In the past 35 years that I have provided dozens of time management training sessions and thousands of coaching sessions on this subject, I have seen how much time is lost due to time-wasters. And how you can quickly create extra time by effectively managing your time-wasters.
What are 10 common time-wasters and how do you tackle them effectively?
1. “EASY DONE”
“Easy done” is perhaps one of the biggest time-wasters. Whether it is someone else asking you if you can do something for them ‘just like that’, or you yourself think you it is ‘easy done’.
In the first case, you might first consider the task and say a little later whether you can combine it with your other work, later, or not.
In the second case, you plan the time you really think you need to complete the task more realistically, or preferably even more generously.
2. INDECISIVENESS AND PROCRASTINATION
Especially if you are dreading a task or simply don't feel like doing it, you can do at least two things. First, you can start with an easy, not too long, task before beginning the difficult one. This allows you to get into a workflow faster, which makes continuing with a difficult task easier. Second, you can apply the ‘kitchen timer technique’. Set the timer for 20 minutes and give yourself the leeway to stop after 20 minutes and pick up the task again later. You will often find that you get the hang of it this way, and you will be eager to continue with the difficult task.
3. TRYING TO DO TOO MANY ACTIVITIES AT ONCE (INEFFECTIVE MULTITASKING)
Multi-tasking is een talent, maar ook een valkuil. Voor je het weet ben je aan het hagelschieten en verdeel je je energie op een ineffectieve manier waardoor alle taken waar je mee bezig bent langer duren. Blijf daarom focussen op een afgebakende taak en zorg bij afleiding van andere taken dat je ‘stop’ tegen jezelf zegt en jezelf terugbrengt naar die ene taak.
4. SPENDING TOO MUCH TIME ON DISTRACTIONS
People walking in, getting phone calls, going on ‘social media’ when it’s not necessary, or dealing with private matters such as making shopping lists or preparing for the holidays. There are plenty of distractions at work. But they can keep you from working effectively and cause a huge energy drain.
What is asked of you then is to apply discipline and ‘bite the bullet’. Discipline might be a word you detest, especially when you have to do something you don’t feel like doing. And at the same time, it offers you the solution and, above all, relief when you have completed your task later on. Give it a try, and what often helps is agreeing with yourself to reward yourself with something nice afterwards.
5. ALLOWING TOO MANY INTERRUPTIONS (SAWTOOTH EFFECT)
If you are working on a difficult task and are interrupted multiple times, you have to restart each time to get back into the task you were working on. This creates a sawtooth effect, causing you to lose a lot of time. What you can do is indicate before starting your task that you are only available during a specific time slot if it is very urgent and important, and otherwise later. Sometimes a temporary "do not disturb" sign helps. Do indicate when you are reachable/available.
6. CONSTANTLY RESPONDING INSTANTLY TO MESSAGES (APPS/EMAILS)
Turn off sound notifications on your app and email so you are not distracted. View, reply to, or create incoming and outgoing messages in groups a maximum of 3 times a day.
7. SETTING INSUFFICIENT BOUNDARIES
Indicate that it is not convenient for you right now or that you cannot combine an extra task with the current tasks you need to do. Discuss how or when things can be done differently. Dare to be disliked, which is often quite a challenge for the inner pleaser .
8. NOT SETTING EFFECTIVE PRIORITIES
Start the week or day with an overview of tasks you need to do first. Use what is urgent and what is important in doing so. Urgent means it must happen this week, today, or this minute. Important means your mutually acceptable and realistically agreed-upon tasks, authority, and responsibilities.
9. INEFFECTIVE PLANNING
Schedule realistic activities in your calendar. Plan preparation and follow-up time around activities that also require time, such as countless meetings. Ensure that you schedule sufficient rest periods in the long term. Plan at least 20% buffer time per day for unforeseen matters.. Schedule intermediate activities to meet the final plan on time.
10. INSUFFICIENT DELEGATION
Delegating takes a bit more time at the beginning because you have to help someone get started, but it saves tons of time in the long run.
