The 26 most effective time management techniques

What are time management techniques?

Time management itself revolves around choices — you decide what you need to do, when you need to finish, and what tasks you need to tackle in order to reach your goals.

If you choose to make high-value, goal-oriented tasks a priority, finish them before the deadline, but also leave time for leading a healthy life, you'll be able to say that you've managed your time successfully. But how do you do that?

Well, by using the right time management techniques.

Time management techniques are a set of rules and principles you need to follow in order to be more productive and efficient with your time, make better and faster decisions, as well as accomplish more in less time and with less effort.

There are plenty of time management techniques based on approved time management best practices:

• Writing down what you need to do today
• Working on important and urgent tasks first
• Saving time for priority tasks, routine tasks, but also breaks
• Proper stress management
• Proper team management
• Tracking project progress and identifying lags

Most time management techniques deal with one or more of the listed points, and you can make the choice for your time management techniques by looking over what you want to improve in your routine.

Apart from that, you'll also need to consider the time management skills you need to improve and your personal time management style. Moreover, you can choose particular time management techniques for work, so that you better organize your workdays, too.

Time management skills

Effective time management skills include:

• Setting SMART goals — make sure the goals you set for yourself are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound.
• Effective planning — make sure you have clear objectives, as well as defined tasks and resources in order to make a clear plan that will lead you to your goals.
• Stress management — make sure you manage your stress with stress relieving strategies and tactics, in order to feel more relaxed while doing your work.
• Proper task delegation — delegating tasks helps you ease the workload and share it with competent colleagues and employees.
• Avoiding distractions — distractions take away from the time you should be working (or even relaxing), so you should learn how to avoid them.
• Single-tasking — focusing on one task at a time helps you deliver quality end results much better than when you multitask.
• Saying "No" — this little two-letter word will help you save more time for your own priorities.
• Setting priorities — Investing time into the right tasks will ask for less effort, but bring better results. This is also known as the 20/80 rule, or the Pareto principle.
• Beating procrastination — Identify the causes of your procrastination and tackle them.

In order to improve your time management efforts, you'll need to practice these skills.

Apart from the benefits of managing time at work better, efficient time management is also a vital skill for students.

Here are the most crucial time management strategies for students:

• Making a master schedule. Once you have a clear studying agenda, you can make time blocks for particular exams or subjects. This will help you prepare for exams more effectively.
• Setting deadlines for each study session/task. For example, set a clear time limit for writing an essay — such as Friday by 5 p.m. — so that you don’t procrastinate.

Time management styles

Not all time management techniques are suitable for everyone — we don't all work the same, so we don't all face the same time management issues. Everyone has a prevailing time management method of dealing with work, i.e. a time management style, one that brings its own time management issues - if you think about it, you may find that you're a:

• Time Martyr
• Procrastinator
• Distractor
• Underestimator
• Firefighter
• Perfectionist

Let’s review each time management style in more detail.

Time Martyr

You fill your schedules with requests from others, instead of focusing on what's important to you. Your own tasks feel like too much responsibility, so you jump at the chance to take on anything else - you gain validation from others, but neglect the tasks that would bring you self-validation.

Issues: multitasking, missed deadlines, ineffective scheduling, skipping breaks

Procrastinator

Time Martyrs at least tackle other people's tasks — Procrastinators delay work on everything remotely important to anyone. Some claim they work better under pressure, but the results they get are often dampened by the stress and anxiety this practice brings.

Issues: missed deadlines, ineffective scheduling, multitasking

Distractor

Your heart's in the right place, but you're easily distracted. A random request from a colleague is as likely to catch your fleeting attention as is a 20-minute phone call from your proprietor.

Issues: multitasking, missed deadlines, ineffective scheduling

Underestimator

You estimate that handling a task will take you much less than it actually does — you rarely live up to your optimistic deadlines.

Issues: missed deadlines, ineffective scheduling

Firefighter

You try to tackle everything on your own, right now — you're constantly putting out "fires" left and right, and don't feel fulfilled unless you're working on 10 tasks at once, and feeling "busy". Once you're done with that, you simply ask: "What's next?" — which is a practice that will lead you to burnout, sooner or later.

Issues: missed deadlines, skipping breaks, ineffective scheduling

Perfectionist

You're similar to the procrastinator and distractor, but your inability to finish a task at least has a noble cause — you want everything to be perfect. You'll work overtime, and invest all your efforts into delivering a high-quality project — but you often don't know how to quit while you're ahead, so you may miss your deadlines and risk burnout.

Issues: missed deadlines, skipping breaks

All the issues listed alongside your time management styles can be solved, and all the necessary time management skills can be perfected, if you only choose the right time management techniques.

Best time management techniques

Which technique is best to help you manage time better?

That depends mostly on your needs — whether you need to organize your work time, study time, or track your goals.

In the following section, we covered the 26 most effective time management strategies you can try.

Pomodoro

You parse your work into 25-minute work sessions (pomodoros), and 5-minute breaks. After 4 cycles, you take a 20-minute break.

Developed by Francesco Cirillo, the Pomodoro technique got its name after the Pomodoro-shaped kitchen timer Francesco used to track progress in his work.

Time management skills it improves:

• Effective planning
• Stress management
• Avoiding distractions
• Single-tasking
• Setting priorities
• Saying "No"

Issues it solves:

• Ineffective scheduling
• Skipping breaks
• Multitasking
• Missed deadlines

How Pomodoro works

1. Set your timer for 25 minutes.
2. Focus on your work during these 25 minutes.
3. Stop as soon as the alarm goes off.
4. Take a 5-minute break.
5. Resume work for another 25 minutes after the break.
6. After four 25/5 minute cycles, take a 20-minute break.
7. Repeat the process until finished with task or project.

