Actions for Time Management

This article is a chapter from my book The Life Actionbook: Tools and Actions for Personal Development. The entire book will eventually be available on this website for free in web format, but if you prefer to read it in ebook or physical formats, you can find The Life Actionbook on Amazon.com (affiliate link).

Time Management Evaluation

Question 1: How many things remain on your to-do list at the end of the day?

Your answer:

More than 20: 0 points.
6-19: 1 point.
Five or fewer: 2 points.

To-do lists tend to grow instead of shrink when you don’t manage time well. Mine swelled to hundreds of tasks at one point. The ideal number of things to have on a to-do list is the amount of work you can do in one day. Usually, that’s five or fewer to-do items.

Question 2: How are you doing on your most significant goal?

Your answer:

I fell behind: 0 points.
I’m stressed, but on pace: 1 point.
It’s under control, and on time or ahead: 2 points.

Most people are working on a big project. Whether it’s a consulting project or a painting, you’re probably trying to meet a deadline. How you keep pace to reach the deadline is also an indicator of your time management skills.

Question 3: How structured is your day?

Your answer:

I do everything whenever I want: 0 points.
Somewhat unstructured: 1 point.
I do everything at scheduled times like clockwork: 2 points.

It’s tough to manage time when you don’t pay attention to it. An important aspect of time management is consistency. If you do tasks at the same time every day, you’re more likely to complete them.

Add up all your points and see how you fared.

0-2 points: Read this article now.
3-4 points: Come back to this article later.
5-6 points: Skip this article, you’re good.

The Importance of Time Management

Productivity is how much you get done in a day. It is a measure of the sheer volume of work you get done. You might have heard the saying, “quality over quantity,” or vice versa. Productivity is like quantity, whereas effectiveness is like quality. Effectiveness is how meaningful the work is. One can be productive, but not effective. A productive painter might produce a hundred low-quality pieces of art in a month. If nobody buys them, he is ineffective. An unproductive painter can be effective if she produces a single painting in a year that sells for hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Time management is all about maximizing both productivity and effectiveness in the time you have. You want to be as productive and effective as possible. Choose the best action and do it quickly and efficiently. Everyone has the same twenty-four hours in a day. The most successful people are the ones who make the best use of each hour.

You can always make more money, but you can’t make more time. If you want to live a fulfilled life, you must master time management skills. Ultimately, we don’t know how long we have to live. That’s why time management is so important. If you knew that you would die in your sleep tonight, would you regret doing what you’re doing right now instead of something else? Make every hour of your time count towards something meaningful to you.

Morning Routine

Almost all successful people have a morning routine that energizes them for the rest of the day. Many of them use the first part of their day to get the bulk of their work done. Motivational coach and author Hal Elrod calls the first hour of his morning the “Miracle Morning.” The point of the Miracle Morning is to do a few minutes of each of the essential things in your life. For Hal, it was meditation, affirmations, visualization, exercise, reading, and writing. You might choose different things to do for your Miracle Morning.

Time Management Action #1: Spend the first hour of your day in a “Miracle Morning” routine.

You might say, “I don’t have an extra hour in the morning.” Yes, you do. You’re just spending that time sleeping or doing other things. The simple solution is to wake up an hour earlier. If doing so will cause you to get too little sleep (and getting enough sleep is very important), you might have to make time in other ways.

Here are some things you can try:

Time Management Action #2: Stop snoozing your alarm clock. Get up immediately with your alarm. Splash cold water on your face if you have to. But stop snoozing. 

Time Management Action #3: Prepare for your morning at night. Don’t waste time in the morning packing your lunch box or deciding what to wear. Prepare for the following day as much as you can before you go to sleep. 

Time Management Action #4: If you eat breakfast, make it quick. You can still eat healthily. Have a piece of fruit, a bagel, microwave eggs, butter coffee, oatmeal, or whatever you can prepare in five minutes or less. You can always eat something more substantial if you have time after your morning hour. 

Time Management Action #5: Take less time for morning hygiene activities. You may be able to shave a few minutes off of your current morning routine. Take a minute less time to shower. Spend a couple of minutes less time on the toilet. Don’t stare at yourself in the mirror so long. It all adds up. 

Time Management Action #6: Keep all electronics off as long as possible. Don’t check email, texts, and social media first thing in the morning. That stuff can wait. 

Time Management Action #7: Go to bed earlier. Each minute you go to bed earlier is an extra minute you have in the morning. You can even make it a gradual process where you try to sleep five minutes earlier each day. 