In short, ‘manage’ these 10 crucial time-wasters and you will quickly have tons of time left over.
Have fun and timeless regards, Martin
Are you still getting stuck despite this and do you continue to experience too much negative work pressure? Then there is something else that can help you. Watch: https://martinthoolen.com/en/service/coaching-vitaliteit-duurzame-inzetbaarheid/
© 2026: Martin Thoolen
#timemanagement #werkdruk #stressmanagement #duurzameinzetbaarheid #reintegratie #teamspirit #teamcoaching #teambuilding #ego #soul #egosoulspirit #spirit #synchroniciteit #synchronicity #persoonlijkinspirerendleiderschap #persoonlijkleiderschap #leadership #leadershipdevelopment #personalleadership #spiritedpersonalleadership #leiderschap #spiritueelleiderschap #spiritedleadership #executivecoaching #leiderschap #leiderschapsontwikkeling #teamcoaching #collectiefleiderschap #professionalcoaching #coaching #businesscoaching #psychologyofselves #voicedialogue # ego #ziel #spirit #egozielspirit #egosoulspirit #awarenessatwork #martinthoolen
“Everything you think you are, you’re not, because being does not think”
Why do sports teams perform better when they're in the right spirit? Even if they seem less capable in terms of numbers, quality, or quantity than their opponents. How does this actually apply to your own board, management or executive team, your department, team, or organization? And what is team spirit, and how do you create it to lead to magical results?
Team spirit is a collective feeling of pride, loyalty, and connection within a group, which leads to mutual trust and a strong willingness to collaborate and support each other.
Research on team spirit shows that strong team spirit leads to better performance, higher productivity, and greater employee satisfaction, thanks in part to factors such as psychological safety, open communication, and shared goals.
To foster team spirit, it's crucial to cultivate trust and mutual respect, involve team members in decision-making, celebrate successes together, and invest in social activities and team building.
Many team-building and team coaching sessions focus on clarifying instrumental team goals and roles (such as the various colors of team members, which can also be polarizing). This has indeed led to valuable results for some teams and leaders, but not always. Why?
Because a lack of long-term vision, a realistic strategy, and concrete rationalizations, functional role ambiguity among team members, ineffective and time-consuming meetings, unspoken irritations or mistrust, fear, self-interest, or status, whether under or above the surface, persisted.
For example, a former team coach colleague once told me that during the evaluation of his team's journey before a Board of Directors, they commented: "We've gained valuable insights, but we still don't trust each other."
Over the past three decades, in which I've coached and trained hundreds teams in organizations, both indoor and outdoor, I've noticed that sustainably successful teams think, feel, and act based on "spirit." It may seem vague, but it's not with the concrete definitions, practical examples, and exercises you'll find in my book, "Spirited Personal Leadership." Moreover, I'll now show you ten characteristics of “spirit” that put team spirit into practice, allowing you to collaborate more enjoyably and effectively, leading to greater results for the team and your organization.
When do team members lift each other up? This isn't an exhaustive list, but it is a list of ten essential characteristics that, when applied, lead to team spirit and greater results. Team spirit becomes a reality when all team members:
If team members or leaders are unable or unwilling to sufficiently meet these characteristics, they consciously or unconsciously sabotage the genuine and effective team or organizational spirit. In that case, it's important to be willing to part with leaders and people who are not (yet) able or willing to achieve this.
Research also shows that heterogeneous teams work best. All team role theories or color specifications indicate that roughly three team roles are desirable for an optimal team: conformers (followers/followers-in-arms), mediators, and non-conformers (those who are critical of decisions or policies). If all these roles are not fulfilled to an excessive degree, you potentially have an ideal team. It is important that all voices are truly heard and are included in the final decisions. This also ensures broad support for the decisions and the direction the team or organization wants to take.
To give you a glimpse into the process, I'd like to explain one of the ten characteristics mentioned for achieving team spirit. This will give you an idea of how you can put things into practice to generally increase team spirit.