For this purpose, you can try the Pomodoro Timer in Clockify, or learn more about how to start using Pomodoro.

• Better time estimates for your work.
• Fixed work time — you'll be more likely to focus.
• Regular breaks help eliminate burnout and improve performance.
• Pomodoros are an easy way to track profitability and productivity.

You have to stop working once the 25 minutes run out — If you're doing particularly well, this is counterproductive.

Following fixed intervals — the prescribed 25/5 minute sessions may not work for you.

Kanban

A visual time management technique that helps you follow the progress with your projects — you track how the tasks move across differently labeled columns.

This technique was adopted in the 1960s in Japan by Taiichi Ono, for Toyota Automotive, to help increase their productivity, and effectiveness in manufacture.

Time management skills it improves:

• Effective planning
• SMART goal setting
• Proper task delegation
• Single-tasking

Issues it solves:

• Multitasking
• Missed deadlines
• Ineffective scheduling

How Kanban works

You can use project management software, a pen and paper, or a whiteboard and sticky notes.

Determine the number of stages in your project or task, and create the columns. For example, you can create four columns, and move tasks within a project across these stages:

• Backlog — you brainstorm, and define all your tasks here. You then decide what tasks you're supposed to move to the To Do column, and what tasks can wait their turn.
• To Do — these are the tasks you'll work on.
• In Progress — these are the tasks you are currently working on.
• Done — tasks you've finished.

• No one-size-fits-all template, which means you can customize the principles to fit your own needs.
• Clear visual representation of your entire work situation: straightforward representation of your progress with a project.
• You can break the project into small, manageable tasks, and track their progress across the board.
• The team is likely to focus on progressing with their tasks, in order to reach the "Done" column.

• No one-size-fits-all template, which means creating a Kanban board can be time-consuming, as you have to decide how many columns to include and how to name them.
• Kanban doesn't help your order tasks directly, in terms of importance and urgency.
• May be difficult to predict when your team will finish the tasks (and project) because the only measure of progress is moving across columns; there is no time component.

Getting Things Done

A five-step method that allows you to brainstorm your tasks, and make them into a straightforward to-do list.

Getting Things Done (GTD) was introduced by David Allen in his book Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress Free Productivity.

Time management skills it improves:

• Effective planning
• Setting priorities
• SMART goal setting

Issues it solves:

• Ineffective scheduling

How Getting Things Done works

1. Capture — note every task that springs to mind.
2. Clarify — determine whether the task is actionable and whether it has concrete steps you can lay out and follow.
3. Organize — file tasks under different labels, and provide them with context (eg. home, office, request from Tom).
4. Reflect — from time to time, review your tasks: What is the next step for the task? Do you really need to finish it this week?
5. Engage — once you have noted, identified as actionable, properly filed, and reviewed your tasks, simply start working on them.

• You'll keep all your tasks, assignments and projects in perspective.
• You'll clear your head once you lay out every task you can think of in front of you
• You can use GTD to boost both your personal, and professional productivity.

• You have to use your willpower to progress with your work — GTD doesn't provide guidelines for dealing with distractions.
• Organization of tasks happens by context, and not by project, which may be unhelpful for people who are used to parsing tasks in relation to their project.
• Too many items on the list can render it ineffective, as you'll be less likely to structure your day properly.

Eat that Frog

This time management technique is aimed at prioritizing tasks. You pick out your most important, or worst task (this is your "frog"), and tackle it first thing tomorrow. Once you have finished with your "frog", you can move on to other tasks for the day, but not before.

This may be a task that requires all your attention (due to its importance or difficulty), one that you've been avoiding (because it's boring, demanding or difficult).

The "Eat that Frog" premise was developed by Brian Tracy, in his book Eat that Frog! 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time..

Time management skills it improves:

• Effective planning
• Setting priorities
• SMART goal setting

Issues it solves:

• Ineffective scheduling
• Multitasking
• Missed deadlines

How Eat that frog works

You have to identify tasks based on their priority, and label them accordingly:

• Task A — most important task, the one you should tackle first, or suffer the consequences.
• Task B — second most important task, the one you should tackle after Task A. Less important, but still vital.
• Task C — a task you could do, but you wouldn't suffer consequences if you didn't do it.
• Task D — a task you should ideally delegate to someone else, and allocate this time to Task A.
• Task E — a task you don't really need to do, so you're free to eliminate it.

• Doing the most important or worst task first thing in the morning guarantees the rest of the items in your daily schedule will be easier to accomplish — this will motivate and energize you.
• Prioritizing tasks becomes easier.
• You'll have the rest of the day left for more enjoyable tasks.

• A difficult and demoralizing start of the day.
• It may be rigid and impractical if your most important task changes during the course of the day.

Timeboxing

You allocate time periods (timeboxes) to activities; you work within this time period, and then stop once the set time runs out. Timeboxing often includes fixed deadlines, so it's used in project management.

Timeboxing works as a more general approach to the Pomodoro technique — instead of 25-minute sessions (timeboxes), the period of time within a timebox isn't as fixed.

James Martin was the first to explain the technique in more detail, in one of the chapters of his book Rapid Application Development.

