At work, time poverty is a lie, an illusion. In a company where everyone works the same hours a week, time is cancelled out as a factor in the productivity equation. Time doesn’t exist.

So what truths does that leave?

‘I don’t know what I’m trying to achieve’

Sounds simple, but your goals and objectives need articulating on paper, out loud and revisiting often.

Why are you at work? What are you doing there? What will be produced or delivered to prove you did something? What changes will have been made, how will things look, what will things feel like when you’ve done what you’re doing?

‘I take on more than I can do’

Workload is a real issue. A volume of work that is unrealistically high will hamper productivity. Knowing your objectives will make this one easier. Making conscious choices about what you say yes and no to is then possible.

‘I’m not clear on my priorities’

So you have said no to some things but still feel time poor for what you have on your list and you’re stuck on how to prioritise. Knowing your objectives also makes this one easier. When you know what you’re focusing on, you can rank different tasks, choose to work on the important ones. Urgent is not the same as important and you can choose to work through that issue too.

Admit and accept that when you say
‘I didn’t have time for that’,
you actually mean
‘That is not my priority right now, I chose this other thing instead’.

‘This is taking longer than I thought. I don’t actually know how to do this task’

Trying to complete tasks that you do not possess the skills, knowledge or experience to successfully execute is time consuming. And unnecessary.

• Identify what’s needed that you don’t have.
• Who can help you?
• Swallow your pride and ignore any inner voice telling you not to ask for help.
• Reach out and ask questions.
• Accept help offered, learn what you need to, or share the task with others.

‘This is taking longer than I thought. There’s likely to be a more efficient way to do this that I haven’t explored’

You do possess the skills, knowledge or experience to successfully execute your task. But the way that you’re doing it is time consuming. Open yourself up to new methods, or solutions for automating parts of the task you’re trying to do.

Creating efficiencies or automation itself takes an investment of time and effort. But that up front investment is repaid on every occasion you repeat the task and reap the reward of the time saved then.

Creating more time is an impossible problem that nobody can solve.
Good news is that you can solve any and all of these other problems.