Essential guide to managing your time

Woman business owner managing time using time management app to improve productivity

Time management means proactively dividing your time between the different tasks you need to complete, so that you're able to work productively, without distractions. Managing your time well means you can effectively and efficiently meet your goals, even under stressful conditions and tight deadlines.

Simple planning and systems can make a huge difference to how well you use your time.

Setting goals

Planning your time

Setting up routines and systems

Managing information and decision-making

Minimising distractions

Logging your use of time

Taking action on time management

1. Setting goals

If you don’t have the time to do everything on your to-do list, you’re not alone. The key to using time well is to focus on priorities.

Establish goals if you want to allocate your time effectively

  • Aim to spend your time on activities which help you to achieve your goals.

Activities which are important and urgent should get the highest priority

  • For example, important activities involving other people where your input is essential. Any delay by you may cause problems and delays down the line, reducing other people's ability to function effectively.

High priority should also go to things that are important, but not urgent

  • If they are important, can you delegate them to someone else?
  • Should you be spending any time at all on things that are neither important nor urgent?

2. Planning your time

Base your plans on your priorities, taking into account your own way of working.

You may find it useful to start by planning your week, then your day

  • Assess the tasks to be done for their importance in achieving your goals, and allocate your time accordingly.

Allocate time each day to clearing the decks

  • Get small, urgent tasks (for example, dealing with email and social media) out of the way before tackling bigger tasks that require your full concentration.
  • Delegate work if other people can do it more quickly, cheaply or effectively, or if you need to clear time for achieving other tasks that can't be delegated.
  • Ensure other people know what they should be aiming to achieve that day.

Divide your main tasks for the day into achievable blocks of work

  • Tackle them one at a time.
  • Ensure they are achievable on a daily basis.

Set realistic deadlines for all your activities

  • Break up longer-term projects into smaller tasks and set interim deadlines as well as a final deadline.
  • Allow extra time for overruns. The longer the project, the more contingency time will be needed.
  • Decide whether your deadlines are fixed or flexible.
  • Do not allow paid work to take longer than it should. If ten minutes is all a job is worth, make sure it is done in ten minutes.

Schedule your work to suit your state of mind at different times of the day or week

  • For example, if you are at your most outgoing in the morning, schedule your customer calls at that time.

3. Setting up routines and systems

Create systems for routine business.

Invest in technology

  • Consider investing in project management software that will help you and your team manage tasks and track the progress of a project. Some of the most popular apps include Trello, Basecamp, Hubstaff, Microsoft 365, Monday.com. ClickUp, Easynote, Asana, Zoho Projects and Wrike.
  • A to-do list app such as Todoist and Remember the Milk can also help you manage your tasks.
  • Use Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software to keep details of sales enquiries, log customer contacts and process sales and invoices..

Create standard templates and forms for regular communications and keep on top of paperwork

  • Create standard templates and letters, so that it only takes minutes to lay out letters and regular documents.
  • For example, make sure you have a letter to accompany a standard email that is sent out in response to customer enquiries. Have a specified place for paper files and documents.
  • Make sure you have good filing systems, and everyone knows how to use them.
  • Optimise your personal space. Keep your desk clear, except for your current project.

Make time for important tasks that need to be done regularly

  • For example, set reminders to call up late payers the week a bill becomes overdue.
  • Set times to check in with your team to get a progress report.

Delegate routine tasks wherever possible

  • Arrange procedures for monitoring performance, until you are certain the tasks are being performed efficiently.
  • Once systems are established, in many cases you should be able to stop worrying.

Time management aids

Although the impetus to improve your time management must come from you, there are plenty of aids that will help you do it.

Use an online calendar for day-to-day organisation and planning

  • It provides a record of how you have spent your time, acts as an aide-memoire and can store useful information such as to-do lists and contact details.
  • An online diary or personal organiser app which can be accessed by your colleagues will enable them to identify the gaps in your schedule to organise meetings or discussions.

One of the simplest forms of time management aid is the to-do list

  • This will remind you what you have to do and help you find out how realistic you are in scheduling.
  • Note down what you have to achieve today, or this week.
  • Tick off tasks as you accomplish them. Seeing what you have achieved will boost your confidence.
  • A to-do list app such as Todoist or Remember the Milk can help you manage tasks better.

