Reliable Time Management Strategies – How to get yours under control

The clock constantly ticks, and time continuously goes by. Proper time management can determine whether you successfully achieve your goals or continue wishing for them. The way you manage your time can also have a significant effect on the way you view yourself and your life. If you’ve ever struggled to manage your time effectively, this article is for you. Read on to discover insight into the principles and various types of time management and the practical tools you need to become more successful at it.

What Is Time Management?

Time management is the ability to use your time efficiently and without waste. It means determining how much time each task needs and being able to follow through and get it done. Proper time management ensures that you get the most out of each day and that you’re able to make viable progress toward reaching your goals. It alleviates stress and helps you avoid procrastinating on doing what’s essential to make the most of your day.

It is okay to have unproductive days here and there, mainly when you are on holiday or on your day off from work! However, if most days are productive, progress towards your goals will be quicker, and you will likely feel more motivated.

Why Is Time Management Important?

Here’s what you need to know about properly managing your time:

It boosts your productivity

Effective time management helps you complete your tasks by deadlines and in less time overall. That improves your productivity, and you’re positioned to get better results by allocating sufficient time to each task. 

It helps you build more confidence

The ability to manage your time helps improve your confidence. The satisfaction it gives you is second to none, making you feel like you’re on the right path toward realising your goals. It’s also more fulfilling when you accomplish your milestones in projected time frames, giving you a sense of accomplishment.

It makes your goals more achievable

Procrastination is the enemy of efficient time management. It pushes your goals a distance away, making achieving them feel incredibly challenging. Whether the target is a daily task or a large project, this is true. However, properly allocating your time and adhering to your plan make your goals more achievable.

It improves your focus

The deadlines and time allocations you place on your tasks whilst practising good time management act as a blueprint for achieving your goals. Having that plan makes it far easier to stay focused on each step you must take along the way and determined to complete tasks and get results. Rather than being distracted when thinking about what to do next, it becomes easier to roll on from one step to the next without losing your attention.

It alleviates stress

Having a long list of tasks piled up can feel debilitating, and it can be easier to convince yourself to put off starting. This feeling of stress and worry is even worse if you had the chance to complete things on time but didn’t take it. With deadlines looming, missing your targets or falling behind can be painful. But, with good time management, you can avoid reaching this stage.

It promotes discipline

Good discipline manifests in how you manage your time. It means you can stick to a schedule and work on your tasks without coercion and have the self-drive and motivation to achieve what you set out to. While you develop your time management skills, the principles of discipline are also being exercised, the benefits of which extend into many other aspects of life.

It makes you better at making decisions

This point may sound unintuitive, but believe it! Efficiently managing your time makes you better at decision-making. Practising proper time management equips you with the skills to quickly identify and act on your priorities.

It improves your output quality

Tasks done on time usually yield the best quality result. Waiting for last-minute rushes can severely impact your work output, making you less likely to offer the best quality.

Basic Time Management Principles

Efficiently managing your time can seem unachievable at times, and as mentioned before, sometimes it’s okay to have an off day. The trick is to make sure that, after your break, you bounce back to a productive state.

We all have the same hours in the day, although some people seem to be able to make more of them than others. You can learn a few guiding principles to help you make the most of your day and be more productive! 

Here are a few helpful time management principles you can start with today:

Planning & organization

Planning is the genesis of a more efficient time management habit. Start by organising your tasks and putting them in the correct order for completion. Make a neat and realistic to-do list of what you need to finish. Know roughly how long each task will take, and plan your day accordingly.

Work environment

Your work environment can dramatically affect your time management and productivity. You likely won’t be able to work efficiently if you’re in a distracting environment with clutter, noise or other interruptions. And yes, this includes your phone notifications, social media and alarms. Making sure you have a clear and uninterrupted workspace free of extra distractions can be a massive step in the right direction for your focus and, therefore, your time management. 

Clear goals

A clearly defined goal helps you set priorities and focus on achieving what matters the most. Remember to make your goals SMART – specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound. This format means you have to know what to do, why you are doing it, how you will know when it’s done, and when it will be done, and it needs to be a realistic goal and timeline for you.

Prioritising

Spend a little time at the beginning of each day or work session getting your priorities straight and allocating time to work on what matters the most. Categorise your tasks based on urgency (how soon does it need to be done?) and importance (does it matter if it gets done?). Only you can determine which tasks are most important by these metrics, but this framework can help. 

Task batching

Grouping your to-do list into similar tasks allows you to tackle them all at once. This process reduces the time spent switching between task types, which breaks your workflow and concentration. This technique is beneficial for numerous repetitive tasks, such as replying to emails, returning phone calls, completing logbooks etc.