Time management skills it improves:

• Effective planning
• Avoiding distractions
• Single-tasking
• Setting priorities

Issues it solves:

• Missed deadlines
• Ineffective scheduling
• Multitasking
• Skipping breaks

How timeboxing works

1. Lay out all your activities and tasks on a list.
2. Decide what you want to accomplish with these tasks — define your goals
3. If a task is important and requires great focus, allocate a longer time period to it (for example, 1 or 2 hours).
4. If it's a difficult task, parse it, and allocate shorter time periods (for example, 20-30 minutes) to parts of it, to make the task easier to manage.
5. Start from your first task, and work your way down.
6. When the allocated time for a task is up, stop working on it.
7. Take a break.
8. Review what you've managed to accomplish.
9. Turn your attention to other time boxes in your schedule.

• Great for a large number of small tasks — it'll be easier to keep track of them and tackle them, once you have them laid out in timeboxes.
• Deadlines are an important component, so you'll be focused on achieving as much as you can until the timebox expires.
• Natural perfectionists will have less time to tweak every detail, as they'll have to move on to the next task in the schedule.
• Timeboxing doesn't allow multitasking, so you'll be able to focus on one task at a time.

• You have to stop working on a task when the time for it expires, which is counterproductive when you find yourself immersed in a task.
• It may be challenging to stick to a strict schedule determined by timeboxes, when you consider unavoidable interruptions, such as phone calls.
• Your timeboxing calculations may be off. Too short timeboxes — you may have to stop before you're even immersed in a task. Too long timeboxes — you may lose focus, or start procrastinating to pass the time until the end of the timebox.

Time blocking

You block out time for a specific activity or task and work on it during this time period.

This time management technique was made popular by Elon Musk.

Time management skills it improves:

• Effective planning
• Avoiding distractions
• Single-tasking
• Setting priorities
• SMART goal setting

Issues it solves:

• Missed deadlines
• Ineffective scheduling
• Multitasking
• Skipping breaks

How time blocking works

There are 4 stages to Time Blocking:

1. The planning stage:
   • Define your tasks and activities, identify priorities
2. The blocking stage:
   • Assign each task with a specific time block — number of minutes or hours, with specific days, start and end times noted in your calendar.
   • The time block can be shorter, for example, 10 minutes, or longer, for example, 90 minutes. This depends on the priority level of the task.
   • Block more time for priority tasks; also, allocate these tasks to the time of day when you're the most productive.
   • Block your less productive time of the day for less important tasks.
   • Note everything in a calendar: the day, the start time, and the end time.
3. The acting stage:
   • Start working on the first daily task (usually your priority task).
   • Work your way down your schedule.
   • Take breaks between time blocks, and schedule these breaks.
   • Hold a flexible view on your time blocking schedule: if you receive an urgent task, block an appropriate amount of time for it, and start working on it as soon as possible.
4. The revision stage:
   • If you see a task takes longer or shorter than you estimated, revise the schedule for other tasks you've planned for that day.

• A comprehensive way of keeping track of your work day.
• Works great with Cal Newport's idea of deep work, as you have to stick to a fixed schedule for when you'll focus on a task.
• You'll feel like you have better control of your workload.

• Unexpected interruptions may disrupt your schedule.
• Same as with Timeboxing, your time calculations may be off — you may procrastinate while waiting for a too long time block to end or rush to beat the time during a too short time block.
• Time-consuming to plan time blocks in your calendar for all your activities, every day.

Inbox-Zero

This is an approach for managing your email inbox — you aim at keeping your email inbox empty, or close to empty.

The approach was developed by Merlin Mann, an expert in the field of productivity.

Time management skills it improves:

• Avoiding distractions
• Single-tasking
• Setting priorities
• Stress management
• Effective planning

Issues it solves:

• Ineffective scheduling
• Multitasking

How Inbox-Zero works

To reach inbox zero, you have to:

• Determine the time of day you'll work on managing your inbox — stick to this time.
• Silence notifications, and don't leave the email tab in your browser open.
• Prioritize your emails:
  • Respond right away to most important emails, and emails you can answer quickly
  • Move emails that'll take you longer to answer to a "needs a response" folder (allocate some of your "manage inbox" time to these responses)
  • Decide what messages you can delegate, and then forward them to other team members
  • Delete and archive unwanted, or old messages

• A great method for managing an inbox with a lot of traffic.
• Decreases the number of unread messages, those stopping you from finding your important emails.
• Focused on allocating inbox management only to a specific part of the day, so you won't be distracted by emails throughout the day.

• Time-consuming, considering you have to forward, archive and delete a lot of the messages.
• Only deals with inbox management, so it has to be combined with other time management techniques, ones that focus on managing tasks and projects.
• Problematic for people who converse with clients and colleagues through email — important emails may get lost.

Who's Got the Monkey

The emphasis of this method is on delegating tasks and is mostly aimed at project managers, though others can make use of it as well. Monkeys are tasks, and you have to consider how to deal with them.

There are 3 types of "monkeys" and managed time:

• Boss-imposed time: activities the boss required.
• System-imposed time: colleagues' requests and questions.
• Self-imposed time: the actions you decide to undertake. You may use it for your own tasks and ideas (discretionary time), or to tackle subordinates' problems and requests (subordinate-imposed time).

You aim to eliminate subordinate-imposed time, control system and boss-imposed time, and increase discretionary time.

The principle is based on William Oncken's book Managing Management Time: Who's Got the Monkey..

