Employees who manage their time effectively are more likely to meet deadlines and maintain productivity. They prioritize important and time-sensitive projects while reducing time spent on less essential tasks.
If you’re looking for ways to better optimize your time during the workday, you’ve come to the right place. Keep reading to explore 10 of the best time management tips for work.
10 Tips for Time Management
From setting time limits on tasks to eliminating distractions from your workspace, there’s a lot you can do to improve your time management skills. Explore the 10 tips below for guidance.
1. Take Stock of How You Use Your Time Now
The first step to mastering time management is determining how you currently spend your time. The easiest way to do this is to track and log your daily work tasks. Using a time tracking app is a simple way to stay organized. However, if you prefer pen and paper, you can also physically write down how much time you spend on each task.
As you track assignments and log your time throughout the week, areas that take up the most time become increasingly apparent, whether productive or unproductive. At the end of the week, you can use this data to:
- Get a realistic idea of how much work you can accomplish in a day.
- Prioritize important and productive tasks.
- Cut down excessive time spent on unproductive conversations and habits.
Tracking your tasks can also help you find peak productivity times during the day. This way, you’ll know when to work on projects that require extra creativity and focus.
Overall, time tracking gives you an accurate picture of how you spend time at work so you can plan accordingly. From there, you can start to brainstorm time management goals.
2. Set Goals
Once you understand how you use your time, you can start setting goals to optimize your approach. Try to create these goals based on any areas of improvement you identified. For instance, maybe you’d like to limit how much time you spend each day checking your email or social media. Perhaps your goal is to prioritize urgent tasks and projects better. Whatever you wish to achieve, ensure your goals follow the SMART acronym:
- Specific: Clearly state what you want to accomplish. Use the “who, what, where, when, and how” method for guidance.
- Measurable: Use specific metrics to measure how you will achieve your goal.
- Achievable: Your goal should be realistic and accomplishable.
- Relevant: This is the “why” aspect of your goal. How and why is it meaningful?
- Time-bound: Establish a deadline for achieving your goal to provide a sense of urgency and motivation.
With these elements in mind, here are some SMART goal examples:
- To improve productivity, I’ll set aside 15 minutes daily for the next two weeks to organize files and personal data.
- To better utilize my time, I’ll limit low-priority meetings with co-workers to 30 minutes. I’ll evaluate the time I spent on these meetings at the end of the month.
- To improve work-life balance, I’ll reduce my overtime to one hour per day or five per week. I’ll do this for a month, then evaluate my work-life schedule.
3. Do Not Multitask
Focusing on a single task at a time is one of the simplest time management tips. It can also be one of the most challenging to follow.
Try to avoid the temptation of jumping between assignments. When you constantly switch from one task to another, you lose time and decrease productivity. Research shows that when we multitask — especially with complex tasks requiring active attention — we become less efficient and more likely to make mistakes.
Focus on the assignment at hand. When you find yourself reaching to switch to another project in the middle of a current one, remind yourself to stop, take a deep breath, and take it one task at a time. Here are some tips to help prevent multitasking habits:
- Make a to-do list: Create a to-do list and check off tasks as you complete them. Your list can be a helpful way to stay organized and resist the urge to multitask.
- Cleanse your workspace: Clear your desk and screen of anything unrelated to the current task, such as files, papers, and tabs.
- Set a timer: Pick one task to do, then set a timer. Work on this task until you complete it or the timer goes off to help improve focus and reduce multitasking.
4. Plan Out the Whole Week on Friday
Friday afternoon — or whenever the end of your work week falls — is an excellent time to evaluate your schedule for the next week. While it’s tempting to slack off toward the end of a long work week, it’s best to avoid doing so. In fact, making Friday your most productive day of the week may set you up for long-term success.
Consider using your next Friday afternoon to determine what the following week will look like. Include immediate tasks and responsibilities as well as long-term to-dos you may tend to put off.
Simply taking a few minutes to plan for the upcoming week can significantly improve your time management habits. You’re converting the time you usually spend on less valuable tasks into one of the most productive moments of your week.
5. Group Similar Tasks Together
If you’ve made a to-do list for the day, take a minute to review your tasks before you start working your way down. Are there any similar tasks you can group and complete in the same time window? Consider creating separate blocks of time for categories like:
- Making phone calls
- Answering emails
- Working on finances
- Doing paperwork
- Filing
- Doing creative projects
When you group similar tasks, your brain doesn’t constantly have to shift from one type of thinking to another. As a result, your brain can gain momentum as you perform similar tasks. Working with your momentum instead of against it creates smoother transitions between the tasks on your to-do list. Completing one to-do category before moving on to the next is an effective way to save both time and mental energy.
To ensure you’re only focusing on one task category at a time, block out distractions from other categories whenever possible. For instance, you can turn off message and email notifications outside your scheduled time to perform these tasks. Silencing your notifications helps eliminate the temptation to check those applications during unappointed times.
