Time Management: 15 Methods for Effective Time Management

If you are constantly overwhelmed with work and household chores, it may be worth reconsidering the approach to planning. Time management is a whole science. We tell you how time management works and how to manage your time

What is time management

Economist Peter Drucker wrote that management would increasingly go beyond the commercial enterprise where it appeared in an attempt to organize the production of things.

Time management is the techniques and methods for managing time. This is self-organization and self-management. Time management helps a person or company to plan time and save resources.

For example, if you are overwhelmed with work, and you don’t know what to take on first, you should prioritize. The Eisenhower matrix helps you figure out which tasks are urgent and important, and which are just distractions. Do not forget about the famous “Pareto rule”, according to which only 20% of efforts bring 80% of the result and vice versa.

The more we manage to do, the better the quality of our work and life in general. And in the face of digital transformation and accelerating change, clear time management helps you stay focused on your goals, stay on track, and ultimately avoid becoming a downed pilot in the job market.

Time management principles

Almost all existing time management methods consist of three components: prioritization, planning and structuring.

Most time management techniques rely on structuring and prioritization, and only a small part is a complex combination of all three principles. We will analyze the 15 best time management methods: from simple techniques to complex management systems.

Best Time Management Techniques

1. Preparation from the evening

Preparation in the evening is suitable for those who find it difficult to get up early in the morning – the advice of psychologist Nick Wignal [1]. Write down work and personal tasks for tomorrow at the end of the working day. So you understand your workload in advance and distribute tasks without the morning rush. You can prepare a task plan in the evening, work clothes, or lunch to go if you work outside the home.

The task plan for tomorrow can be drawn up in a notebook on paper or in the application

2. At least N minutes

The method helps to cope with procrastination – postponing tasks “for later”, even if they are important or urgent matters. If you don’t feel like doing anything, try starting with at least a few minutes per task: five or ten. According to Julia Müller, a professor at the University of Leipzig, this gives a person the right to change their mind, and it increases the feeling of control over the situation. He stops thinking that he is being forced to do something that he absolutely does not want to do [2], so further work goes easier.

3. Deadlines

Set clear deadlines for delivering work. Clear deadlines encourage you to work faster and help you deal with procrastination. Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have found that even self-set deadlines help get things off the ground [3]. At the same time, such deadlines work worse than external deadlines set by the manager or the competition commission. In personal cases, the outside curator can be a friend, colleague, or relative.

4. Eating a “frog”

Business coach Brian Tracy suggests eating a “frog” every morning [4]—doing the most difficult and unpleasant task first. In the morning, the brain is less loaded with information, so it will be easier for you to cope with a difficult task. After such a task, all the rest will seem trifling and they will still have strength.

5. Small tasks

This is the exact opposite of the previous method. Do small tasks – for 1-2 minutes – first, if possible at the same moment. For example, check mail and equipment, submit requests, or distribute tasks. This rule is taken from the Getting Things Done (GTD) method by business coach David Allen [5].

6. Autofocus

The “autofocus” method is suitable for people who often work with tasks without a deadline. The two previous principles oblige to choose a cause, and this sense of obligation causes rejection. The author of the method, Mark Forster, believes [6] that you should first write out all the cases in a single list, and then slowly read it until you want to stop at one task. The size of the task does not matter, the desire to do it right now is more important. If you managed to complete the task today, cross it out. If it didn’t work out, move it to the end of the list and read it again.

7. Do it tomorrow

Mark Forster, author of Do It Tomorrow [7], recommends not taking on urgent tasks right away, but putting them off until tomorrow. To do this, you need to maintain closed to-do lists. You cannot add a new task to the closed list, but you can add it to the list the next day. This approach helps you stay focused on current affairs and do only your job.

Forster separates “his real job” and “busyness”. A real job helps you advance in a business or profession. Here you will fully apply your skills and knowledge. Get out of your comfort zone often by doing things you haven’t done before. The work is really difficult, this work can cause a little resistance.

Busyness comes when you put aside real work for small tasks. Activity is not the same as action. If a job feels overwhelmed but doesn’t seem difficult, it’s probably busy. Real work can be difficult, but it doesn’t make you feel like a “squirrel in a wheel.”

8. Sharing a big task

This technique is also called eating salami or elephant bit by bit. The global task can be intimidating by its volume. To start it, you should decompose a large task into small stages, decompose. For example, “launching a new project” sounds loud and presses with responsibility. But when concrete steps appear in it, it becomes easier: “start audience research” → “talk with Sasha on the points of analysis” → “examine the results” → “prepare a layout based on the research results”. The task “acquires” specifics and no longer seems like an impossible mission.

9. One task at a time

Multitasking in intellectual work does not work. In 2009, researchers from Stanford University conducted an experiment [8]. They found that when a person does several intellectual things at the same time, for example, reads and talks on the phone, he remembers both the content of the conversation and what he read worse. At the same time, he cannot determine which information was important and which could be omitted. If a person works on only one thing at a time, he copes better with the task and remembers information well.

10. Fixed time methods

This includes timer methods. If you get into the habit of working on a timer, you will know the value of your time, work more productively, learn to manage expectations, train your willpower and prevent burnout.

