What do you see as the biggest waste of time in your work day?  OfficeTime.net recently conducted a survey of working professionals on their Biggest Time Killers. Survey participants were asked to name their top-three time killers.

Of all the ways people manage to squander their time each day, “Email” was named as this year’s biggest time killer by 47% of respondents.

Other Top 5 Time Killers included:

• Procrastination (42%)
• Social Networking (36%)
• Meetings (34%)
• Surfing the Internet (30%)
• non business-related conversations (24%)
• dealing with computer / technical issues (23%)
• “bureaucracy / red tape” (19%)
• travel time / commuting (14%)
• playing computer games (10%)

“Time management is really about decision management,” says Stephen Dodd, director of OfficeTime.net. “Some people are better able to successfully choose what they do and how much time they spend on it. Some are more apt to be distracted by time killers that get in the way of a productive work day.”

To help counteract these Top Time Killers, OfficeTime.net offers its tips for prioritizing how people spend their time each day:

1. It’s important to recognize that while some issues that arise are not known at the beginning of each day, some of the urgent issues in our lives are known right now. Each Monday, take a moment and list the hot, urgent items you know must be done this week.
2. Priority 2 items are not only business-oriented. Be sure to include time with family, time to work out, time to feed the soul and body. After those items are scheduled, add in firm deadlines for the week – and then block out time before the deadline to work on the project.
3. All the rest of it. While the inbox is never empty and all the rest must be fit in as well, by going for #1 and #2 priorities first, your own Top Time Killers will be less of a distraction, resulting in more free time and more room for “all the rest.”

If you continue to struggle with productivity and managing your daily work flow, try a time management seminar to help you establish systems and good habits each day.

This guest post was submitted by Kevin Doel of OfficeTime.net  which is the creator of  OfficeTime time and expense tracking software.  53% of respondents to their survey were business owners, freelancers or executives, while 39% work in professional “white collar” positions.

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