Time management skills it improves:

• Effective planning
• Proper task delegation
• Setting priorities
• SMART goal setting
• Stress management
• Single-tasking

Issues it solves:

• Ineffective scheduling
• Multitasking

How Who’s Got The Monkey works

1. Recognize and describe the "monkey" — specify what the task is, and what actions are needed for its completion.
2. Assign the "monkey" — allocate the "monkey" to a person.
3. Insure the "monkey" — Make sure the person handles the "monkey" appropriately:
   • If a monkey is important and allows no mistakes, then you should recommend what should be done and act if needed.
   • If you're certain the person assigned with the monkey can handle it, act and then provide advice.
4. Checking on the "monkey" — Specify when you'll provide follow-up for the monkey, to make sure everything is on track.

• Managers can effectively use their time.
• It gets easier to solve employee problems.
• Gives a clear perspective on who is assigned with what.
• A straightforward way of delegating tasks.

• Deals only with management and delegating tasks — should be combined with other time management methods for better productivity results overall.

Action Method

Overview

The Action Method is based on the premise that everything is a project: you view all your activities as projects, parse, and manage them accordingly. These projects can be:

• Managing your finances
• Administrative work
• Networking
• Whatever you want

Time management skills it improves:

• Effective planning
• SMART goal setting

Issues it solves:

• Ineffective scheduling
• Multitasking

How Action Method work

When using the Action Method, you organize your activities, tasks, and events as a project. Then, you parse your activities into three categories:

• Action Steps: these are the tasks that you need to complete. Such assignments help you progress with your work. For example, these are tasks like — redrafting a proposal, sending out a finished software, and debugging your latest app.
• References: these are notes, a list of links to relevant research, and outlines that help you tackle your Action Steps. In other words, it’s everything that doesn't directly make you progress, but serves as a reference point.
• Backburner items: all ideas and plans you're not currently working on, but may put into motion someday.

• Viewing all your daily activities as projects means you'll have steps laid out for each activity, so you're likely to be faster and more efficient.

• Time-consuming and potentially overwhelming — viewing everything as a project means you'll spend a lot of time planning.
• No schedule for reviewing backburner items — no clarity on when, or whether you should tackle these items.

The Eisenhower Matrix

A time management technique in which tasks are prioritized is known as the Eisenhower Matrix — this technique is based on labeling each task as: important / not important, and urgent / not urgent.

You assess the tasks according to their importance and urgency and tackle them in relation to this.

The Eisenhower Matrix is named after the American president Eisenhower, who was known for productivity during his time in Office.

Time management skills it improves:

• Effective planning
• Setting priorities
• Single-tasking
• Saying "No"
• Avoiding distractions
• SMART goal setting
• Proper task delegation

Issues it solves:

• Ineffective scheduling
• Missed deadlines
• Multitasking

How the Eisenhower Matrix works

List all your tasks, and divide them into 4 quadrants:

• The 1st quadrant — Tasks that are important and urgent. You should do them immediately.
• The 2nd quadrant — Tasks that are important, but are not urgent. You should make a plan when you'll tackle them.
• The 3rd quadrant — Tasks that are not important, but are urgent. You should delegate these tasks to your colleagues.
• The 4th quadrant — Tasks that are not important and not urgent. You should eliminate them altogether from your schedule.

• A straightforward principle to prioritizing tasks.
• Allows you to consider what tasks you can delegate or eliminate.

• May be difficult to determine the importance and urgency level of tasks.
• Present bias may stop you from implementing this technique in full — you'll feel an urge to focus on urgent tasks, which are not necessarily important.

Biological Prime Time

Your Biological Prime Time is the time of day when you have the highest energy levels, so you're most likely to be productive with your work.

Once you determine your biological prime time, you'll be able to allocate your most important, priority tasks to this time.

The term "Biological Prime Time" was first introduced by Sam Carpenter in his book Work the System.

Time management skills it improves:

• Effective planning
• Setting priorities
• Avoiding distractions
• SMART goal setting

Issues it solves:

• Ineffective scheduling

How Biological Prime Time works

• You'll have to experiment with your work across several days, say 20 days.
• Track your focus, energy, motivation, and attention span during these days.
• It's best that you track these variables within a fixed time period, say, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. every day.
• Chart your results every hour, and every day.
• After 20 days, analyze your results — you're bound to notice that a certain time of day stands out as the time when you were able to perform the most work.
• Once you have identified your most productive hours of the day across these 20 days, start allocating your future priority tasks to this time.
• Allocate less important tasks to the time periods you've noticed that your focus, energy levels, and attention span are low.

• You'll identify when you're the most productive and be able to allocate all crucial tasks to this time period.
• You'll identify when you're less productive, and be able to allocate less important, but still vital activities, such as managing your emails and making phone calls.

• You'll have to tweak and change your routine often, and track it for a longer time if you want to identify your biological prime time right.
• If you're subordinate to someone and have to adhere to deadlines, knowing your prime biological time won't be of use - you'll have to work according to your bosses' requests and deadlines.

The Productivity Journal

The Productivity Journal is somewhat similar to a regular journal, only you don't note in your personal thoughts in it, you mostly note in your actions — activities you can complete and later reflect on.

This technique is versatile in the actions you note in, so you can:

• Record your ideas and work thoughts — you may bring them into action later.
• Record all the tasks you've finished within a day — actions you've completed and you can reflect on.
• List all the tasks you're supposed to tackle the next day — actions that await you.

