Thursday, February 10, 2011

Top 10 time wasters for a grad student

Time is Gold. Yeah right! That’s absolutely true especially for a grad student. Most especially if you’re also working at the same time. Wasted time can never be bought back. But what usually wastes our time? Don Clark of Big Dog Leadership enumerates the different time wasters for corporate leaders. I’ve extracted 10 of them which applies to grad students:

1. Indecision- Spending too much time on deciding what course of action to take.    

2. Inefficiency- Taking the longer course of action, too much effort with little work done, not using the available tools.

3. Interruptions that do not pay off- Sometimes, a minute of interruption can cause you to spend more minutes recovering your momentum for work.

4. Procrastination- Delaying a course of action to a later time.

5. Unrealistic time estimates- Assuming that a certain work can take up less or more time than it actually does.

6. Unnecessary errors- Correcting trivial mistakes can take more time than by double checking it every now and then.

7. Poor organization- Not putting things in order.

8. Poor planning and lack of contingency plans- This leads to more time spent figuring out what to do next.

9. Failure to delegate- Doing too much of everything yourself.

10. Lack of priorities, standards, policies or procedures- Not knowing what to do with your time.

What are other time wasters aside from what’s on this list? You can share it with us. Please write your comments below.

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