Outsourcing tasks

Sometimes outsourcing tasks helps you manage your time better by lightening the load. A little outside help goes a long way, and you’re less likely to suffer burnout from overworking. Handling too much work can be disorienting, and the output quality can suffer. If possible, move some things off your plate to free up some time for other, more important things and self-care.

Creating realistic deadlines

Always consider your capacity, and arrange deadlines accordingly to avoid excess stress. Some tasks require more time than others, and it can be incredibly frustrating if you set unrealistically short deadlines and fail to achieve them on time. This can have an impact on your confidence as well as your mental health.

Avoiding perfectionism

Trying to be perfect can steal a considerably large chunk of time. Of course, you want your output quality to be high, but not at the expense of having other tasks completed. Remember that sometimes, two successes are better than one perfect result. 

Perfectionism has much to do with self-talk; check out “Positive self-talk examples to help you be kind to yourself” for more information.

Specific Time Management Strategies

Managing your time effectively doesn’t have to be challenging. Try these strategies to determine what works for you:

Pomodoro technique

This strategy involves alternating work and break periods and is an effective technique to help you manage your time. You need to give yourself a five-minute break for every twenty-five minutes you spend working (each session is called Pomodoro). The most common arrangement is 25 – 5 minutes or 50 – 10 minutes. Using a timer is recommended for this technique. If you’re a creative thinker or suffer constant burnout after working, this technique can help you.

Time Blocking/Boxing

This technique is like making a timetable for your day. To begin, do the following:

• Draw two columns on a piece of paper. Write down each hour of the day on the left and create blocks of time as an hour or half-hour chunk.
• Estimate the duration of each activity and place them in your time blocks.
• You can also play safe with buffer times between your blocks to allow room for adjustments.

It is then up to you how strict you are with your time blocks. If you reach the scheduled time to switch tasks but are on a roll with what you are doing, will you change or keep going? Think about this before you begin, so there is no confusion when the time comes. 

Eisenhower Matrix

This technique sorts all your activities in terms of their importance and urgency. It’s one of the best at helping you prioritise your tasks.

Here’s how this technique works:

• On a sheet of paper or digital document, create four quadrants and assign the level of importance and urgency to each, including “Urgent,” “Not Urgent,” “Important,” and “Unimportant”, as shown in the diagram below.
• Assign your various tasks to a quadrant, depending on their importance and urgency
• If a task is urgent – important, DO it as soon as you can
• If a task is not urgent – important, DELAY or schedule a time to do it
• If a task is urgent – unimportant, DELEGATE, get someone else to take this task or modify it to be easier and quicker.
• If a task is not urgent – unimportant, DELETE, remove it from your task list

This technique is usually handy for leadership positions since it helps prioritise tasks and deal with tight schedules; however, it can also be helpful in other circumstances.

Parkinson’s Strategy

Unlike the other time management strategies, this technique involves lots of discipline in doing tasks under constrained time. For instance, it recommends using a computer without a charger to feel the pressure of working with a power-draining device. Also, it recommends limiting the time limits to tasks and not adding any, and doing otherwise leads to self-repercussions. This strategy will put you in line if you’re a chronic procrastinator.

Tips for Improving Your Ability to Manage Time

A workable time management strategy can be a lifesaver, but you won’t go from zero to super effective all at once. Developing the skills and determining your best strategies takes time and practice. 

While working this out, you can also try the following tips to help keep you on track.

Avoid Multi-Tasking

The temptation to take on multiple tasks simultaneously can be high. However, it’s not your best strategy to stay more productive. Instead, put your complete focus into executing one task at a time. Multi-tasking causes your mind to need to switch between processes far more often and in quick succession, which will slow you down, be mentally taxing and lead to lower-quality output.

Use a Timer

The use of timers as productivity tools is on the rise. It can revolutionise your relationship with time and focus when used effectively, such as in the techniques mentioned above. Timers include hourglasses, digital clocks and stopwatches, phones, etc. Setting time limits or alarms for tasks helps you focus and use your time better, which enables you to make the most out of your day in the long haul.

Learn how to say no

Many struggle with saying no when asked to complete tasks for others, either at work or home. If you take on too much, you will not have the time to do anything to the quality you would like, and your wellbeing can also suffer. Learning which things you can (and should) say no to will help reduce instances of this kind of stress. 

Conclusion

Efficient time management doesn’t come easily to everyone but is achievable when effectively structured and practised. It takes a lot of discipline and dedication to make the most of your day consistently. Your time each day is limited, so planning and using time management strategies makes it far more likely that you will reach your goals.