Time management skills it improves:

• Effective planning
• Setting priorities
• SMART goal setting

Issues it solves:

• Ineffective scheduling
• Missed deadlines

How the Productivity Journal works

1. Each day, define your to-do list in a notebook, or appropriate software — keep the items simple, clear and achievable.
2. Track the amount of time it takes you to finish each item — you can use Clockify for this purpose and store items from your to-do list as time entries.
3. Analyze your time results and tweak your future to-do lists accordingly.
4. For more details, you can also:
   • Self-rate your productivity for each item on a scale from 1 to 10.
   • Make a list of distractions (social media, YouTube, your phone), so you'll be more likely to avoid them.
   • Break each item on your to-do list into smaller, more manageable tasks.
   • In addition to tasks, set goals you wish to accomplish with these tasks or groups of tasks.
5. Reflect on your day, by jotting down comments on:
   • What tasks you've accomplished with success
   • What issues you've encountered
   • Whether you were able to overcome them

• Holds all your entire productivity history — you'll have all your ideas, to-do lists, deadlines for tasks and projects in one place.
• Writing down your issues can relieve you of stress.

• The journal can get unstructured — a lot depends on your own ability to structure the journal, as there are no clear rules for this.
• Perhaps a too extensive account of your productivity results — you may have to spend some time searching to find a past to-do list, comment on a specific task, and similar items in the journal.

The Seinfeld Method

A specific calendar system claimed to be inspired by Jerry Seinfeld's productivity quote: "Don't break the chain".

Each day you work on a skill, you mark that day with red, and form a chain of "red" days. If you don't work for a day, you don't mark it with red, and you "break the chain".

Time management skills it improves:

• SMART goal setting

Issues it solves:

• Missed deadlines

How the Seinfeld method works

For example, you want to improve your coding skills:

1. You get a red marker and a big calendar, one that shows all the days in the year.
2. Each day you code, even for a short time period, you mark that day with the red marker.
3. The days marked red continue to grow as you continue coding each day, and they form a chain.
4. If you miss a day of coding, you don't mark that day with red, and you "break the chain".
5. Code each day so you "don't break the chain".

• As you watch the chain of days marked red grow, you'll feel motivated to continue the chain and work on your skill every day.
• You'll aim to work and progress every day, so you'll be less likely to procrastinate as you race to do some work before the day ends.

• Each day, you have to select a task that is relevant enough for your skill, but also achievable, which can get tricky.
• Some days, it'll be hard for you to find any time for your work, due to other priorities and obligations, so you may have to "break the chain".

The 10-Minute Rule

You tell yourself you'll work on a task for 10 minutes. After the 10 minutes are up, you determine whether you'll stop or keep going.

Time management skills it improves:

• Effective planning
• Stress management
• Single-tasking
• Setting priorities

Issues it solves:

• Multitasking
• Skipping breaks

How the 10-Minute rule works

1. Select a task.
2. Start working on it immediately.
3. After ten minutes have passed, reflect on your focus and patience: do you want to stop working on the task, or do you wish to continue for 10 minutes more?
4. Work for 10-minute time periods until you want to stop working on this task for the day.

• Parsing your task into small time chunks will help you gain a sense of momentum because you're only obliged to work on it 10 minutes at a time.
• When you work only 10 minutes at a time, you don't feel overwhelmed, even with bigger tasks.
• Considering 10 minutes is a small amount of time, chances are you'll continue working for more 10-minute sets after the first one.
• Starting work immediately after you've selected the task means you'll have no time for negative thoughts and predictions.
• Less chance for procrastination — you'll make it a habit to dive right into work.
• From a psychological point of view, it's easier to tackle a 90 minutes task as 9x10 minute chunks.

• Stopping every 10 minutes to consider whether you're up for another 10 minutes of work can get distracting, especially if you've immersed yourself in a task.

To-Done List

Instead of listing what you need to do, you list your accomplishment and the tasks you've finished so far, within a certain time period.

Time management skills it improves:

• Effective planning
• Stress management

Issues it solves:

• Ineffective scheduling

How To-Done list works

1. At the end of each work week, take 10-15 minutes to note down everything you've accomplished.
2. Next to each item include what you've learned while working on it.
3. Also for each item, note what you could do differently next time, to improve your results.

• Gives you perspective on the amount of work you've done, and the amount of work you have left to do.
• It's motivating to see how much you've accomplished within a certain time period.
• An easy way to track your progress.

• Knowing what you've finished so far gives you a general idea on what amount of work you have for the upcoming period, but you get no details — no set deadlines, no specific number of tasks and projects.

To-Don't List

A contrast to the classical To-do List — you list all the tasks and activities you won't do.

Time management skills it improves:

• Effective planning
• Stress management

Issues it solves:

• Ineffective scheduling

How To-Don’t list works

1. You make a list before each workday.
2. Note in all the tasks, ideas, and habits you'll aim NOT to do, or think about.
3. These can be distractions, overly ambitious ideas you objectively have no time to work on or bad habits you want to quit.
4. Include the word "Don't" in front of each listed item.
5. Cross over each item at the end of the day if you've managed to avoid it.

• By listing all the activities you'll no longer focus on, you'll mentally let go of them, and free more time for important matters.
• Keeps you in check regarding your bad habits, such as spending time on social media when you should be working.
• Makes delegating tasks easier, as you'll be able to identify what tasks you perform, but should delegate instead.

• Gives no specifications on the tasks you should do.