When I first started writing books, I didn’t get much done for the first couple of months. Then I discovered the magic of doing the essential things first thing in the morning. It is 5:53 AM as I type this. Every morning I wake up at 5:00 AM and write for an hour before I do anything else. The world is quiet. I can focus on a single task. This habit alone ensures that I write 500-1,000 words a day.

Once you have that extra hour in the morning, you need to fill it up with invigorating activities. You want to start each day with a win. Starting the day with a win begins a domino effect that makes the rest of your day better. Ask yourself, “what is the single most important thing I have to do today?” Your most important thing is often your most difficult task or the one you’ve been putting off the longest. Be sure to incorporate your most important function into your morning routine. Make progress on your most important task during the first hour of your day. If you can do that, your day will be productive no matter what you do with the rest of the day.

Time Management Action #8: Start the most important task during the first hour of your day.

Scheduling Your Day

What gets scheduled gets done.

Never start your day unplanned. In fact, you should even begin planning your day the night before. As much as possible, you want to hit the ground running from the moment you open your eyes in the morning. So how do you go about planning your day?

There is a well-known story of a professor who fills a jar with rocks and asks his students if the jar is full. When they confirm that the jar is full, he proves them wrong by pouring a bag of sand into the jar. It wouldn’t have worked the other way around. If the professor had poured the sand into the jar first, the rocks wouldn’t have fit. Schedule the big things first and fit the smaller tasks around them.

How do you know what the “big things” are? The first question to ask yourself is, “what do I do?” I’m a writer, so my big thing is writing. If you’re a teacher, your big thing is teaching. If you’re a truck driver, your big thing is driving trucks. But you probably want to go more detailed than that. So now we apply the 80/20 rule. That is, “what 20% of tasks produce 80% of the results?” As a writer, I can tell you that writing is one of the “20% of tasks,” while posting on Facebook is not. A third question you can ask is, “what is the one thing that I can do that will make today a success?” Once you’ve figured out what your big things are, schedule them on a calendar. It’s not real unless it’s on your calendar.

Time Management Action #9: Determine your most important tasks.

When you schedule your tasks, batch the similar ones together. Opt for larger blocks of time whenever possible. For example, if you check your email three times a day, why not explore checking it twice a day, or even once a day? The more segmented your day is, the more inefficient it becomes.

Time Management Action #10: Batch similar tasks together and schedule them on your calendar.

Another consideration is Parkinson’s Law. Your work expands to fill the time you allot it. If you give yourself a week to write a document, it will take the entire week. But if you give yourself two days to do it, you will finish it in two days. Don’t set impossible deadlines, but your deadlines should be close enough to keep you on your toes.

Time Management Action #11: For the most important tasks, decide how much time you need to complete them. Give yourself about 10% less time to do each task.

Consider your working rhythm and energy levels. Each person works differently. Some people are night owls while others work best in the morning. Keep in mind that your most important tasks probably require the most energy and willpower to complete. Schedule the most important tasks for times when you work best.

Time Management Action #12: Determine your most productive work times. Schedule your most critical tasks for those times.

Remember the story of the rocks and sand going into the jar? Once you’ve filled your schedule with the big tasks, identify the small tasks that you can do to fill in the small spaces of time between the big tasks. Maybe you can check email while standing in line to get your lunch. Or do some meditation while sitting on the subway to work. You might be able to make a few phone calls between tasks in the afternoon.

Time Management Action #13: Do all the small tasks in the time gaps between big tasks.

Finally, realize that it’s okay to say “no.” You can’t do everything. Delegate some tasks to others. While it’s good to say “yes” to most opportunities early in your career, you should say “no” more often as you progress.

Physical

You need to stay in good health if you want to stay productive. You won’t get a lot of work done if you’re in the hospital and feeling bad. Eating well and staying fit will also increase your energy levels so you can maintain productive work.

Time Management Action #14: Drink water. Dehydration can make you feel lethargic and weak. Make sure you drink plenty of water throughout the day. Eight glasses a day is the commonly given guideline. Schedule your water drinking if you have to.

Time Management Action #15: Take breaks. Take a break every half hour or hour. If you sit to work, make sure you get up and walk around. Unless you’re “in the zone,” your productivity will diminish as you work. Taking a break is an excellent way to refresh yourself and reset your productivity.