What does this actually mean? Communicating respectfully and transparently with each other. It means that, as a leader or team member, you:
I recently led another team development program, this time to the management of an organization whose new team wanted to strengthen connections and develop greater team spirit. A useful behavioral skill in this regard is giving and receiving feedback effectively and respectfully. But are you there yet? Is that sufficient? Often not! Because there's something else.
Transparency doesn't mean you demonstrate respectful communication solely through your behavior social and leadership skills. You can behave respectfully, socially competently, politely, or politically correct, and still think someone else is grandiose, a jerk, or a bitch. And don't underestimate the latter. Your thoughts subconsciously have a huge impact on others, even if you behave appropriately. Why? Energy follows thoughts.
"Energy follows thoughts"
People aren't just behaviors; they are energy fields that have a much greater impact than their behavior alone. So, if you think well of someone else, you radiate that, and that very energy field affects them. They feel safe, sense your true curiosity, and feel your genuine approach. But it also works the other way around. You can behave socially competently, but if you think even the slightest bit negatively of someone else, you radiate that too. Instantly, the other person feels less safe with you, more likely to doubt your words and intentions, because they sense something different about you. And then you don't have transparent communication, because hidden thoughts are involved in the communication. And then the communication becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. And so you are the creator of your own reality. But it's different, because you are also the creator of positive energy and connection.
For example, when you change your thoughts and allow them to arise from spirit: with curiosity beyond your judgment, seeking and emphasizing positivity, and accepting and forgiving that the other person and yourself thought negatively about each other. Then team spirit becomes reality. After all, if you have nothing to hide and are honest, then true connection with the other can be established. Because both light and dark sides are given their place, transparently.
For example, when you change your thoughts and allow them to arise from spirit: with curiosity beyond your judgment, seeking and emphasizing positivity, and accepting and forgiving that the other person and yourself thought negatively about each other. Then team spirit becomes reality. After all, if you have nothing to hide and are honest, then true connection with the other can be established. Because both light and dark sides are given their place, transparently.
"If you have nothing to hide and are honest, then true connection with others can be established."
A challenging question in this context is: If everyone could read your mind, would you continue to think the same way? Imagine for a day that this is possible and see how you change your thinking. Catch yourself thinking negatively about others and yourself. What makes you feel better if you think differently about others and yourself? What would you be ashamed of if everyone could see how you truly think inside? What would you do differently? Try it out, especially with the people you tend to avoid and who could cause friction in your interactions.
"If everyone could read your mind, would you continue to think the same way?"
For example, one board member explained that in managing her own team, she encountered two employees who had spent 20 years building their own kingdom. From this informal position of power, they sometimes allowed themselves to behave dominantly and cynically, jokingly, towards others, which, including her own, as the new manager, was repulsive. As a counter reaction her tendency was to avoid these two people and she continued to think somewhat negatively about them. Her own thoughts and judgments about them had created more distance.
After the first few days of team training, she gathered the courage to speak with these two employees individually. She explained what she found challenging about their behavior, why that was, and what her sincere desire was. She also shared her vulnerability: "I'm also searching for the best way to approach you and respect yourselves." A sense of security opened up in their interaction, and hidden hostility gave way to friendliness.
In the example above, you see that team spirit can strengthen not only an executive team, but also the underlying levels and, consequently, the organization as a whole. Imagine if all leaders, board members, and management team members act and communicate more from spirit. The impact and spin-off of teamspirit of a board, management team, or management team for the entire organization could then be immense.
"Team spirit of the board or management team leads to organizational spirit"
What can teamspirit lead to?