Flowtime Technique

You set a specific time period, between 10-90 minutes, and use it as an experimental timeframe for your work. If you find that you can focus after the time period has expired, you continue working. If you find you cannot focus anymore, take a break.

Flowtime technique stems from the Pomodoro technique, but it's less rigid in terms of time for work sessions and breaks. It's also similar to the Timeboxing technique, only you're encouraged to consider whether you'll continue working once the time has expired, not forced to stop.

Flowtime was developed by a software engineer, Dionatan Moura, in 2015.

Time management skills it improves:

• Stress management
• Single-tasking

Issues it solves:

• Multitasking

How Flowtime technique works

With a preset number of minutes for your initial work session:

1. Select a task.
2. Decide to work for a certain amount of time (for example, 30 minutes), and set the timer.
3. You work until the timer stops.
4. Then, you consider whether you can focus on the task for some minutes more. For example, if you find you can focus for 10 minutes more, set the alarm to 10 minutes.
5. When the 10 minutes expire, ask yourself whether you can maintain focus for more time.
6. At any point, when a given time period expires (after the 30 minutes, or after the additional 10 minutes) if you find you can't focus any longer, take a break.

You can start the timer in Clockify as soon as you start working. Stop the timer, to see how much time you've spent on this work session. When you feel you need a break, stop working.

• You get the benefits of Pomodoro's work sessions/break time routine + more freedom in deciding how long the work sessions and breaks will last.
• If you find your initial choice for the number of minutes for the work session is too long, you can change it next time.
• By using a time tracker to see you when you're most productive, you can know when you are able to focus the longest.

• No prescribed time for the length of work sessions may lead you to forget about breaks and risk burnout.
• Parsing tasks is entirely up to you — you may prove unsuccessful in parsing them into manageable chunks.
• General lack of rules.

Top Goal

You identify your most important goal and allocate time each day to work on it specifically.

Greg McKeown was the one who clarified the concept in his book Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less.

Time management skills it improves:

• SMART goal setting
• Effective planning
• Stress management
• Single-tasking
• Setting priorities

Issues it solves:

• Multitasking
• Ineffective scheduling

How Top Goal works

1. You pick your Top Goal.
2. Schedule 2 hours to work on it every day.
3. It's best that you schedule these 2 hours for the early time of day, when most people are asleep, to make sure no one interrupts you.
4. Stick to the schedule.
5. Avoid social media, YouTube, and other distractions during this time.
6. Only work on your Top Goal during these 2 hours.
7. Leave the rest of the day for other activities.

• By working on a task continuously for 2 hours you practice your deep work capabilities.
• You're likely to make great progress with the tasks that lead to your Top Goal, as you'll be allocating time specifically to them each day.

• No specifications on how to avoid distractions, which are a big threat to your 2-hour work bubble.
• When just starting out, 2 hours of focused work may be too much to handle.
• In contrast, seasoned practitioners may find 2 hours to be too little time, yet they are only allowed to work on their Top Goal within this fixed time frame.

Pareto Analysis

The Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto created this technique.

The gist of the Pareto Analysis (also known as the 80/20 rule) is that 20% of our actions are responsible for 80% of outcomes.

The idea is to find your key activities — the 20% ones that make a difference — and focus on them. This way, you’ll be able to achieve as much as 80% of your desired outcomes.

Time management skills it improves:

• Setting priorities
• Effective planning
• Proper task delegation
• Single-tasking

Issues it solves:

• Multitasking
• Ineffective scheduling

How Pareto Analysis works

1. First, note down all the problems you are facing. For example, you can't seem to finish your tasks on time.
2. Next, find the cause of this problem. You may discover that you get easily distracted while working, which is why you don’t complete tasks before the deadline. So, what are these interruptions? Do you get distracted by social media or because you’re chatting with colleagues?
3. Then, assign a score (a number) to each problem — give higher numbers to more important problems. For example, you can use numbers from 1 to 10 to assign a score to your issues. Your most important problems should be labeled with the number 10, and your least important issues should be labeled with the number 1.
4. Next, batch your problems by cause. For instance, group all your problems caused by spending too much time chatting with colleagues.
5. Then, assign a score to each group of problems. The groups with the highest score are the ones you need to solve first.
6. Get to work.

• It helps you prioritize your tasks better.
• It helps you improve your problem-solving skills, because, with Pareto, you batch similar issues together — which will allow you to solve them easily.
• A great method for learning how to single-task instead of multitask.

• This method only relies on your past activities — your performance so far and issues you had in the past.
• Scoring may be inaccurate — if you make a mistake by assigning higher scores to some less important tasks, you might neglect other, more important tasks.

Rapid Planning Method (RPM)

One of the best time management techniques is also the Rapid Planning Method (RPM). The acronym RPM also stands for “result, purpose, and massive action plan”.

This time management technique was created by motivational speaker Tony Robbins.

The idea behind this method is to train your brain to envision what you want in order to make it real.

In general, this technique is practical for setting long-term goals.

