Time Management 101

Benefit #1 - More time

In an age of “time scarcity,” most of us would like more space in our schedules.

Maybe you feel like there’s never enough time in a day to achieve your goals. Maybe you would like to free up your weekday evenings to relax, or go to the gym. Maybe you’ve been dreaming of a side hustle, but just haven’t been able to squeeze it into your schedule.

In any case, better time management can help you gain more of life’s most precious resource: time.

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Benefit #2 - Less stress

Next to time scarcity, one of our biggest problems may be stress.

When life feels overwhelming and hurried, anxiety is inevitable. And though we might not associate getting more done with feeling less stressed, learning to become more productive and focused can actually prevent us from feeling rushed and anxious about meeting deadlines. Why? Because we’ve learned how to achieve goals and tick of items of our to do list with efficiency.

Further Reading

Work Life Balance and How to Get It

Work life balance is difficult but possible. Here’s what workers and companies can do.

8 Healthy Habits to Live By

Healthy habits have the power to change the way you work, think, and live.

Benefit #3 - More money

Most of us would like to be making more cash, but time limits us—from taking on additional projects, starting a side hustle, or simply going the extra mile to impress our bosses. Depending on your career, learning to make better use of your time can be a game changer in terms of earning potential.

If you’re a freelancer, time management can help you become more productive, giving you the power to raise your rates or get more done faster. If you’re salaried, time management can help you become a more valuable asset to your company—and perhaps even negotiate a salary raise.

Benefit #4 - Better organization

Time management isn’t the same as being organized, but the two skills are symbiotic.

Learning to manage your time well, prioritize, and “divide and conquer” your tasks sets you up for a more orderly approach to work (and life). Likewise, knowing how to plan your day, how to organize your work, and how to stay accountable to deadlines can help you use your time better.

Benefit #5 - Increased focus

When you manage your time well, your working hours and minutes will actually feel different.

Being rushed or stressed about what you need to accomplish in a given time frame can make it harder to focus. But when you know you’re on top of the ball, you can remain in a state of concentration without worrying about a deadline or a lack of time.

Not only that, but time management can help you achieve a better work life balance, so that you won’t spend working hours thinking about tasks outside of work.

Pitfall #1 - Believing busywork = productivity

Work is not inherently productive.

In other words, one of the most dangerous ways to waste time is to waste time by working. When you’re consumed with busywork, you might believe you’re using your time well—but in reality, you’re expanding your energy on a task that’s unimportant.

For example: You might spend two hours reorganizing a spreadsheet. Is there a tool or a formula that could help you avoid this manual work? Or maybe you’re rewriting the same email again and again, rather than using a template to automate the process.

Learning effective time management can help you to avoid this mistake by teaching you to evaluate and utilize your time better—and how to make the most of your energy, skill, and focus.

Pitfall #2 - Believing time management = efficiency + productivity

Although efficiency and productivity are critical outcomes of time management, they are not the only pillars to this foundational life skill.

Time management is holistic. It takes into account self-care, rest, goal-setting, and long-term vision to help you create a fuller and more balanced life.

Pitfall #3 - Ignoring your own work style or quirks

Remember that time management needs to be tailored to the individual.

If you’re a night owl, then effective time management might look like grinding from 9 p.m. to midnight. But if you’re an early riser, then you might want to focus on getting work done first thing in the morning. Maybe you work well in quick, short spurts interspersed with breaks—or maybe you’re able to work in a slow and steady stream for hours.

In any case, you can get better results if you recognize that not everyone has the same peak hours and time management style—especially if you’re managing a team.

To Do List

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Pitfall #4 - Losing sight of the big picture

The goal of time management is to make life more efficient and free up time, not to place a burden of additional administration on you.

That being said, don’t get obsessed with time management and allow it to consume your work day. Time management tools and tactics (which we’ll get to in a moment) are there to make your life easier. If they’re not doing that, then reconsider your approach.

Pitfall #5 - Thinking of time only in numbers

Time is not just quantitative; it’s qualitative. In fact, the quality of your time matters more than the quantity of your time.

Think about it: It’s Friday afternoon, and a task that typically takes 45 minutes has suddenly consumed two hours. You’re most likely distracted, and itching to finish work to go and relax or play. You’re using your time poorly. Or maybe you’re in a state of caffeine-inspired focus, and you’re blowing through your to do list at warp speed. You’re using your time well.

In the first case, you’re using your time poorly because you’re distracted; in the second, you’re using your time well because your minutes are full, focused, and productive.

Schedule

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1. Time tracking

To improve your time management, you’ve got to know how you’re spending your time. And to know how you’re spending your time, you’ve got to track your time strategically and accurately—no guesswork allowed!

A kitchen timer and a spreadsheet might help you to track your own hours and minutes, but this kind of approach can also be error-prone. Relying on your own memory to start and stop your timer will usually result in mistakes…and tends to add an unnecessary burden to your work day.