Customized team programs that activate teamspirit can lead to the following responses, which I recently received:
Do you also want to go a step further with your team or organization than regular team coaching and truly activate team spirit? Then take a look here:
https://martinthoolen.com/en/service/teamcoaching/
© 2026: Martin Thoolen
#teamspirit #teamcoaching #teambuilding #ego #soul #egosoulspirit #spirit #synchroniciteit #synchronicity #persoonlijkinspirerendleiderschap #persoonlijkleiderschap #leadership #leadershipdevelopment #personalleadership #spiritedpersonalleadership #leiderschap #spiritueelleiderschap #spiritedleadership #executivecoaching #leiderschap #leiderschapsontwikkeling #teamcoaching #collectiefleiderschap #professionalcoaching #coaching #businesscoaching #psychologyofselves #voicedialogue # ego #ziel #spirit #egozielspirit #egosoulspirit #awarenessatwork #martinthoolen
In recent months (November 2025 untill March 2026), I had the privilege of coaching a new Management Board from the Revoir Group (Beter Zien). Following individual intakes, a customized training program followed at beautiful locations like the Lauswolt Estate in Beetsterzwaag and the Carlton Beach Hotel in The Hague. Magic and true team spirit emerge in some teams who are so respectfully open and honest, with all the results that entails. Here are some of their experiences:
Curious about what I could do for your organization or team? Take a look here: https://martinthoolen.com/en/service/teamcoaching/
Last week I was in The Hague for coaching for one of my current customers, a Spanish Engineer Manager at his workplace. He is responsible for perfecting no fewer than 206 trains in one of the largest train fleet purchases for the Dutch Railways (NS). This is done by a Spanish company CAF that has a branch in the Netherlands: https://www.cafmobility.com/en/ [cafmobility.com].
What an impressive tour and what a challenge for him to achieve this in a multicultural team. Growing up from the profession of train engineering to a People Manager as well brings him new challenges. Some that he had not foreseen and sometimes making things difficult. That is why he sought my guidance as a business psychologist/senior coach to support him in this.
Would you like to know what I can possibly do for your team or organization? https://martinthoolen.com/en/service/expat-coaching/
© 2026: Martin Thoolen
#ego #soul #egosoulspirit #spirit #synchroniciteit #synchronicity #persoonlijkinspirerendleiderschap #persoonlijkleiderschap #leadership #leadershipdevelopment #personalleadership #spiritedpersonalleadership #leiderschap #spiritueelleiderschap #spiritedleadership #executivecoaching #leiderschap #leiderschapsontwikkeling #teamcoaching #collectiefleiderschap #professionalcoaching #coaching #businesscoaching #psychologyofselves #voicedialogue # ego #ziel #spirit #egozielspirit #egosoulspirit #awarenessatwork #martinthoolen
How often have we heard it: ‘You have to get rid of your ego! Leave it at the door!” But is that actually true? Or can you use ego as a tool to give substance to your talents and inspiration, or even unconditional love and universal consciousness? Both profiting your work and private life.Take a listen here:
https://martinthoolen.com/en/inspiratie/ and click on 'Podcasts' on the right.
During my voyages of discovery around the world, I was inspired by unexpected encounters with people and nature, which I would like to share with you. Sometimes you have to go far away to get closer. This time: ‘How waves of experiences take you further’.
Jaren geleden was ik tijdens mijn eerste sabbatical op een gegeven moment beland in Bali, Indonesië. Ik was al een paar maanden onderweg en ik probeerde een beetje uit te vogelen voor mezelf wat reizen doet en wat het je kan brengen. Kort of lang, reizen kan je werk en leven radicaal inspireren en verder brengen. Kijk maar.
What makes this long journey so different from others? I couldn't really put it into words. But after a few months of traveling in all kinds of countries, the image of a wave came to mind in Bali. Actually, we are always traveling. Whether it's a short or a longer trip, we travel for minutes, hours, sometimes weeks or months. And every journey from one day to the next, from one place to another, from one person to another...
And it felt like a new wave every time. A new wave of experiences. And just when you thought it was over, another wave of experiences would come. And just when you thought that was over, another wave of experiences would come. Unceasingly, like the sea or the ocean that keeps washing ashore. And I didn't have to think about it. It just happened naturally, spontaneously.
