5 Tips for Time Management That Works Realistically

The term time management is a bit misleading or inaccurate. Why? Well, because you cannot manage time, you manage the events in your life in relation to time. You may often wish for more time, but you only get 24 hours, 1,440 minutes, or 86,400 seconds each day. How you use that time depends on skills learned through self-analysis, planning, evaluation and self-control. Much like money, time is both valuable and limited. It must be protected, used wisely and budgeted.

People who practice good time management techniques or have good time management tips, often find that they:

• Are more productive
• Have more energy for things they need to accomplish
• Feel less stressed
• Have more free time to do the things they want
• Get more things done
• Relate more positively to others
• Feel better about themselves

Finding a time management strategy that works best for you depends on your personality, ability to self-motivate and level of self-discipline. So, we decided to compile a comprehensive list of ‘5 ways to improve time management’ and by incorporating the following time management tips, you can more effectively manage your time. So, make sure you save these 5 tips for time management.

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1. Know How You Spend Your Time

One of the best time management tips is to know how you spend your time. And a time log is a helpful way to determine how you use your time. Record what you are doing in 15-minute intervals for a week or two. Evaluate the results:

• Did everything you needed to do get done?
• Which tasks require the most time?
• What time of day when you are most productive?
• Where is most of your time is devoted (job, family, personal, recreation)?

Identifying your most time-consuming tasks and determining whether you are investing your time in the most important activities can help you to determine a course of action. Having a good sense of the time required for routine tasks can help you be more realistic in planning and estimating how much time is available for other activities. Many apps exist to help you keep track of your time, as mentioned in tip number 3.

2. Set Priorities

From the 5 ways to improve time management, this one if the most effective and structured. See, managing your time effectively requires a distinction between what is important and what is urgent. Experts agree that the most crucial tasks usually aren’t the most urgent tasks. However, we tend to let the urgent tasks dominate our lives. Categorize your activities into four quadrants in the time management matrix: urgent, not urgent, important, and the ones that aren’t. While activities that are both urgent and need to be done right away, must be done, spending less time on activities that are not so urgent (regardless of their urgency) to gain time for activities that are not urgent but crucial. Focusing on these activities allows you to gain greater control over your time and may reduce the number of prioritized tasks that become urgent.

Creating a ‘to do’ list is an easy way to prioritize. Whether you need a daily, weekly, or monthly list depends on your lifestyle. Be careful to keep list-making from getting out of control. List manageable tasks rather than goals or multi-step plans. Rank the items on your ‘to do’ list in order of priority (both important and urgent). You may choose to group items in categories such as high priority, medium priority, or low priority…number them in order of priority or use a color-coding system. The goal is not to mark off the most items, but to mark off the highest priority items. A prioritized ‘to do’ list allows you to set boundaries so you can say ‘NO!’ to activities that may be interesting or provide a sense of achievement but do not fit your basic priorities. Now, you see why we rate this as one of the best tips on the list of five ways to control your time? Good.

3. Use a Planning Tool

As far as time management tips go, time management experts recommend using a personal planning tool to improve your productivity. Personal planning tools include planners, calendars, phone apps, wall charts, index cards, pocket diaries and even notebooks. Writing down your tasks, schedules and items to remember can free your mind to focus on your priorities. Auditory learners may prefer to dictate their thoughts instead. The key is to find one planning tool that works for you and use that tool consistently.

When using a planning tool:

• Always record your information on the tool itself. Jotting notes elsewhere that must be transferred later is inefficient and wastes more time.
• Review your planning tool daily.
• Keep a list of your priorities in your planning tool and refer to it often.
• Keep planning tools synchronized. If you keep more than one, make sure your phone, computer, and paper planning tools match.
• Keep a back-up system.

Apps on your phone can be great planning tools. Apps typically fall into one of the following categories:

• Time Trackers – Gain an awareness of how you spend your time.
• Time Savers – Increase productivity and break time-wasting habits.
• Task Managers – Prioritize and organize tasks to improve time management.
• Habit Developers – Create healthy habits to encourage time management.

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4. Get Organized

Disorganization leads to poor time management and clutter has a strong negative impact on perceived well-being. To improve your time management, get organized. And getting organized is one of the five ways to control your time more effectively.

Here’s how you go about it…Set up three boxes (or corners of a room) labeled ‘Keep,’ ‘Give Away,’ and ‘Toss.’ Sort items into these boxes. Discard items in your ‘Toss’ box. Your ‘Give Away’ box may include items you want to sell, donate, or discard.

The next step is to improve the time you spend processing information. For example, tasks such as email can eat up your day. To combat wasted time, implement an email organization system that allows you to process the information in each email as efficiently as possible. Use folders, flagging, or a color-coded system to keep track of what’s what.

5. Manage Time-Wasters

While compiling this list of ‘5 tips for time management’, managing time-wasters was definitely going to be the most important. What it means is to reduce or eliminate time spent in these activities by implementing some simple tips.

Handheld Devices

• Take advantage of voice-to-text features such as transcribed voicemails or to make notes or draft emails and text messages when you are on the go.
• Avoid small talk. Stay focused.
• Take any necessary action immediately following a call.
• Impose screen time limits and regularly monitor your digital wellness (see Strategy 10).
• Schedule breaks from your devices.

Email

• Set aside a specific time to view and respond to email, but don’t let it accumulate to the point it becomes overwhelming to sort.
• Turn off notifications for email.
• Handle each item only once if possible.
• Immediately delete or unsubscribe from junk emails.
• Keep address books up-to-date and organized.
• Utilize built-in shortcuts to sort email.

Unexpected Visitors

• Schedule time for face-to-face visits.
• Inform visitors of your time constraints and politely offer to reschedule.
• Set a mutually agreeable time limit for the visit.
• When someone comes to the door, stand up and have your meeting standing to help keep it brief.

In-Person and Virtual Meetings

• Know the purpose of the meeting in advance.
• Arrive early.
• Start and end the meeting on time.
• Prepare an agenda and stick to it. Use a timed agenda, if necessary.
• Don’t schedule meetings unless they are necessary and have a specific purpose or agenda.
• Use recording software or designate a note-taker.

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Family Obligations

• Use and sync virtual calendars for easy sharing between busy family members.
• Make each family member responsible for consulting the master calendar for potential conflicts.
• Create a central area or agreed upon app for posting communications such as appointment reminders, announcements, and messages.

Ending Notes

Whatever time management tips you use, take time to evaluate how they have worked for you. Do you have a healthy balance between work and home life? Are you accomplishing the tasks that are most important in your life? Are you investing enough time in your own personal well-being? If the answer is ‘NO!’ to any of these questions, then reevaluate your time management strategies and transition to ones that will work better for you.

We hope our five ways to control your time and the comprehensive list of ‘5 ways to improve time management’ has been helpful to you. We know that successful time management leads to greater personal happiness, more accomplishments at home and at work and a more satisfying future.