Time Management Action #16: Exercise. Many successful people attribute their ability to get a lot of work done to their exercise routine. It’s counterintuitive, but exercising gives you more energy and increases creativity. Do it as early as possible in the day for maximum effect.

Time Management Action #17: Get enough sleep. It’s better to sleep eight hours and do four hours of focused energetic work than to sleep four hours and do eight hours of work while you’re sleepy. You’ll get more done in the four hours of rested work than in the eight hours of tired work. The quality of the work you do while well-rested will be much better than work you do while sleepy.

Time Management Action #18: Meditate. Meditating is like hitting the “reset” button on your brain. You empty your thoughts and start fresh. Breathe, and be productive again.

Time Management Action #19: Eat. You can’t work if half your brain is thinking about food. Eat frequent, small meals. Healthy foods will give you better energy. Some suggestions include greens, eggs, salmon, berries, eggplant, chocolate, green tea, and garlic. Avoid eating sugar and junk food. Also avoid eating too little, as that will decrease your energy levels.

Doing the Work

The most important part of time management is taking time to actually do useful work. That means doing your work quickly and efficiently while keeping distractions at bay.

Having the right tools for the job is essential. As Abraham Lincoln alluded to when he said “Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the ax,” you can probably chop down a tree easily in two hours if you have a sharp ax. But if you’re using a dull ax, it might well be impossible.

What tools do you need for your task? If you’re not sure, look at what the professionals use. Apply the 80/20 Rule to find the 20% of tools that get 80% of the job done. Then organize your work area so that it’s free from distractions and you have plenty of space to work.

Time Management Action #20: Decide what tools you need to do your job, then procure them before starting work.

As you work, focus on one task at a time. Multitasking does not work for the vast majority of people. Most people can stay focused for somewhere between 20 and 50 minutes. Experiment with work “sprints” lasting between 20 and 50 minutes to see what works best for you. A sprint is a period of focused work. After you complete a work sprint, take a break of at least five minutes before starting work again.

Time Management Action #21: Ditch the multitasking. Do one task at a time in focused sprints.

Hacks

Business books love to toss around productivity hacks that can help you manage your time. Many of them are rehashed versions of old methods, but with catchy new names. A few of them have stood the test of time, though. Here are a few that have worked for me.

Time Management Action #22: Use the Pomodoro Method. Developed by Francesco Cirillo in the 1980s, this technique involves using a timer to manage work sprints. Cirillo named it after the tomato-shaped Pomodoro kitchen timer. The standard method is to do focused work for 25 minutes, then take a five-minute break. After four sessions of concentrated work, take a longer, 30-minute break. Many apps use the technique. Search for “Pomodoro timer” on a search engine or your phone’s app store. The official website is at www.pomodorotechnique.com.

Time Management Action #23: Try Getting Things Done (or GTD). It is a method of doing work described in a book by the same name, by David Allen. It involves collecting tasks, then processing, organizing, planning, and doing them. One helpful hack in GTD is the Two Minute Rule. Whenever you’re looking at your to-do list, if you see something that takes less than two minutes to do, do it immediately. Read more about GTD at the official website.

Time Management Action #24: Don’t Break the Chain. It was advice that comedian Jerry Seinfeld once gave to software developer Brad Isaac when he was performing stand-up at open-mic nights. It makes a game out of your work. Identify your most important daily task. For Seinfeld, it was writing jokes. Get a calendar and put it in your work area. Each day you do your essential daily task, put a big red “X” on today’s date on the calendar. In Seinfeld’s case, on each day he wrote a joke, he would put an “X” on the day. See how many days in a row you can do it. Don’t break the chain, or you’ll have to start over.

Time Management Action #25: Go on a media diet. Many people waste much of their productive day browsing media. Whether it’s social media, entertainment, or news, you can afford to cut much of it out of your life. Try a “media detox” by avoiding consuming media for one week. See how it affects your productivity.

Time Management Action #26: Speed up your typing. If you spend most of your time working on your computer, it helps to learn touch typing. Touch typists type at twice the speed of “hunt and peck” typists. If your job requires a lot of typing, learning touch typing can translate into hours of saved time. One of the most popular ways to learn touch typing is the Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing line of software products. You can find them at www.mavisbeacon.com.

Time Management Action #27: Learn the shortcuts. Another way to speed up your computer usage is by using keyboard shortcuts. Learn the keyboard shortcuts for each of your most-used software applications. You can find the keyboard shortcuts for any software application by browsing through the application’s menus. The shortcuts are typically noted on the righthand side of the menu options. Another way to find the keyboard shortcuts is to search the application’s help documentation for “keyboard shortcuts.”

