Rick Goodman January 7, 2021 
Being more productive will be much easier and less stressful if you know the time management traps to avoid in 2021.
In 2020 when much of the world as we know it shut down due to the pandemic, many of us found we had too much free time on our hands and we were not quite sure what to do with it.
As an executive coach to Fortune 100 companies it became evident that my top-level clients were falling into time management traps.
I believe there are 4-time management traps for leaders to avoid in 2021 that will enhance their success!
Avoid Time Traps And Make Better Use of Your Work Day
Time is our most precious commodity—the one thing we can’t ever get more of. For leaders, it’s important that time
be spent on things that add value to the business—but as your responsibilities mount, it can be challenging to know how to use each precious minute.
Time management strategies abound, but so do time wasters. In fact, it’s easy to be sucked into time traps, which keep you from using your days effectively. I would like to share with you four-time management traps that I have observed with my consulting and coaching clients that I work with. I hope you’ll find this helpful as you seek to steer clear of these common hurdles!
4 Time Management Traps to Avoid In 2021
Not Focusing on Your Highest and Best Use
- Leaders are, by definition, go-getters. They are high achievers. They take great pride in crossing things off their to-do lists each day—leading the team meeting, handling payroll, doing some accounting, and so forth.
Here’s the problem: At least two of the things I mentioned above—payroll and accounting—are simple, repeatable tasks that can easily be done by somebody else. In other words, you should be delegating them; if you accomplish a lot of things but don’t really do anything unique and value-adding, you’re not being truly productive!
Majoring in the Minor Things
- Along the same lines: Just because your day is jam-packed with activity, that doesn’t necessarily mean you’re getting a lot accomplished.
Spending an entire day reading email and attending meetings is not really an effective day. Don’t get me wrong: Emails and meetings are necessary sometimes. But your week should be structured in such a way that each day gives you a chance to produce, to lead, or to strategize—not merely to be busy.
The Procrastination Effect
- A time management trap that many of us are guilty of is the self-destructive procrastination effect : Spending all day getting things done, but only as a means to procrastinate on the one big project you dread.
There’s nothing wrong with saving some of your more unpleasant tasks until you rack up a few wins—but if your schedule is all about delaying the inevitable, that’s hardly what I’d call wise time management.
The Shortest Distance Between You and a Check
- I have witnessed many leaders that get things done that don’t have an effect on the bottom line. When leaders focus on the numbers, the key performance indicators of how the business is doing they tend to reach their goals faster.
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