T I m e m a n a g e m e n t

Time Wastage Sabotages Careers
Robert Half International estimates that as much as 50 per-
cent of working time is spent on C activities, things that
make no contribution at all to the business.
Each person is a creature of habit. Effective people estab-
lish good habits and make them their masters. Ineffective
people accidentally establish bad habits, and then those bad
habits govern their lives.
Many people get into the habit of coming in to work and
immediately engaging in time-wasting, low-value, no-value
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activities. As soon as they arrive, they find someone to chat
with, read the newspaper, check their e-mail, get a cup of
coffee, and generally begin coasting easily through the day.
But whatever you do repeatedly soon becomes a habit. It
is unfortunate that the great majority of people at work
today have established the habit of wasting most of their
time on activities that contribute nothing to their businesses
or to their careers. Don’t let this happen to you.
Delegate Everything Possible
Getting back to the ABCDE method, a D activity is something
that you can delegate to someone else. The rule is that you
should delegate everything that you possibly can to other
people to free up more time for you to engage in your A
activities. Your A activities, and their successful completion,
largely determine the entire course of your career.
An E activity is something that you should eliminate alto-
gether. After all, you can only get your time under control if you
stop doing things that are no longer necessary for you to do.
It is normal and natural for people to slip into a comfort
zone in the course of their work and career. They become
comfortable doing certain activities in a certain way. Even
after they have been promoted to higher-level responsibili-
ties, they continually slip back into doing things that are no
longer really necessary, or that other people could do equally
as well, or better.
Ask yourself, “What would happen if I did not engage in
this activity at all?” If it would make little or no difference to
your business or career, it is a prime candidate for elimination. 
C R E A T E Y O U R D A I LY “ T O - D O ” L I S T
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