Time management skills it improves:

• Effective planning
• Stress management
• Single-tasking

Issues it solves:

• Multitasking
• Ineffective scheduling

How Rapid Planning Method works

1. Capture — First, note down all the assignments you need to complete this week. Be realistic — write down from 5 to 9 tasks for the week.
2. Chunk — Group similar tasks together. You can use categories such as “Work tasks”, “Non-work tasks”, “Career”, “Health”, etc.
3. Make your own RPM blocks. Remember to focus on your most important area and create an RPM block for it. Let’s say that this week, you’d like to focus on “Career”. Use a piece of paper, and create three columns:
• Results: Think about the results you’d like to accomplish in this area. Let’s say you want to improve your copywriting skills.
• Purpose: Why do you want to achieve this result? For example, you want to enhance your copywriting skills because you’d like to apply for a copywriter job.
• Massive Action plan: Then, think about the activities that will help you complete the task and achieve desired results. In this case, you can find relevant copywriting courses and finish 1 course by the end of the month.
Next, create another RPM block for your “Non-work tasks” and other categories for this week.
4. Take action.
5. Review your work by questioning yourself:
• Did I follow all the steps from my massive action plan?
• Did my purpose act as a motivation to help me achieve desired results?
• Did I accomplish desired results?

• This method allows you to think about your long-term goals and align them with short-term targets.
• It helps you envision your goals, the purpose of such goals, and write down steps for accomplishing these targets.

• It’s time-consuming to plan all your weekly activities, create blocks, and review your results.
• There’s no way of differentiating important tasks from less important ones, so you won’t be able to set priorities.

Pickle Jar Theory

If you’re searching for some practical time management techniques for work, the Pickle Jar Theory might be a great fit for you.

The key advantage of using the Pickle Jar Theory is that it allows you to differentiate useful from unuseful tasks in your schedule.

This way, you’ll be able to set priorities clearly and plan your assignments.

Time management skills it improves:

• Setting priorities
• Avoiding distractions
• SMART goal setting
• Proper task delegation

Issues it solves:

• Missed deadlines
• Ineffective scheduling

How Pickle Jar Theory works

The goal of this technique is to imagine a jar that contains sand, pebbles, and rocks. The rocks are at the top, while the sand is at the bottom.

Here’s the meaning of each element:

• The sand: These are tasks and activities that usually disturb you during the day, such as emails, social media, and phone calls.
• The pebbles: These are important assignments that should be completed, but someone else can tackle them, or you can complete them some other day.
• The rocks: These are your significant tasks, and you have to complete them by the end of the day.

So, when planning your day, think about your tasks:

1. Categorize them by importance — figure out which ones are rocks, pebbles, and sand.
2. Next, make a to-do list by focusing on rocks first since these are your most significant assignments for the day.
3. Make sure to write down time estimates for each task. The total amount of time should be up to 8 hours.
4. Then, if you still have some time to tackle your tasks from “the pebbles” and “the sand” categories, now is the time to complete them.

• This technique helps you take control of your time and organize your day easily so that you have enough time for your private life, too.
• It keeps distractions away since it allows you to plan only your important tasks for the day.

• It can be difficult to figure out the importance and urgency levels of your tasks.
• It can be risky because, if you focus too much on urgent tasks, you may miss out on finishing your essential tasks.

Deep Work

The Deep Work method is a popular technique created by Cal Newport, the author of Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World.

According to Newport, deep work includes “…professional activities performed in a state of distraction-free concentration that push your cognitive capabilities to their limit”.

In general, these assignments improve your skills and create value.

During deep work, you should avoid any distractions.

Time management skills it improves:

• Avoiding distractions
• Single-tasking
• Effective planning

Issues it solves:

• Multitasking
• Ineffective scheduling

How Deep Work works

Newport separates deep work from shallow work, which can be defined as less demanding activities — for example, attending meetings and answering emails.

In general, you can perform shallow work even when you’re distracted, which is not the case with deep work.

Here’s how to apply the Deep Work method:

• Schedule time for deep work: During this phase, you need to focus only on your important tasks. At the same time, you should avoid distractions at any cost. Remember to schedule deep work tasks during the times of the day when you have high energy levels.
• Leave some time for shallow work: On the other hand, leave any recurring tasks and assignments that are less demanding for periods of the day when your energy levels are low.

• This method ensures that you focus on high-quality work while ignoring any distractions.
• It helps you improve your ability to complete demanding tasks and solve complex problems.

• If you work in an office, you may find it difficult to achieve deep work because you may get interrupted by colleagues.
• You won’t be able to take frequent breaks, which may affect your productivity.

ABCDE method

In his book How to Get Control of Your Time and Your Life, Alan Lakein talks about the ABCDE method.

Thanks to this technique, you can learn to prioritize your tasks better and finish them before the deadline.

The ABCDE method is similar to the Eisenhower Matrix — but, unlike the latter, the ABCDE technique doesn’t categorize tasks by urgency.

Time management skills it improves:

• Setting priorities
• Proper task delegation
• SMART goal setting
• Single-tasking

Issues it solves:

• Multitasking
• Missed deadlines

How ABCDE method works

When using this technique, you should organize your assignments into five categories by their importance:

• A — most important tasks
• B — important tasks
• C — nice to do (tasks)
• D — delegate these tasks
• E — eliminate these tasks

This way, you’ll find it easier to prioritize assignments and activities.

Start by tackling the tasks from the A and B categories first, then continue with other groups.

• It allows you to consider what tasks you can delegate to others or simply delete from the list.
• Prioritizing tasks will become much easier, especially if you use this method every day.

• This method does not categorize tasks by urgency — so you might forget to work on the assignments that need your immediate attention.
• Sometimes, you might find it difficult to figure out what tasks are most important (A category) and what are important only for the day (B category).

1-3-5 Rule

The 1-3-5 Rule is a technique that helps you manage your tasks.

The idea behind this method is that every workday, you need to focus your attention on:

• 1 big thing
• 3 medium things
• 5 little things

Once you complete your big task, you’ll feel a sense of accomplishment, which will motivate you to continue.

