Are you overwhelmed by the amount of work you have to complete each day? You don’t have to be! We’ve put together over 27 techniques for time management that you can use to improve your productivity. With these time management techniques, you’ll be able to get more done in less time so you can focus on what really matters: enjoying your life.
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Prioritization Techniques for Time Management
Prioritizing your tasks is a great way to manage your time. Here are some of the most useful techniques for time management we’ve come across over the years.
Organize Tomorrow Today
If you’re feeling overwhelmed with too much to do, set aside 15 minutes daily to plan what you need to accomplish tomorrow. This will help you focus on the things that matter most and ensure you don’t forget anything. Go ahead, try it right now. Ask yourself, “What are the top 3 things I should work on tomorrow?” Write them down, then do them tomorrow. If you want to really challenge yourself, ask yourself what one thing you should work on tomorrow.
Eat The Frog
A great hack is to do the hardest thing on your to-do list first thing in the morning. If you challenged yourself from the last tip, do that one thing first thing in the morning (or when you’re working day starts). This does a few things. First of all, it gets it out of the way. If the rest of the day gets derailed by meetings or emergencies, you can still count your day as successful because you got a win first thing in the morning. Next, it creates momentum. You may realize it wasn’t so bad and then decide to do more hard things and accomplish more than you thought possible.
Set Goals
It’s hard to prioritize unless you have a tool to gauge your priorities. Goals are that tool. Take time to set long-term and short-term goals for your life, work, etc. This will help you keep your top priorities at the top of your mind and keep you from getting distracted.
Make Your Goals Realistic
Setting goals and priorities is one of the first steps to managing your time well. However, I’ve seen people set huge goals and then get burnt out when they don’t reach them. Therefore, it’s important to set realistic goals. One hack is to set huge goals but then break them into manageable and realistic pieces. You can then track and celebrate your progress achieving intermediate steps along the way to your larger goals. Remember, Rome wasn’t built overnight.
Build Habits
Willpower is hard; habits are easy. Figure out the tasks that will lead you to reach your goals successfully, and then build habits around those tasks. Ideally, make the tasks super simple and easy to accomplish. For example, if you want to work out first thing in the morning rather than focusing on completing an hour’s workout, just build the habit of putting your workout clothes on and hit play on the workout video or drive to the gym. If you hit play or drive to the gym, you can turn around and go back to bed, but the odds of you doing that are pretty low once you’ve already gotten that far. To learn more about habits, check out Atomic Habits by James Clear. It’s a fantastic book about building habits.
Prioritize Tasks Based on Importance and Urgency
To prioritize your tasks, think about the impact they’ll have on your biggest goals. With your goals in mind, ask yourself, “What’s the most important task right now?” and “How urgent is it?” Once you’ve identified your top priorities that are both important and urgent, start with those and then move down your list accordingly. The next priority level should be important but not urgent tasks.
Delay
Yes, that pile of laundry is distracting, but is it really your highest priority right now? Sometimes things can be delayed; you just need to mentally get past the annoyance of not doing them right now. If it helps you feel better, put them on your calendar for when their due date is closer or add them to a to-do-later list.
Learn to Say "No"
Saying no is hard, especially when you’re busy. However, saying yes too often will leave you feeling overwhelmed and stressed out. Remember, when you say yes to other people’s priorities, you say no to your own. Also, you can say no and still provide resources. Maybe you can’t help with a project, but you know someone who’d be even better. The person you refer may appreciate the opportunity, and the person who asked you for help will appreciate the referral. Win-win!
Simplification Techniques for Time Management
Sometimes the best time management strategy is to keep things simple. So here are some simple yet powerful techniques for time management.
Focus on the Beginning
“Activation energy.” It’s a scientific word that basically means the beginning is the hardest part. You feel this when you procrastinate and avoid projects you know you must do. “Just do it” is easier said than done, so here’s a hack to try: Set an alarm for 1-5 minutes, hit go, and then start. When the timer goes off, if you want to stop, you can. However, if you find the momentum to keep going, go for it.
Starting is hard, but if your brain knows it can stop in as little as 60 seconds, it’s less likely to procrastinate and more likely to “just do it.”
Keep it Short, Simple, and Specific
People overestimate what they can get done in a day and underestimate what they can get done in a year. Keep your daily task list short, simple, and specific. By keeping it short, you will be forced to prioritize what’s most important to you. Keeping it simple will help you avoid getting overwhelmed. Do this by defining the exact next step as simply as possible, so it’s easy to understand. Finally, make it specific. This will force you to understand what success looks like on that day. You’ll easily know if you have reached your goal for the day or not.
Happiness hack: You want to stretch yourself, but you also want to give yourself a chance to succeed. No one likes to feel like they didn’t achieve anything at the end of their workweek, but if things were too easy, that’s boring too. Find your sweet spot.
Here are some examples:
- Example of how people usually organize tasks:
- Check email
- Make some sales call
- Work on Project X
- Example of how to shift organizing your tasks:
- Finish step 2 on Project X
- Make 25 sales calls
- Respond to 20 emails, including the one from Brian
Focus on One Task at a Time
If you’re trying to do several things at once, you won’t be able to focus on any of them well enough to achieve success. So instead, try focusing on just one thing at a time. This will help you stay organized and avoid distractions. So put your phone away, turn off notifications, close your email, and get to work. You’ll be amazed at how much you can achieve when you focus on one task!