For longer-term projects, create a project plan and use apps

4. Managing information and decision-making

Find ways of dealing with information overload.

Ask for the information you need in a form that suits you

  • Ask for summaries or charts if you find them easier to deal with.
  • Consider regularly analysing or summarising the information coming in. For example, summarise reasons for complaints, and then draw up ways to tackle specific causes.

Restrict your information gathering to what you really need to know

  • Exclude areas which are outside your responsibility and do not affect you.
  • Ignore unnecessary detail.

Apply this four-step procedure to all information that comes to you

  • Act on it - if it is relevant and important.
  • Delegate it - if it is relevant, but less important - or if someone else can do the task better than you can.
  • File it - if it is relevant, but not immediately important.
  • Otherwise, delete or bin it.

Set deadlines for making decisions

  • Do not wait until you know everything.

5. Minimising distractions

However carefully you prioritise your use of time, your attempts to manage it efficiently will be undermined unless you can find effective ways of dealing with distractions.

It is easiest to deal with email at the beginning of the day, and at a set time in the afternoon

  • It may have a bearing on your activities during the rest of the day.
  • You will be in a position to deal quickly with any subsequent queries.

Make up your mind not to waste time on unnecessary phone calls

  • Set times at which you are prepared to receive and make calls.
  • Do not ring people with every idea - send an email to allow them to digest their response.
  • Limit the time spent on each call.
  • Differentiate between calls from important customers, regular contacts and timewasters.

Insist that all visits are pre-arranged

  • Find some way of signalling to colleagues that you do not want to be interrupted.
  • If necessary, arrange times when you are prepared to be interrupted.

Do not allow social media to take up more time than necessary

  • Social media is a key distraction offender.
  • Turn off notifications, and allocate one or two set periods in your day for checking and responding to messages.
  • Also allocate time in your week for catching up on industry news, reaching out to your network and building your profile.

Avoid unproductive and inefficient meetings

  • Agree start and finish times in advance.
  • Establish a timed agenda.

Ensure that your office environment is conducive to the efficient use of time

  • Minimise clutter.

Do not cut yourself off completely

  • You could stifle the flow of ideas and creativity from your colleagues and contacts.

6. Logging your use of time

Monitoring your own use of time is an effective way of improving your time management.

Log your activities in some detail

  • For example, you might record what you do in 20-minute blocks over a given period, for instance a week.

Once you have worked out how you spent your time, analyse your activities

  • To what extent did they contribute towards achieving your goals?
  • To what extent could each activity be classified as urgent or important?
  • You may well find you are spending 30% of your time on unnecessary activities.
  • This analysis will help you to decide what to delegate and what to abandon.

Compare your actual use of time against your plans

  • Identify the tasks that you fail to do, or fail to do on time.
  • If they are important (or urgent) for your business, you know that you will have to reduce the time spent on other activities.
  • Or you will have to take other measures (for example, hiring in expertise or upskilling your staff) to ensure they get done.

7. Taking action on time management

To improve your use of time, start now.

Plan your workload

  • Commit to deadlines.

Review your activities

  • Decide what to delegate and what to cut out.

Sort out your systems

  • You do not have to do everything at once. Tackle large projects in sections.

Note the results and act on the feedback you get

  • Amend your scheduling if necessary.

Share your success with your colleagues

  • Encourage them to work more effectively.

Typical time management pitfalls

These are the most common problems, with suggested solutions.

Trying to do everything yourself

  • Delegate jobs which are routine, require no special skills or are time-consuming, and regular tasks planned in advance;
  • Delegate jobs which someone is keen to take on - delegation can be good training.

Failing to brief people properly

  • Explain the objectives before you explain the task.
  • Encourage 'ownership' of the project by whoever is taking it on.
  • Agree support and deadlines.
  • Arrange procedures for monitoring.

Aiming for unnecessary perfection

  • Most customers would rather have a good job, completed on time, than a perfect job, three weeks late.

Expert quotes

"Goals help you make the right choices on how to use your time." - Mark Fritz, Procedor

"Part of the secret of time management is to look at the people who are valuable in your life, and ask whether you want to spend more time with them. If so, how you are going to achieve it?" - Lucinda Neall, Neall Scott Partnership training consultants

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