Time Wasters and how to Stop Them

August 18th, 2010 posted by enigin
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By Steve Hill

WHY is it in this 21st Century we have advanced to the stage where we never have enough time! It is the same at Enigin as elsewhere - busy, busy, busy.

I think Enigin should branch into the “time-saving” business alongside the energy-saving industry, there must be a symbiosis there somewhere.

Despite time saving methodology and appliances we seem to have less time then ever before, hence the increase in stress related illnesses over recent years. It truly is a mad, mad world.

One thing I am certain of is this is not the time to have your time wasted, and yet a lot of people seem intent on doing just that. It isn’t even just the time but the interruption, lost production, frustration and distraction.

Often those time wasters do not do it consciously or out of malice - they just can’t manage their time or have taken a well earned break and forget that everyone else is stretched for time as well.

The excellent BNET web site had an interesting article about time wasters, written by Steve Tobak, and here are his 7 Classic Time-Waster Types and some tips for dealing with them:

  1. Self-Important, perpetually late to meetings executive. I’ve seen companies where this is almost an epidemic and others where they started making offenders pay everyone else a buck for being late. How egotistical can you get? Really.
  2. The stonewalling executive recruiter. You do all the interviews, jump through all the hoops, then nothing. Or just enough info to keep you waiting … and waiting … and waiting.
  3. The verbose boss. I had a CEO who must have been a magician in a former life because he could magically transform a 30 minute meeting into 2 hours of listening to him relive his one and only claim to fame, over and over.
  4. The constantly whiny employee. There’s one in every group but, sometimes, it’s contagious and can spread to others. They’re always stressing and complaining about some drama of their own making.
  5. The “while I’ve got you here” - “one more thing” - “something I’ve been meaning to ask you” guy. An endless string of ideas, theories, and questions with one thing in common: they’re all dumb, obvious, useless, and take forever to explain.
  6. The “never cut to the chase” person. She strings you along by leaving endless messages for you to call, along with some rubbish about the weather or something, but never really cuts to the chase.
  7. And … the absolute worst, classic time-waster: construction contractors. They’re either slammed and can’t get back to you; or they call in the evening and, instead of telling you when they can come, just keep leaving their phone number; or you make an appointment and they no-show.

And, as promised, here are my three indispensable tips for dealing with this sort of lunacy:

  • Don’t try to change them; you can’t. Don’t even bother telling them what they’re doing; they won’t get it. But they will waste even more of your time with endless excuses for why their chronic nonsense somehow makes sense.
  • You know, we all do dumb things from time to time, but … The problem is when it becomes chronic. You know the expression, “fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me?” That’s become my rules with time-wasters.
  • Learn to let it go. Frankly, your neediness may trump their self-importance. If people keep doing this stuff to you and you can never seem to find a way to make it stop, then you may actually be the one with the problem. There are professionals who can help with that sort of thing, you know? Find a good one.

Everybody’s got time-wasters they love to hate. What’s yours?

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