’s called the 7 minute rule.  

• Morning: spend 7 minutes planning your day. 

• Evening: spend 7 minutes reviewing and setting up for tomorrow. 

• Track time spent on tasks. You can use toggl.com which has a free tracking tool. Compare estimates to reality and adjust. 

If you want practical time management strategies that match your situation—not generic advice—book a strategy session to create your own customised blueprint. I work with leaders, business owners and teams across regional Australia to help them create focus, cut waste and regain control. 

✅ Do: 

• Ask yourself if the effort you’re putting in is worth the outcome. 

• Review your work habits weekly and adjust. 

• Focus on one task at a time—set a timer if it helps. 

• Use your most productive hours for high-impact work. 

• Take regular breaks, especially after deep work. 

• Prioritise important tasks over urgent ones. 

• Create to-do lists with just 3 tasks 

• Link daily work to long-term goals. 

• Track progress visually to stay motivated. 

• Plan each day in 7-minute morning and evening blocks. 

• Adjust your plans when things change—have backup options. 

❌ Don’t: 

• Don’t aim for perfect—aim for effective. 

• Don’t multitask, especially during focus time. 

• Don’t waste peak hours on email or admin. 

• Don’t treat everything as urgent. 

• Don’t keep bloated to-do lists—cut them down. 

• Don’t work without knowing your end goal. 

• Don’t avoid reviewing your progress—it builds insight. 

• Don’t rely only on willpower—use structure. 

• Don’t ignore declining focus—seek help if needed. 

• Don’t fill every minute—leave space to think and adapt.