some interesting time management statistics

Emphasising the huge significance and opportunities in time management, a 2007 survey by the Proudfoot Consulting (Guardian 22 Oct 07) covering 2,500 businesses over four years and 38 countries, indicated that wasted time costs UK businesses £80bn per year, equivalent to 7% of GDP. The causes of wasted time - labour inefficiency in other words - were:

* inadequate workforce supervision (31%)
* poor management planning (30%)
* poor communication (18%)
* IT problems, low morale, and lack or mismatch of skills (21%)

Clearly organisations are vastly under-utilising their people, and could be doing a lot more to enable more efficient working.

These failings of organisation and leadership make it all the more important for individual people to think creatively about time management, and particularly to start making changes to improve time management at a personal individual level.