6. Give Your Tasks Time Limits
While we may not realize it, the amount of time we assign to a task influences the time it takes to complete it. Parkinson’s law states that work expands to fill the available time for its completion. In other words, the more time you dedicate in advance to a specific task, the longer you’ll take to finish it — even if you could have completed it in less time.
Take another look at your time log. If you identify a task that took longer than you expected, set an appropriate and realistic time limit for that task. For example, maybe you spent two hours on a low-priority assignment. Try cutting it down to one hour to allow more time for a higher-priority project. Setting time constraints can help improve your focus so you’ll work more efficiently. It also helps prevent scope creep — the unnecessary extension of a project that occurs when responsibilities are not well-defined.
The Pomodoro Technique can be a helpful way to set a steady workflow pace. Choose an assignment and set a 25-minute timer. Work until the timer rings, then take a 5-minute break. After every fourth Pomodoro interval, extend this break to 15-30 minutes.
This technique helps balance focus with frequent breaks, maintaining motivation and decreasing mental strain. However, you may find a different method to be more effective. Experiment with different time limits and find a workflow pace that works best for you.
7. Schedule Breaks
Regular breaks are essential for a healthy work-life balance. It’s vital to take short breaks throughout the workday to boost productivity and avoid burnout. After you complete a task on your to-do list, take a brief break to recharge. Performing several tasks in a row without taking a break can make it more challenging to stay motivated and focused.
The human brain undergoes basic rest-activity cycles (BRAC) during waking and resting hours. Every 90 minutes, it cycles between high and low levels of alertness. After doing high-intensity work for over 90 minutes, your concentration is more likely to decline. Planning a break at least once every 90 minutes will help you maintain your productivity throughout the day. You can also get up from your desk every hour or follow the Pomodoro Technique above.
However you decide to incorporate breaks into your schedule, make sure you allow ample time to clear your head. Get up from your desk and do something non-work-related, whether that’s taking a walk outside, grabbing a snack or drink, stretching, or playing a game of ping pong in the breakroom.
8. Say No Sometimes
While saying no can be challenging for some, sometimes managing your time at work means declining a task. Only you know what you truly have time for, so if you need to turn down a request to focus on more important assignments, don’t hesitate to do so.
Saying no is especially necessary if the task falls outside your responsibilities. High-priority tasks that pertain to your job should always come first. If you’re unqualified to assist a co-worker with a task or don’t have enough time in your schedule, there may be someone else in the office who can help out. In some cases, you may be able to delegate this task to another individual.
While saying no and delegating tasks can be challenging skills to learn, they can be highly beneficial for your personal time management.
9. Prioritize Correctly
When organizing your to-do list, remember that prioritization is critical for effective time management. For starters, eliminate any nonessential tasks to allow more time to spend on valuable assignments. Next, pinpoint your three or four most crucial tasks and place these at the top of the list — this way, you’re completing the essentials first.
If you’re looking to prioritize your day effectively, the Eisenhower Matrix is a helpful tool for organizing tasks based on their importance and urgency. It allows you to group all of your small daily tasks and large projects into four quadrants:
- Important and urgent: Try to complete these projects immediately.
- Important but not urgent: Schedule these tasks and decide when to complete them.
- Urgent but not important: Delegate these projects to someone else if possible.
- Not urgent and not important: Reduce or eliminate these tasks from your schedule.
In addition to the tasks themselves, it’s equally important to prioritize the best time of day to complete them. We mentioned earlier that finding your peak productivity time can help optimize your workload. For instance, if you’re most productive in the morning, use those hours to complete any difficult or high-priority tasks.
10. Get Rid of Distractions
Finally, eliminating distractions is one of the most important tips for good time management. Determine significant distractions that divert focus from your work. Some examples include:
- Social media
- Web browsing
- Background noise
- Text messaging
- Emailing
- Phone calls
- Co-workers
Completely removing these distractions can be a challenge, but taking small steps will make it easier to accomplish this goal. Identify your top one or two distractions and spend the next couple of weeks conquering those first. As we mentioned with multitasking, certain practices help limit distractions from devices and unrelated tasks. Here are some ways to reduce distraction:
- Shut your door: When performing high-focus tasks, consider shutting your door to ensure a quiet thinking space. A closed door signifies that you’re unavailable for interruptions.
- Clear your desk: As mentioned earlier, clearing your desk and monitor of anything unrelated to the current task is a good way to prevent distraction.
- Turn off phone notifications: Designate certain times of the day to check your email or text messages, then turn off notifications for the remaining time. Notifications popping up on your screen can divert focus from your current task. Better yet, you can put your phone in a desk drawer or turn it off altogether to reduce the temptation to check it.
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