Posted on March 4, 2014 by Kirstin O´Donovan

Time management seems like a common problem, but some people don’t even know they are struggling with it.  Whether it’s health, finances or your relationship, when something isn’t right, the warnings signs start going off.

This happens a lot with time management, and this area is more easily overlooked than others, even though it directly affects every part of our life.

5 warning signs that you need to improve your time management

1. Comments From Others

‘You are always stressed’, ‘I’m really worried about you’, ‘This can’t go on forever’. Have you ever heard this? When your family, friends start to get worried, you should too!

Those around you can normally see the situation from a different perspective and when a concern is voiced it means that something isn’t right. It’s easy to get so caught up in the situation that you are unable to see how deep in you really are. If you’re constantly hearing these types of comments, take a pause and really listen.

2. Feeling Stressed

How often do you honestly feel stressed? Once a month, once a week, every day? Stress is one of the biggest warning signs and it is also one of the easiest to ignore until it starts to seriously affect your health.  

Stress is easy to ignore because we can temporarily push it aside and push forward to get the work done. But don’t be ignorant, it will always catch up to you, your body can only take so much stress. Recent statistics reveal that 80% of medical expenditures are now stress related.

3. More Cranky, More Often

You are irritable and frustrated more often lately and you snap at people and surprise yourself. Tour threshold has suddenly halved, and what once seemed surmountable now just feels overwhelming.

This is a dangerous place to be in and you might be hanging by a thread. The stage before the ‘blow up’, if situations that once seemed bearable now feel crushing, it is likely that your emotions have hijacked your ability to make real sense of things. Huge red flag!

4. Missing Deadlines + Always Late

Once or perhaps twice, you might have a good reason for it, but if you are always rushing around to get things done and get to places on time, you have a few areas that need attention.

Take this warning sign to mean that you either need to delegate more, take on less or develop better planning skills.

This is a clear warning sign that you need to do something different. You just need stop to take a moment to identify what it is.

5. ‘I’ll Do It Tomorrow’ Syndrome

If you find yourself coming up with a million reasons why you should delay something over and over again, there is something deeper going on.

Whenever you feel resistance towards something, use it as an opportunity to discover more about what’s going on. What would make it easier for you to take action on this?

Procrastination will come up in many different areas and at many different times in your life. If you don’t deal with it head on, you will always procrastinate with it.

What warning signs in your life might you be overlooking?

Remember, what seems like common sense certainly isn’t common practice. It is far better to deal with the smaller time management issues now than tackle the bigger ones later.