4 Tips for Successful Time Management

With a successful sleep schedule taking up one-third of our day, we often feel like we don’t have enough time to be as productive as we would like to be. However, time management can play a key factor in staying productive and reaching our goals. Below are 4 key time management tips I have used to profusely improve my efficiency over the years:

#1: Change Your Mindset

To change your mindset is probably the simplest, yet one of the most important things on the list. If you don’t change your mindset, nothing else on this list will fall in line. This mantra can be applied to most things in life. It starts with your mindset about the situation, always.

How many times have you heard someone say, “I would love to work out, but there’s just not enough hours in a day,” or some variation of that? Maybe you even said it yourself. As much as we would like to believe this, it isn’t true. You can always find an extra 45 minutes to have a killer workout or accomplish whatever it is you want to get done. It’s just a matter of good time management, decision-making, and prioritizing what’s important to you.

Once you understand and truly believe that there is enough time in a day to get all the important things done, you will start to see results. Tip #2 will show you how to make time for important things.

#2: Get Rid of Distractions

Alex Becker suggests moving away from all your friends and families so you have absolutely no distractions in life and can focus on your passions. While this might be a little…extreme, he does have a point. Getting rid of distractions is a key aspect of successful time management.

It might sound like a no-brainer, but the reason that this is difficult is we like our distractions. We enjoy binge-watching our favorite TV shows on Netflix or playing our favorite video games for hours. We feel that we deserve to check our phones after 10-15 minutes of productivity. Our distractions are fun and can give us a level of comfort. This can be ok, but too many distractions will result in self-sabotage.

Lately, I realized that mobile games were taking up a lot of my time without giving me back anything in return in terms of self-improvement. As a result, I deleted all games off of my phone, some of which I was playing every day. By removing these fun yet obstructive distractions from my life I have had more time to focus on the important things that matter to me. I’m writing blogs, working out consistently, cooking, and my car and house have never been cleaner.

Be honest about what is distracting you in your life and remove it.

#3: Customize Your To-Do List

Definitely use a to-do list.

I’ve been using to-do lists almost religiously since 2014. When I first started making to-do lists, I would put even the most undemanding of tasks on it like ‘brush your teeth’ and ‘take a shower’ because it felt good to check things off and gave me that extra motivation. While this might seem counterproductive, it helped in the beginning because it allowed me to feel like I accomplished something (even when I didn’t) and pushed me to continue using to-do lists.

Now that I’ve been using to-do lists every single day for years, I limit my daily to-do’s to just the important stuff. For me, this also includes anything that will take up more than 30 minutes of my time in a day, or that I might forget to do if I don’t write it down.

Personally, I like to write my to-do list on the Notes page of my phone. I don’t think you need anything fancier, but I’m sure you can find a bunch of time management and to-do list apps that are just as good on the app store.

Figure out what works for you and modify and tweak it along the way.

Note: I am not a fan of putting all of your tasks and planning out your day/week/month on calendars. I believe to-do lists are much more beneficial than a calendar.

#4: Put Everything Into 4 Categories

This tip is inspired by the book “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” by Stephen Covey. I highly recommend the book as all of the habits can help shape your mindset to be more effective in time management, your career, and in improving yourself.

In the book, Covey talks about Habit #3 of 7: First Things First. The idea is to structure all of your tasks into 4 quadrants, based on the urgency and importance of the task. Below is an example of the different tasks you would put into each quadrant:

Here is also the basic breakdown of each quadrant:

Important and Urgent = These are your most important tasks. Work on these first as they are time-sensitive (urgent) and essential (important). They take priority over everything else.

Important but Not Urgent = If a task is important but not urgent, this means that while you certainly need to get it done, you don’t need to handle it immediately. You have the luxury of being able to plan ahead. Come up with a solid plan so when the time comes, you’ll be able to execute with near perfection.

Urgent but Not Important = These are tasks that need to get done right away but aren’t really of the utmost importance. Covey recommends you delegate these tasks. This works better in the workplace, but in life, you can’t delegate going to a family member’s 50^th birthday party and many other important tasks. The other time management tips will help you to make time for these tasks.

Not Urgent and Not Important = These are tasks that have no urgency to complete and they won’t really make a difference in accomplishing your goals. Eliminate these altogether. If you can’t find a reason to eliminate a task, then it probably doesn’t belong here.

If the idea of trying to decide which quadrant a task falls into is overwhelming, try removing the important/urgent part of this and just number the categories as 1, 2, 3, and 4. This is an alternative method that is just as effective:

Category 1 will have the most impactful tasks that you need to work on immediately.

Category 2 will have things that are still important, but that you know you can work on after the C1 tasks are complete.

Category 3 will have tasks that you want or need to do, but won’t have a major impact on your life.

Category 4 tasks should be eliminated altogether.

I use this trick along with a daily to-do list to fully realize the essential tasks and big projects, as well as the small day-to-day stuff, that needs to get done. This way I can accomplish everything that is time-sensitive such as meetings, appointments, daily chores, etc. while still working on the most impactful tasks.

Time Management Resources

These are the top 4 time management tips I have used to effectively improve my time management skills over the years. However, there are plenty more great time management strategies and resources out there. Tools such as Time Doctor allow you to implement a time management strategy for work, which can be scaled to an entire company-wide level, increasing both individual and team productivity.

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These tips partnered with advanced technology can ensure time management success. Have you implemented any of these tips? Are there any that you think should have made the list? Feel free to share your success stories and additional tips in the comments or email me directly at eric@ericgolban.com