Time Management Skills- 10 tips to Improve Your Time Management and Be More Productive 

Most days, people find themselves going to bed far too late. Not only that, but they didn’t get enough to eat or drink, they had work that was unfinished, goals that were unmet, and no time to unwind. Sadly, most people find themselves in this situation. Health is being neglected and quotas aren’t being met simply because there’s not enough time in the day to get everything done. Or so it would seem.

What many people don’t realize is that properly managing time can fix a lot more problems than they expect. Learning good time management can help you get more work done in less time, thus creating more time at the end of the day for things you want to do.

Of course, like any skill, the ability to manage time wisely needs to be developed and practiced in order to be effective. This means putting forth an effort to find what works best for you in your situation. It involves trial, error, and consistency, but in the end, proper time management can have a huge payoff. 

In this article, we’ll explore some other ways time management can be useful, as well as diving deep into the root of the problem: why do people struggle with their time? Then, we will cover some useful tips to better manage your time. 

1.  Make a Planner 

Planners and calendars can be extremely useful tools for organizing a to-do list. Taking a minute to put your agenda onto paper each day can prevent your mind from feeling overwhelmed with all your tasks. Use a planner to help organize your day, week, month, and even year. Doing so will give you an idea of how much time each task will require and let you decide where in your day the task belongs. 

1.  Prioritize Your Time

A college success teacher taught time management in this way. He started by taking an empty jar and filling it with large stones. Turning to the class, he asked if the jar was full. The class nodded in agreement, seeing that the jar was filled to the brim with heavy rocks. The professor then took out a smaller bag of pebbles, poured them over the rocks, and shook the jar until the pebbles fell through to fill the spaces between the rocks. “How about now?” he asked. The students laughed and agreed that the jar was now full. Finally, the professor took yet another bag, this time full of sand, and poured it into the jar, filling the remaining empty space. He urged the class to treat their time the same way. 

The tasks we’re required to do both at work and at home can be divided into three categories:

• Rocks: These are the tasks that are most important and should be taken care of before anything else. Urgent work assignments, family, physical or mental health, etc. 
• Pebbles: Tasks that are important but not urgent. These could include assignments due at a later deadline or household chores.
• Sand: Low priority activities such as watching TV, relaxing, visiting with friends, etc. 

Imagine if the professor were to add the sand before anything else; he may not have had room in the jar to fit the other rocks and pebbles. Prioritizing your tasks is a sure way to allow you to fit everything you need and want to do in a day. 

1.  Eliminate distractions

The ability to focus is a critical skill to develop in order to effectively manage time. Many people will work the entire day and find that by the end of it, they didn’t get that much done. If it feels to you like time is mysteriously disappearing from your day, it’s most likely caused by small distractions that continually break your focus. 

For example, imagine checking social media for only five minutes twice every hour. Breaks like this are tiny and feel completely insignificant. However, after six hours of working you’ll have lost a full hour out of your day checking social media. 

Additionally, studies show that people look at their phone an average of 344 times per day. In a best-case scenario, imagine each of those instances lasted only one second. That’s still over five minutes of your day that’s now disappeared. In a more extreme case, imagine each of those instances lasted a full minute. That would then add up to six hours out of the day just glancing at your phone here and there. 

Other small distractions can also add up to huge time-wasters. In a work environment, perhaps you’re chatting with coworkers too much. Maybe when at home you turn on the TV while you work, or you find yourself staring off into space a lot. Whatever it is, eliminating small distractions that break your focus can help you regain hours out of your day.

1.  Set time limits for certain tasks

A common problem people run into after eliminating distractions is becoming distracted by other tasks that still need to be done. Spending too much or too little time on a project, as well as jumping from one task to another, can hurt your efficiency and ultimately waste your time.

Picture this scenario: A man, while doing the dishes, leans toward the garbage to throw something away but notices the garbage is full. As he carries the trash bag through the front yard toward the dumpster, he sees that the lawn is turning brown and could use some water. He picks up the hose but drops it in disgust, realizing just how grimey and old it is. So he hops in the car to go buy a new hose. On his way to the store, he gets a call from his wife saying that he left the sink running and never finished doing the dishes. 

Most people can relate to this man to a certain degree. Even if distractions are eliminated and our minds become focused and productive, it can be easy to jump thoughtlessly from one task to another. 

The best way to combat this natural way of inefficient working is by dedicating certain amounts of time toward certain tasks. If you’re working on many different assignments at work and find it hard to focus on just one, take a look at the clock, choose how much time you want to give that task, and focus on it for that amount of time. This helps to center your brain on what’s in front of you, and worry less about everything else that needs to be done. 

1. Take Breaks

Previously, we talked about the importance of eliminating distractions. Getting distracted frequently or taking “micro-breaks” can add up quickly and waste a lot of time. However, this isn’t to say that breaks aren’t an important part of using time wisely. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. 

Studies show that the brain can only focus on one task for about 45 minutes to an hour without taking a break. Chances are, if you’ve ever focused on one thing for longer than this, you’ve experienced what is called burnout. When your mind burns out, you’ll suddenly find yourself rapidly losing focus. You’ll probably feel groggy and tired, headaches could develop, and your overall productivity drops. Choosing to remain in a state of burnout in order to keep working can hurt your effectiveness in the long run.

As you feel your mind approaching the burnout state, a quick break is probably appropriate. Breaks help us relax our minds so they can focus at 100% again when we get back to work. Bear in mind, that this doesn’t mean it’s time to go put on a movie every time you need a break. In fact, it’s shown that even just a five-minute break is enough to put our minds back on track. 