Pomodoro technique. The Pomodoro Method is Francesco Cirillo’s 25 Minute System. A “pomodoro” is a 30-minute time span – 25 minutes for work and five minutes for rest. You work for 25 minutes, take a five-minute break, then go back to work. Every four repetitions – a break of 30 minutes.

By the way, the timer is called “tomato” because Francesco Cirillo initially used a small kitchen timer in the form of a tomato.

Most often, the Pomodoro timer looks like this (Photo: bakunin.com)

Method “90 by 30” Tony Schwartz [9] and “52 by 17” method, which appeared as a result of the study of The Muse service [10], are built according to a similar principle. The first value is the time in minutes that you need to allocate for work, the second is the time for a break.

We can say that this is a modification of deadlines, but they severely limit the time for work itself. The abundance of short breaks helps to “unload the brain”, change activities and get distracted.

If you want to try the methods in practice, remember that not only work intervals are equally important in them, but also rest intervals. For the methods to work, it is important to rest and return to the task at a set time.

11. Principle of nine deeds

This method is based on the task hierarchy. According to the principle, during the day you need to “close” one large task, three smaller tasks and five small ones. Tasks like preparing for a meeting with future clients are suitable, and simpler tasks, such as buying pet food. So household chores do not disappear from view and are included in the calculation of their own workload.

A variation of this method is “principle of three things” Chris Bailey [11]. This method will help those who easily sink into a routine and do not pay enough attention to their long-term goals. According to Bailey, you need to complete three things a day that bring you closer to achieving a global goal. For example, an hour a day to do grammar exercises in English or to apply for a scholarship if your global goal is to study abroad.

12. Kanban

Kanban is a method of organizing work to spread the workload among people and get work done right on time. The method helps to see the growing pace of work and not forget anything. Along with Scrum, kanban is one of the key methods of the Agile management system, which also needs to be implemented wisely so as not to achieve the opposite result.

A classic kanban is a table with three columns To Do, In Progress, and Done. But there can be more columns, for example, by the number of stages in your project or production, and their names can also change at the discretion of the company.

All cases are by default entered in the first column in a separate line or on a separate sticker, card. Then they are dragged from one to another until they get to the last column. Thanks to this “drag and drop”, you can easily track the progress of an individual and the entire team.

13. Timing

Economist and author of books on time management Gleb Arkhangelsky believes that planning is based on understanding where time is spent efficiently and where it is not. Arkhangelsky proposes to plan in three stages.

• Commit. For several weeks, every one to two hours, record the completed tasks and the time it took to complete them. Cases can be omitted for two or three minutes. The purpose of the stage is fixation, third-party observation of oneself.
• Find important. After these weeks, note in the same notebook when the time was spent usefully, when the task could have been done faster, and when the time was wasted.
• To plan. Adjust your schedule and work process based on your statistics.

14. Eisenhower Matrix

The system of doing business and prioritization, which was invented by the 34th US President Dwight Eisenhower in the middle of the XNUMXth century. All current and future cases are divided into four categories of the matrix, depending on their urgency and importance. It is difficult to use the matrix all the time, but you can periodically return to it if you are overwhelmed with work and household chores. Here’s how to use it.

Eisenhower Matrix

• Important and urgent to do. These are tasks with deadlines. For example, complete a project for a client, send a draft of an article, answer important emails, pick up kids from school. If they are not done, it is fraught with unpleasant consequences.
• Important and non-urgent – to plan. These are cases without a deadline, which are necessary for your growth. For example, go to the gym, study a foreign language, go to a networking session. Such cases need to be planned in advance so as not to lose.
• Unimportant and urgent – delegate. A routine that does not require specific skills. For example, post blog posts, cook food, mail out to colleagues, put clothes in the wash. These tasks should be carefully and reasonably delegated to your employees or colleagues in order to free up your time for important and urgent matters.
• Unimportant and non-urgent – delete. These are activities that do not bring benefits to work and do not help achieve the goal. For example, scrolling through social networks, playing video games, watching TV. Such cases take a lot of time, so they need to be controlled or abandoned altogether.

15. Chronotype time management

The method is suitable for those who want to create an ideal daily routine for themselves. PhD and clinical psychologist Michael Breus believes [12] that there are four chronotypes. Each of them has its own ideal time to wake up, peak productivity and sleep patterns:

• “The Bears”. It is comfortable for them to wake up from 7 to 11 in the morning, the peak of productivity falls on the period from 11 to 18 hours, and going to bed should be no later than 23 hours.
• “Lions”. They can wake up without an alarm clock from 5:30 to 10 in the morning, they are most productive from 10 to 17, it is better for them to go to the side before 22:30.
• “Wolves”. It is very difficult to get up in the morning, their time is from 7:30 to 12 o’clock, they work effectively until 20 o’clock and easily go to bed at 00:00.
• “Dolphins”. People with restless sleep patterns, so even if they get up between 6 and 10 can easily fall back asleep. To fall asleep by midnight, they need to remove any screens two hours before bedtime. The peak of their activity is from 10 am to 18 pm.

Breus believes that if you adjust your personal and work schedule to your own biorhythms, the quality of life will become much better. You can also read the advice of German Gref, Pavel Durov and other business leaders on how and when to work and relax.

Time Management Applications

These applications will come in handy to manage tasks. They are suitable for most of the time management methods on our list.

Books on time management

These books complement the article and will reveal the techniques in more detail.