So I was actually overwhelmed with waves of experiences, causing the old to fade further and further into the background. My old life and work in the Netherlands at that time, the old situation there, the concerns that preoccupied me there, or rather, sometimes occupied me.
And at the same time, I was overwhelmed by so many new waves, as if the old had become a previous life. I was so washed over with new experiences that I no longer knew how to continue the old in the old way. And that was no longer possible
Scary?
Not knowing how I would pick up my life and work again when I returned to the Netherlands?
No. I trusted that the waves had washed away something old that no longer suited me. I trusted that new encounters with people and nature would give me a new vital impulse to create a fresh life and a new way of working.
It only became scary when I started to think about it. But you don't think about waves, they just happen and do their natural work.
“But with waves, you don't think, they just happen and do their natural work.”
If you follow the natural waves, they will take you further away from what was in the past, what no longer serves you, or what may have hurt you at some point. Especially if you let the waves move through you without thinking about them. Just let them ebb into the background at your own pace. Just as time heals all wounds.
And waves of experiences can take you further. Where to?
To a new, fresh way of living and working. To a deeper version of your true self that fits perfectly right now. Through new encounters with people, new insights that arise spontaneously, new experiences of nature, such as a walk in the woods or a stroll in the park. In short, new journeys, however short or long.
All these journeys and waves of experiences are part of one great soul journey here on earth. From cradle to grave, you can think of five existential tasks or desires that take you further and can make your experiences meaningful. You can find these in my book ‘Spirited Personal Leadership – for more effective work, a meaningful living, and a better world’.
So what are these five tasks or desires?
1. Gaining deeply felt experiences in order to grow into a sincere, authentic, and peaceful person
This happens when you learn from the waves of experiences and apply that learning to your new way of living or working. Otherwise, sooner or later, the cosmos will give you the same or worse experiences to learn from, until you have learned your lesson.
2. Develop your own independence and individuality
Do, say, and choose what you believe in with all your heart and soul.
3. Heal your soul pain
This allows you to leave your baggage behind and move forward more lightly.
4. Live your soul joy
Do what makes you instantly happy and gives you joy in your life and work.
5. Bring your original talents and dreams to life
This will give your work and life more meaning.
If you put the waves of experiences in your life or work at the service of these five life tasks, it will become more enjoyable, effective, lighter, and meaningful.
1. What do you want the waves of time to carry away that no longer serves you?
Think about contact with people who behave negatively; negative thoughts about others; negative thoughts about yourself; or worries about the future.
2. What do you want the waves to bring you that serves you better now?
Think about contact with people who behave positively; positive thoughts about others; positive thoughts about yourself; dreams about the future.
3. Travel more often and sometimes stay away from home a little longer.
Let yourself be surprised by the news that catches your attention or comes to you.
I wish you waves of experiences that naturally enrich your life and work.
Warm regards, Martin
#wereldinspiraties #worldinspirations #reisverhalenmartinthoolen #travelstoriesmartinthoolen #spirit #synchroniciteit #synchronicity #firstnations #persoonlijkinspirerendleiderschap #persoonlijkleiderschap #leadership #leadershipdevelopment #personalleadership #leiderschap #spiritueelleiderschap #spiritedleadership #spiritedpersonalleadership #executivecoaching #leiderschap #leiderschapsontwikkeling #teamcoaching #collectiefleiderschap #professionalcoaching #coaching
Martin
© 2026: Martin Thoolen
Sometimes you cannot reach a mutual agreement in business. Too much has happened, or you are suddenly faced with an unpleasant surprise.You have entered into conflict with each other.
Whether it's a dispute between board members or shareholders, employer and employee, manager and employee, or colleagues, mediation can save a lot of misery and money.
Life can be harsh and feel unfair at times. Sometimes, losing something important at work or in life can throw you off balance so completely that you don't know how to move forward. Effective loss counseling can provide valuable support, helping you to feel and see new energy, positivity, and perspectives.
Want to know how loss coaching can help you, take a look here: https://martinthoolen.com/en/service/verliescoaching/