A better strategy for tracking hours and minutes is to use an automated app, such as Toggl Track. Automated time tracking helps ensure accuracy and typically offers richer insight into your time usage—ultimately helping you to improve your time management skills.

2. A list of goals and deadlines, ordered by priority

To manage your time effectively, you’ll need to know how to prioritize your tasks.

Making a to do list at the start of each workweek or work day can help you organize your time and decide how you’d like to divide and conquer. Otherwise, you risk expending all your time on busywork—low priority tasks that make you feel productive, but that don’t help you hit your deadlines or achieve your big picture goals.

3. A list of daily goals and repeatable tasks

To automate some of the decision-making of time management, make a list of goals and repeatable tasks at the start of each workday.

For example, you may choose specific times to perform repeatable tasks (such as 9 a.m. for checking your email inbox). In the meantime, use your list as a guidepost for tackling individual goals and meeting deadlines.

4. Scheduling

Finally, collect all of the above into a single place—whether that’s a calendar, a schedule or project management tool. This single touchpoint should include a) what you need to do, b) when you plan to finish your tasks, and c) how much time the tasks will require to complete.

Time management methods

Time management methods or techniques are established strategies for time management.

• The Eisenhower Matrix is especially helpful for those who aren’t sure where to begin on their workload, or feel like their time is consumed by “putting out fires.” This method helps you prioritize your tasks according to varying levels of urgency and importance by assigning your tasks into four categories (urgent/important, urgent/unimportant, nonurgent/important, and nonurgent/unimportant). By dividing your tasks this way, you can make more strategic decisions on what to tackle first on your to do list, how to set aside time for important but nonurgent tasks, and what to put off until later.
• The Getting Things Done (GTD) Method is ideal if you feel paralyzed by the amount of work you feel like you need to accomplish. The GTD method helps you to externalize (i.e. record or write down) your tasks, create actionable steps to get them done, and stay organized and accountable.
• The Pomodoro Method is ideal for those who have trouble staying focused or on task for prolonged periods of time. By alternating 25-minute periods of work with 5-minute breaks, you create a steady flow of focus with “permission” to zone out a couple times an hour.

Of course, there are multiple other methods that can help you create specific routines or habits for better time management. Ultimately, choosing a time management method that works for you will depend on your own particular situation and needs.

For a more detailed and comprehensive list, refer to our dedicated guide on time management skills and methods as well as supplementary material on time management techniques.

Further Reading

Time Management Techniques

Here are the 6 most popular time management techniques, designed to make time management easier.

Getting Things Done: An Updated Guide to the GTD Method

Getting Things Done is about being engaged and focused on your work.

Time management tools

Time management tools are devices and apps that can help with tracking time, setting timers, creating schedules or scheduling tasks, and even distraction-blockers like Forest or Hey Focus (Mac users only).

Using a time tracking tool by itself can’t make you a better worker. You can still goof off and lose focus, even when you’re held accountable to your hours and minutes. What it can do, however, is generate powerful insight, help you remain organized, and keep you motivated to push towards the greater goal of better time management.

The easiest way to pick the right tool for you is to think about what you’re trying to accomplish.

Are you trying to track time? Then a minimalist timer might suffice, whether it’s a digital time tracker or a kitchen timer like the one that inspired the invention of the Pomodoro Technique.

Are you trying to schedule tasks or block time? Then you’ll need a calendar, whether it’s a desktop paper planner or Google Calendar.

Are you tracking time for yourself, or for a team? Are you trying to bill for the hours you track? The more complex and varied your needs, the more robust you need your app to be.

Toggl Track is a time management tool designed for teams—whether they’re teams of one or big teams with hundreds of members. Not only does Toggl Track automate time tracking to make it easy and efficient; it generates detailed reporting, helps track revenue, and consolidates scheduling and tracking into one place.

For a comprehensive guide to time management tools—what they are and how you can pick the best one for you—check out our dedicated guide to time management tools and resources.

Time management resources

Finally, time management resources include the books, podcasts, and even YouTube videos that help educate—and inspire—us on better time management.

Here are a few of our favorite resources to help you get equipped:

• Deep Work, by Cal Newport, is the guide to teach you how to take a ruthless approach to getting focused—and getting your best work done.
• Tim Ferris gained notoriety for publishing The 4-Hour Workweek, and has since published even more content (including books and podcasts) on how to generate income, get healthy, and manage your goals—all with maximum efficiency.
• “How to gain control of your free time” is a TED talk by productivity expert Laura Vanderkam—that provides researched insight into how much free time we actually have, and how we can achieve a better work life balance.

Again, these resources are not a magic pill. They can, however, help motivate you on your journey towards becoming a more efficient, productive, and focused person.