What Are The Costs of Poor Time Management?

When you are struggling with time management at work have you ever considered the costs of poor time management? It is common to think about the answer to this question from a purely personal perspective, however there are also wider costs of poor time management to the organisation.

Here are some of the potential costs of poor time management to you and your organisation:

Poor motivation and low morale. When you are struggling to manage your time it can be very frustrating for you as you feel disappointed that you are not completing what you planned to do, you are not getting round to working on the key areas that will take the business forward and you feel you are letting other people down. This can have a big impact on you emotionally, with poor motivation and low morale, which in turn will negatively impact your performance at work and the performance of others.

The impact on your life. Poor time management can result in you working longer and longer hours to get your work completed, resulting in tiredness, stress, burnout, poor health and less time for your personal life.

Deadlines not being met. If you are not managing your time well, you are likely to miss deadlines, which will impact your performance in your role, as well as having a knock on impact on others in and out of the organisation.

Employing additional staff. If you are not being efficient and effective at work, the organisation may need to employ additional staff or subcontract work to ensure that the company meets its goals and objectives.

Poor communication and relationships at work. Poor time management can in turn negatively impact communication and relationships at work. Your poor time management may impact others negatively, for example, if you are late for or rearrange meetings, you miss a deadline which delays a large project or you fail to communicate with your team and colleagues. This can also result in strained workplace relationships.

Missing out on opportunities. Poor time management can result in opportunities being missed because you are not focusing on the key areas that will take the business forward, you are too slow to develop and launch new products and services and you have no time to step back from the day to day and reflect.

Losing customers as a result of poor customer service. Poor time management can also impact on the service that your customers receive because you are not being efficient, effective and productive. The customer service quality may suffer or you may be late with delivering a product or service to the customers. This can in turn damage the reputation of your organisation as customer complaints increase and staff start leaving for other companies.

Not achieving the company vision, strategy, goals, objectives and plans. Poor time management will result in you and the company not achieving the vision, strategy, goals, objectives and plans as you are diverted on other tasks, you are not delivering on the key projects and service is suffering.

Hopefully this article has got you thinking about the potential costs of poor time management in your organisation.

Author: Liz Makin
Published: January 2019

Makin It Happen has a range of personal development online courses to purchase, created by Liz Makin, including anxiety management, communication, resilience, soft skills, stress management, time management and coaching. Liz Makin also provides personalised business coaching, business mentoring and stress management services to business owners, directors, managers and professionals.

Please email Liz@makinithappen.co.uk to arrange a FREE consultation session to discuss our business coaching, business mentoring and stress management services for business owners, directors, managers and professionals.