Environmental Techniques for Time Management
Sometimes our environments distract us and keep us from managing our time well. To counteract these distractions, try adjusting your environment to be more productive.
Set Up Your Environment for Productivity
Determine what distracts you from managing your time well and take that out of your work environment. For example, if you constantly check your phone, put it in the other room. If you constantly check your email, log out. If your coworker comes into your office uninvited and distracts you, simply close the door and put a note saying you’re on a call or doing deep work.
Take Breaks Throughout the Day
Taking regular breaks throughout the day helps keep you focused and energized. It also gives you a chance to think through what you need to accomplish before you start working again. Try taking five minutes every hour to take a short break.
Know Your Power Hour
Is there a certain time of the day that you’re most productive? If you don’t know what it is, take some time to try to figure it out. Then, schedule your most important tasks and projects during that time.
Schedule Meetings Carefully
Meetings can be highly productive or huge time wasters. If they often fall in the time waster category, make sure you schedule them around your least productive times and energy levels. If meetings help you make money (i.e., sales meetings), try to schedule those when you typically feel your best and most confident.
Have a Good Exit Strategy
Learn how to exit meetings when they’re no longer serving you or you’re no longer adding value. If you’re a leader, lead by example, and make this part of the culture. If this makes you nervous, have an honest conversation with your boss or supervisor ahead of time and discuss an appropriate strategy for your work environment.
Energy Boosters
When I was in high school, I ran cross country. I would go to school all day and run 5+ miles after school. Surprisingly, I had insane energy and mental clarity when I got home from practice. My math homework was a breeze, and I didn’t feel tired. We often think hard work will make us more tired, but energy doesn’t always work like Even if you are mentally exhausted, try moving your body or doing something physical to boost your energy.
Efficiency Techniques for Time Management
With a few of these time management hacks, you can get more done in less time. So check them out and give them a try.
Leverage Technology
We are living in one of the best times in history for automation. If you think you need to be a developer or know how to code to leverage technology to automate, think again. Many tools don’t require any code that you can use to automate your life. Check IFTTT for inspiration on things you never thought you could automate.
Focus on Strengths
I studied positive psychology for years and quickly learned that one of the best ways to be more efficient and productive is to focus on your strengths. When you’re operating in your zone of genius and interest, things will come easier and faster, and you’ll have more energy and stamina because you enjoy what you’re working on.
Get Help
There are only so many hours in the day. Depending on your top goals and strengths, it may make sense to ask for or hire help. For example, you can ask for help around the house and have honest conversations about chores with your family. Another option is to hire help. While it can require a financial investment, focusing on highly productive tasks that generate revenue for you may be well worth the investment. Finally, if you’re working in a corporate environment, it’s helpful to understand the strengths and skills of your coworkers. This way, you can help them in areas where you are strong, and they can help you in areas where they are strong. Ultimately this can save everyone time and money.
Read more:
Work Smarter Not Harder
Are you doing things the hard way? Probably…
Think about problems that you run into on a daily or weekly basis, and then simplify them. For example, I found that I had clients asking me the same questions repeatedly. So rather than retyping the same response, I decided to write one well-thought-out response, spell-check it, make sure it was good, and then just use that every time people asked the question. Now with the click of 2 buttons, I can quickly and easily answer common questions from my clients.
It may not seem like much, but even if I save 60 seconds a day, that’s 6 hours a year, or 2.5 days of my life every 10 years.
Now, imagine doing that for multiple tasks throughout your life.
Practice Self-Care
You can’t pour from an empty cup. So make sure you proactively plan and schedule a time to take care of your health, eat, get enough sleep, and time to take breaks. Some of the best ideas can happen when you’re resting and your subconscious mind has time to do the work. Don’t rob yourself of those opportunities.
Add Positive Emotion to Your Life
Research shows that positive emotion can help build intellectual and social resources. Studies show people think more creatively and work better together when they experience positive emotions. So, if you want to be more productive, curate the content that you expose yourself to before you start working, and focus on inspiring, joyful, and interesting content. Stay away from content that makes you sad or angry.
Start Before You're Ready
You’ll never be 100% ready to do anything, so start before you’re ready. By taking action before you’re ready, you’ll learn by doing and naturally develop the skills and confidence you need to feel “ready.”
Create a Shitty First Draft
One reason people don’t start before they’re ready is because they’re waiting to be “perfect” or have the confidence they think they need to start. However, you’ll never learn unless you make a few mistakes along the way. If you are a perfectionist, one way to get around this is to start with a “shitty first draft.” Literally, write “shitty first draft” on your first version. Then, when you start to ruminate or judge yourself, just remind yourself that this is a “shitty first draft,” and it’s not intended to be perfect. You can also try to write this version as fast as possible. Sometimes speed can force you to start and get something done, and then you can refine from there.
Audit Your Time
The Hawthorne effect came from a fascinating study. This study concluded that people are more productive when they know they are being watched. If you don’t want someone breathing down your neck, you can do this for yourself by simply auditing your time. Because you will be paying attention to and tracking your time, you’ll be more likely to be more productive. And if you really want to take this to another level, you can put the Hawthorne effect to full use by actually having someone watch you work.
Focus on Action
All these tips are useless unless you put them to work. Consistent and deliberate action is what gets results.
So ask yourself what you are going to take action on right now.
Now, go do it!
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