Supplements

There are supplements out there that can help you increase productivity. To do so, you should look for the supplements that improve your focus and energy. As with all supplements, you should consult your doctor before taking any of them.

Time Management Action #28: Drink caffeinated beverages. Caffeine is the most popular choice for productivity. It usually comes in the form of coffee or tea. Soda and chocolate also contain caffeine. Your body can get desensitized from overuse, so it’s best to avoid taking caffeine on a daily basis. Use it as a secret weapon for those times when you need to boost your awareness and energy levels temporarily.

Time Management Action #29: Take Ginkgo biloba for concentration. Extracts of the Ginkgo biloba leaf are commonly sold as cognitive enhancers. As with many herbal supplements, there is little scientific proof to back the claims. However, it may be worth a try.

Time Management Action #30: Take eleuthero. Also known as Siberian ginseng, eleuthero is a small, woody shrub with a history of use in traditional Chinese medicine. In alternative medicine, it is touted as a mental performance booster.

Time Management Action #31: Try ginseng. Ginseng has been used for centuries as a traditional medicine. Though modern research is inconclusive about its effects, some research shows possible memory and energy enhancing effects.

Time Management Action #32: Use rosemary. Rosemary is a common herb that contains several phytochemicals that may have beneficial health effects. One possible effect of rosemary is in improving memory.

Tools

There is no shortage of productivity tools out there. Most of them these days come in the form of smartphone apps.

Years ago, before the internet and smartphones, people developed physical productivity techniques. Pencil and paper was king. People stored information in notebooks, 3-ring binders, and filing cabinets.

Time Management Action #33: Use an all-in-one office suite. Microsoft Office and Google Workspace provide word processors, spreadsheets, calendars, e-mail, and many other digital office features to help you run your business. They mimic the functions of physical offices. Having a single suite of software for all office functions keeps your user interfaces consistent and saves you time.

Time Management Action #34: Have an idea capture system. You can go old-school and buy notebooks to take notes. A three-ring binder is a good place to keep project notes and workflows. If you want to go digital, Evernote is the most popular choice. Google Keep is a free alternative that I currently use. When you have an idea capture system, you don’t need to waste brainpower mulling new ideas in your head before your current project is finished.

Time Management Action #35: Use a task manager. Things stores your goals and tasks in one place. Keep your to-do lists in the app and schedule reminders. Manage projects and prioritize tasks. The app helps you always to know what to do next.

Time Management Action #36: Use calendar apps. When choosing a calendar app to use, make sure it stores data in the cloud, and you can access it from all your devices. Every major operating system has a native cloud calendar app. Microsoft has Outlook Calendar. Apple has iCloud Calendar. Google has Google Calendar.

Time Management Action #37: Automate. IFTTT stands for “IF This Then That.” You can use it to create chains of commands that get triggered by websites and apps. It grabs data from other apps and uses it to make decisions and automate tasks. With it, you can save liked tweets on Twitter to a Google spreadsheet. You can get an email whenever the President signs a bill into law. Add tomorrow’s weather report to your calendar every day at 6 PM. And thousands more. The possibilities are endless.

Time Management Action #38: Track your time usage with an app. Performance coach Jairek Robbins uses ATracker to help people track their time. Monitoring time creates a level of awareness that allows you to avoid time-wasting activities and do more productive tasks.

Time Management Action #39: Save time typing. TextExpander saves time by substituting typed text codes with preset blocks of text. For example, you might set it so that every time you type “_address”, it enters your full address instead.

Resources

Time Management Action #40: Listen to time management podcasts. You can find podcasts dedicated to productivity on your favorite podcast app. Here are a few good ones:

Beyond the To Do List, with Erik Fisher
The Productivity Show, by Asian Efficiency
The Productivityist Podcast, with Mike Vardy
The Productivity Podcast, with Paul Minors

Time Management Action #41: Read productivity blogs to get the most up-to-date tips for time management.

Time Management Action #42: Watch TED talks on time management.

Time Management Action #43: Read books on time management.

The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich, by Timothy Ferriss
Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity, by David Allen
The Productivity Project: Accomplishing More by Managing Your Time, Attention, and Energy, by Chris Bailey
15 Secrets Successful People Know About Time Management: The Productivity Habits of 7 Billionaires, 13 Olympic Athletes, 29 Straight-A Students, and 239 Entrepreneurs, by Kevin Kruse