So every 45 minutes, find a way to reward yourself for at least five minutes. Grab a snack, watch a funny video, talk to a friend, or do something that you enjoy to activate your brain’s reward system. Not only will it refresh your mind and allow you to continue working, but it will also condition your brain to love and enjoy working with an anticipation of a reward by the end of it. 

1.  Don’t Procrastinate

While talking about procrastinating, Mark Twain once said, “if it’s your job to eat a frog, it’s best to do it first thing in the morning. And if it’s your job to eat two frogs, it’s best to eat the BIGGEST one first.” 

The phenomenon of procrastinating has been researched and reviewed for hundreds of years. Many people feel they’re exhibiting laziness when they procrastinate. Although that may be a part of it, laziness is hardly the issue. In fact, many people find themselves procrastinating on a task by accomplishing other less important tasks! 

At its core, procrastination is a buffer from negative emotions brought on by the task in question. Maybe doing an assignment makes you feel bored, stressed, or anxious. Your brain, in an act of self-preservation, fights against these feelings by avoiding the situation altogether. 

If you find yourself struggling with procrastination, try using these three steps:

1. Stop: When you find yourself avoiding a task, even in small ways, begin by acknowledging the situation. Recognize that you’re tasked with something you don’t want to do, and your mind is resisting the situation.

1. Identify: The things we buffer from boil down to basic negative emotions. Boredom, stress, loneliness, hunger, anxiety, etc. Identify what emotion you’re trying to buffer from and find a way to resolve the deeper needs. Grab a snack to cure hunger, breathe through anxiety, or grab a breath of fresh air to help with depression. Anything you need to in order to fix the core issue that’s causing you to procrastinate. 

1. Move forward: After identifying the cause of your procrastinating and taking action to resolve the issue, you’re ready to move forward with your task. Make a conscious decision to work past the discomfort and finish the task sooner rather than later. 

  7. Avoid Multitasking

Multitasking, by definition, is completing multiple tasks at the same time. In reality, the human brain can only focus on one task at a time. So by trying to accomplish multiple tasks at once, your brain is rapidly switching back and forth between however many you’re working on. This ultimately hurts your efficiency, mental health, and actually increases the amount of time it takes to finish a task.

Eliminating multitasking goes hand-in-hand with eliminating distractions. Many people choose to turn on the TV while they work. Some busy parents find themselves writing emails at the same time they are entertaining the kids. Others may even work on multiple projects at once trying to finish everything in a timely manner. 

Studies show that when the brain focuses on more than one task, stress levels increase, efficiency decreases, and the quality of work falls dramatically. To get a sense of what this means, try drawing a circle with one hand while simultaneously drawing a square with the other. You’ll find that not only is it nearly impossible to do them at once, but the products will be significantly worse than if you were to draw them separately. 

By focusing on one task at a time, you’ll find yourself getting more done, and you will feel better about the product of your work.

8. Stress Management

The body’s stress response is very similar to the body’s fear response. Most of the time, our problems are much bigger in our imagination than they really are. When your brain starts to focus on everything you have left to do and begins to imagine the consequences of failure, you experience stress. This can lead to a deadly cycle of feeling stressed about a situation, enlarging the consequences of the situation in your mind, then feeling even more stressed about it. 

There are a few things you can do to neutralize stress. First, visualize the situation rationally. Since stress is dramatic by nature, it’s easy to entertain thoughts such as, “If I don’t finish this project by tonight, I could get fired.” Same as with a fear response, the mind wants to identify all possible dangers and avoid them. When we allow the mind to become overwhelmed with these thoughts, it slows our productivity and the situation becomes much more intimidating than it really is. Try to identify stressful thoughts and replace them with rational ones. Instead of “I could get fired,” think, “this has been a tough assignment, but I’m almost finished.” Thinking it down is a good way to ground yourself and push through a busy day. 

Secondly, it’s a good idea to not overload your plate. If every day is being filled to the brim with difficult tasks, it’s probably time to trim down your schedule a little bit. Be decisive on what tasks you allow yourself to undertake. If that doesn’t feel like an option, find a way to lighten your load by delegating tasks to others or relying on friends to help where you’re not able to. Taking on manageable amounts of work will help you to avoid overly-stressful situations altogether. 

9. Prioritize health

A lot of the time when people take on a busy schedule, personal health becomes a lower priority. People might start to skip out on meals, exercise, personal hygiene, or sleep. After all, when you take on responsibilities, those tend to feel like your number one priority. However, skipping out on physical or mental health actually hurts your ability to work effectively. 

The functionality of your brain is very dependent upon how you treat yourself. You may notice that on lazy days when you spend the day on the couch in your pajamas, you probably feel groggy and slow throughout the day. The cause of this grogginess is simply bad self-care. That could be from a lack of sleep, exercise, nutrition, or even just skipping a morning routine. Keeping all these things at a lower priority can slow your brain down, causing you to get less done. 

10. Experiment

Everyone has different working situations. Therefore, some of these solutions may not work in your particular case. Whatever it is, it is important to try new solutions to help you better manage your time. Under what circumstances have you felt the most productive in the past? Try to recreate those situations. Try switching up the environment you work in or getting into a different routine. 

Mastering time management is a long process that no one gets right away. As you continually identify the issues that may be slowing you down and find solutions that work best for you, you will see progress in yourself that will help you meet your quotas time and time again.

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