Ten Tips for Better Time Management

OK, so a bit of a confession here. The title of this blog is a little mis-named. In reality it’s about self- rather than time-management. Time doesn’t care who we are or what we do, our priorities, our pressures, or our obligations. Time, well, it just is. How we manage the time we have, however, is very much up to us. So, what are some of the most valuable ‘self-management’ tips I’ve come across when coaching on time management?

1. Understand what you’re good at and not good at.

What we’re good at we tend to enjoy more and be more efficient and productive at. Give a priority to doing what you’re good at and, if you can, find others to do what you’re not so good at and not so efficient at doing.

2. The stuff you don’t want to do but you have to do get on to it first and as part of a routine or habit.

For example, maybe 7.30am-8.30am is your email clearing time, or maybe you hate doing the dishes so either a) get a dishwasher (some of us call them ‘children’; it’s not easy to get them to do stuff I know but that’s part of parenting – you get to have revenge when they have children) or b) get on to them fairly soon after you’ve eaten. Remember delaying the time we take to do the mundane just places that time demand somewhere else and creates a sense of non-achievement (because it’s stuff still waiting to be done). Even if we don’t finish the task at least we have started it and often that start is enough to make it that bit easier to complete or pick it up again later. The key here is about making progress. Bits of progress lead to completion and give a sense of moving forward rather than avoidance (it’s still avoidance, but a kinder type of avoidance).

3. Make a meeting with yourself – regularly.

This is your time, maybe to catch up on things, maybe to make some phone calls you need to, maybe to go for a walk or run, maybe to think and reflect, maybe to plan and prepare. Whatever the reason, we don’t like to break a meeting we have made with others so why shouldn’t we use the same sense of respect and courtesy on ourselves?

4. Let go of trying to find more time. You cannot make more time, or find more time.

We can only change how we use it. Identify what’s important to you – family, work, health, relationships, interests and hobbies. At the start of each day plan to do at least one thing that contributes to each and prioritise it. Maybe it’s a kiss, maybe a thank you, maybe a smile, maybe some time with others, maybe a phone call or text, maybe some new learning. Whatever it is it means that at least part of each day is you working on making your day great and, in some way, your own rather than someone else’s.

5. When stuff starts to build up learn to use the quadruple D’s.

Do, delegate, delay, or drop. Enough said. Not everything is critical or needs your involvement in it even if you want to be. Need to do and want to do are related, but not the same thing.

6. Get a diary.

Whether you’re a list person or not, organised or disorganised, old or young, old school (paper diary) or electronic (phone app or computer program) don’t rely on memory alone. Memory may give a sense of freedom and a diary may create a sense of impending obligations but the former is one of blissful ignorance while the later ensures we stay on top of what we need to do, with who, when, where, and why. We only have so much working memory so why not use a pen and paper (or digital assistant) to lend a hand.

7. If you have a diary make sure you use it EFFECTIVELY.

A diary replaces your short-term memory but like baking a cake it’s only as nice as the ingredients you put in it. What’s more the ingredients need to go in to the cake in the right order. The most important stuff (not what others think is important but that is important to you because it gives you energy or will save you time later on) goes in the cake [and is prioritised in the diary] first. Plan ahead. Sets tasks, meetings, activities. Colour code it if you need to (colour assists our brain’s ability to quick scan, assess and self-organise). Also, not forgetting, the very important ability to look back and check what we’ve accomplished, re-organise our short-term (next day) future, and then put that diary aside.

8. Try not to obsess about stuff you didn’t get around to today, especially if you tend to lose sleep a bit over that kind of thing.

It usually means one of three things: a) we messed around a bit and chose to spend some of our time earlier less effectively than we could have; we chose a delayed consequence or realised what we had to do was not as important as it was in reality, b) we were working on what was important for someone else at the expense of our own tasks, or c) Murphy’s Law came along and we need to acknowledge that, look at what we intended to do and re-organise/re-inform those original timelines.

9. Respect what you miss doing and prioritise doing more of it in the future.

We let things go we used to enjoy and the consequence is we add to our load/commitments without any commensurate increase in our performance and/or productivity. Any organism can only take so much load before it squeezes itself dry (figuratively speaking). Often we tell ourselves we keep taking on board more responsibility and tasks because we’ll let others down who have expectations of us. In reality what we’ve done is develop a habit of putting others first. This is noble and admirable but too much of this means we run on empty and before we know it we start to resent all that we have on our plate, and lose our mojo for what we are doing. We choose what we have on our plate; no one else does.

10. Only ever plan to use no more than 80% of the time you have.

The other 20% isn’t wasted. It’s there for Murphy’s Law to arrive in a blaze of trumpets. It’s there for the meetings that go over time, and the telephone calls that take ages, and the emails that take longer than anticipated to write. It’s the elastic in your day.