Good time management is about managing your time, energy, and focus to produce a bigger result in less time. There are a few essential time management techniques you can use to become more productive and better manage your time.
Effective time management depends on your ability to manage distractions, know where your time is going, and prioritise your most important work.
When you can effectively manage your time, it’s easier to be more productive and produce bigger results. The best time management techniques help you be intentional about your time, prioritise your time, and track your time so you can be focused and productive.
Managing your time ensures you plan and manage your biggest priorities each day.
Effective time management techniques help you get more done in less time. Bad time management creates an endless cycle of busyness, distraction, and overwhelm.
In this article, I’ll share six essential time management techniques of productive people. These time management techniques will help you boost your productivity and manage your time more effectively. Read more about the benefits of time management.
6 essential time management techniques
Here are 6 essential time management techniques of highly productive people.
1. Plan your time
Planning is one of the most effective time management techniques to help you manage your time efficiently. The first hour of the day is often the most important as it sets the tone for how productive your day will be.
To improve your time management and be more productive, plan your day the night before. When you plan your time, you can identify the most important activities you want to tackle first.
This simple time management technique can save you hours. Planning your day ensures you start the day focused and knowing where to invest your time.
Get my tips on how to plan your week to improve your planning.
2. Track your time
If you want to manage your time effectively, you need to know how you spend your time. The simplest time management technique to get started with is to track your time.
If you want to improve your time management, it’s important to manage time-wasters and spend more time on your most productive activities.
You can’t change how you manage your time until you are clear on how you invest your time. Tracking your time helps you focus on results rather than time spent on tasks.
Tracking your time gives you a big picture view of where your time goes. Taking a time audit helps you understand good time management skills and areas that you could improve.
The technique of time tracking helps you understand if you are using your time productively or not. To get started, track your time for seven days straight.
If you want to be more effective at tracking your time, sign up for my Time Transformer Challenge.
3. Prioritise your time
You can be intentional with your time by creating a to-do list to prioritise your time. Good time management is often about energy management as we all have the same 24 hours in a day.
Prioritising your time by using an effective to-do list is the key to effective time management. The best technique to prioritise your time is to use your to-do list to get clear on your most important tasks. Once you have your to-do list, you can identify your biggest priorities and work on them.
Making a long to-do list won’t make you productive or enable you to manage time effectively. Instead, focus on results by prioritising time to focus on the three most important things you want to achieve each day.
Then start working on your most important activity first. Read more about prioritising your time.
4. Manage your energy
You can’t manage time effectively if you have no energy and you feel exhausted or feel tired all the time. The key to better time management is to work smarter, not harder. It’s important to manage your day by maximising and harnessing your energy.
There are two keys to energy management. Firstly, get clear on the things that lower your energy. Secondly, get clear on the times of the day and activities where you have high energy levels.
You only have a certain amount of energy available to you each day. Therefore, it’s essential to harness your energy to do your most important and productive work first.
You can manage your energy by identifying activities and times of the day when you’re operating at peak performance. Highly productive people often have high energy levels in the morning, so they focus that time on their most important work.
Read also: 6 habits of highly productive people
5. Use time blocking
Time blocking is the time management technique of focused work on a specific project or task for a fixed period of time. Time blocking helps you prioritise, organise, and schedule your time for maximum effectiveness.
Productive people use time blocking to focus on achieving specific results. Others use time blocking to get an important project done without being interrupted.
Working in chunks of time through time blocking gives you additional accountability to do the thing you’ve scheduled to do. In addition, you get a better understanding of how long things take to complete.
The author of Deep Work, Cal Newport is a big advocate of time blocking and has spent time analysing how it helps people become more productive.
Get more tips on how to stay focused on your most important work.
6. Manage distractions
You can’t manage time effectively and get your most important work done if you can’t manage distractions. Rather than ignoring the distractions, identify the distractions up front and create a strategy for overcoming them when they happen.
The key to effective time management is to manage, reduce, and eliminate distractions. With so many distractions competing for your attention, it’s essential to manage your attention and focus on your most important work.
Time management techniques to overcome distraction include:
- Turn off distractions
- Work in a quiet space
- Clear physical clutter
- Do a brain dump
- Simplify your to-do list
- Take more breaks
- Stop multi-tasking
- Get better sleep
Get more tips on how to overcome distractions.
Summing up
These 6 time management techniques of highly productive people will help you improve your time management skills and help you manage your time more effectively.
By being more intentional about your time and understanding when you are most productive, you can achieve bigger results in less time. Use the time management techniques of time tracking, planning your day, and creating an effective to-do list to improve your time management and productivity.
Now I’d love to hear from you.
Which time management technique works best for you?
What’s your number one tips for managing your time?
Let me know in the comments.
Read also:
The importance of time management: 10 ways it matters
5 ways to leverage time to increase productivity
8 time management tips to manage time effectively
About the Author
Mark Pettit is a time management coach based in Colchester, Essex, UK. Mark is the Founder of time management coaching company, Lucemi Consulting. He provides time management coaching programs to entrepreneurs and business owners in Colchester, Essex, Suffolk and across the UK.
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