Time is of the essence. It’s a valuable resource in the business world. When it comes right down to it, time is money in any business. And time wasters in the workplace are in fact, giving away earnings.

But time management isn’t just a practice; it’s also an attitude. Many employees who abuse time do so not because they aren’t schooled in good time management (although this may be true for some). Instead, they typically harbor a variety of performance fears and anxieties. Turning them around takes both outer and inner management—that is, managing both their priorities and their mental or emotional patterns.

Time wasters and abusers

The first step to improving productivity and regaining those evaporating profits is learning to identify the various types of time abusers in your organization. This is essential in order to effectively address and change nonproductive behaviors.

Procrastinators are the most obvious wasters of time. They demonstrate the bad habit of needlessly putting off important tasks and often cripple progress in your organization. While it’s human nature to want to postpone unpleasant tasks, habitual procrastinators may delay action on any and every responsibility. In place of activity, they often present a multitude of excuses. Strictly helping procrastinators manage their time will result in very little success. Instead, the motivation for their abuse is likely a deep-seated fear of failure. Afraid of turning in substandard work, they alternately spend their energies avoiding the tasks at hand.

Surprisingly, some of your organization’s top performers may also be its worst offenders, and may exhibit a similar form of procrastination. Employees who are obsessed with perfection can abuse time by delaying the completion of a project in their attempt to achieve unreasonably high standards of excellence they’ve set for themselves. While seeking perfection, they may continually postpone deadlines, frustrating and alienating their fellow workers. Their self-imposed pressure to perform can get in the way of even those “down and dirty” jobs; they can’t let go of their impossible standards and obsess over inconsequential matters. As a result, when time is critical, they cannot make intelligent compromises. Typically, their abuse of time is tolerated because their big assignments, while not well managed, are ultimately well executed.

Employees who take on too much work and refuse to delegate are also time abusers. These people-pleasers may possess the same characteristics and anxieties of a perfectionist, or they may simply dread confrontation. They never say no to authority, and never relinquish authority to others. Eventually, they misuse time by wasting their energies on lesser tasks and are likely to reach a critical and unproductive burnout phase.

Getting employees in the right time-frame of mind

Some statistics show that only one in four U.S. workers are truly engaged in their jobs, which amounts to billions of dollars in lost productivity each year. While it’s important to evaluate caseloads and reintroduce time management skills, it’s equally imperative to recognize the emotional reasons that drive time-wasting behaviors. Combining personality assessments with time management training may provide the perfect solution. 

Researchers also suggest focusing on creating more energy from employees instead of attempting to generate more time out of them. Energy is the ability and power to perform work. In the workplace, productive energy depends on a full engagement of physical, mental, and emotional focus aimed at the right tasks. It also depends on creating the right kinds of challenges in an environment that encourages optimum energy levels.

Keep in mind that changing habits and attitudes can be a slow process; it’s hard to hurry up a learning curve. In the end, helping time wasters isn’t just about getting them organized. It’s about addressing the source of their conduct and building awareness, in addition to tackling those time-abusive symptoms.