At the same time, medium tasks allow you to progress with your larger projects.

Finally, little tasks are easy to complete, so they’ll also inspire you to move forward.

Time management skills it improves:

• Setting priorities
• Avoiding distractions
• Effective planning

Issues it solves:

• Multitasking
• Ineffective scheduling

How 1-3-5 Rule works

As we mentioned earlier, you need to categorize your assignments into three groups.

Here’s how you can plan your day with the 1-3-5 Rule:

• Rank your tasks. Note down your assignments for the day, then label them as “big”, “medium”, and “small”. If you have more than one big task, figure out which one is more important and finish it today. The other tasks can wait until tomorrow.
• Get to work. First, tackle your big task because, as soon as you complete it, you’ll feel accomplished and good about yourself. Then, continue with other tasks. You should keep the list of tasks nearby at any time.
• Remember to be flexible. On the days when you’re super busy, you’ll probably have less time to tackle your tasks — in this case, focus on one big thing and cut down on medium and little things.

• This method helps you learn how to prioritize and have a balanced to-do list that’s simple to follow.
• It also allows for flexibility, so you can modify the number of tasks when needed.

• It can be difficult to decide how much time you’ll dedicate to each task, especially if you’ve already spent too much time working on your one big thing.

POSEC method

This method was created by Steven Lam, the author of The Posec Method of Time Management. The POSEC method stands for:

• Prioritize by
• Organizing,
• Streamlining,
• Economizing, and
• Contributing.

This technique is rooted in Maslow’s theory of the hierarchy of needs.

The gist of this theory is that there are five types of needs you have to satisfy, and their order of importance is:

1. Physiological needs — the need for water, food, shelter, etc.
2. Safety needs — our need to protect ourselves from physical danger
3. Social needs — the need to belong to a social group
4. Esteem needs — our need to retain our self-esteem and self-respect
5. Self-actualization needs — the need to actualize our potential.

According to Maslow's theory, to fulfill your secondary needs (i.e. safety), you first need to take care of your primary needs (i.e. physiological). The same applies to the rest of Maslow's pyramid — to achieve your self-actualization needs, you can't skip any steps along the way.

The POSEC method relies on a similar hierarchy:

1. Prioritizing — goals and time
2. Organizing — family and finances
3. Streamlining — work and chores
4. Economizing — hobbies and socializing
5. Contributing — social obligations

For example, to be able to dedicate quality time to your family, you first need to commit to achieving your personal goals.

Time management skills it improves:

• Setting priorities
• Minimizing low-value activities and tasks
• SMART goal setting

Issues it solves:

• Multitasking
• Ineffective scheduling

How POSEC method works

Here’s how to use the POSEC technique:

• Prioritizing (goals and time). First, you need to figure out what your goals are and how much time you need to accomplish them (whether they are long-term or short-term).
• Organizing (family and finances). Think of all activities in your personal and professional life. Aside from the activities that are related to achieving your goals, you have to keep an eye on your family's well-being and take care of your finances.
• Streamlining (work and chores). Now, you need to figure out the most efficient way to perform your work tasks and your chores. For example, try to automate as many tasks as you can.
• Economizing (hobbies and socializing). This level includes activities you enjoy doing, like socializing with friends and doing hobbies. But, sometimes, these activities don’t contribute to achieving your overall goals.
• Contributing (social obligations). Once you have attained all your previous levels, you can help others in your community. For instance, you can volunteer or help your friends or neighbors with a household chore.

• This method helps make time not only for your work-related tasks, but also for your personal activities and leisure time.

• The POSEC method isn’t very practical for organizing your daily tasks.

BuJo — The bullet journal

The bullet journal (BuJo) is a method developed by Ryder Carroll — a digital product designer.

According to the creator of this method, the BuJo method helps you:

• Track the past,
• Organize the present, and
• Plan for the future.

With the bullet journal, you can organize your:

• Daily to-do lists,
• Weekly or monthly calendars, and
• Track your short-term and long-term goals.

Time management skills it improves:

• Effective planning
• Stress management
• SMART goal setting

Issues it solves:

• Missed deadlines
• Ineffective scheduling

How the bullet journal works

To try the bullet journal method, you’ll need a pen and notebook.

The BuJo contains these components:

• Index page
• Future log
• Monthly log
• Daily log

Here’s how to fill this journal out:

• Index page — two blank pages that you’ll title “Index”:
• Think of the Index page as a key — a legend that contains information about page numbers for your Future, Monthly, and Daily log.
• The Index page helps you easily find your Future, Monthly, or Daily log — by checking their page numbers.
• Future log — two blank pages that you’ll title “Future log”:
• The Future log helps you make plans for the future. For instance, you can plan the next six months, and add them to your Future log pages.
• Now, since you use two pages for the Future log, the first one can cover the first 3 months and the second one can cover the next 3 months.
• Create a box for each month and add a month label. Here, you can add important notes, appointments, and meetings for each month. The Future log helps you note down crucial dates too, such as birthdays and anniversaries.
• Add the page numbers and include these numbers in your Index page.
• Monthly log — two blank pages that you’ll label as the name of the month:
• On the left page of your Monthly log, you’ll have a monthly calendar. This is where you’ll note down all the dates of the month and the first letter of each day.
• On the right page, you’ll have your monthly task list. Make sure to include all the essential tasks for the month here. Once again, add the page numbers and include these numbers in your Index page as well.
• Thanks to your Monthly log, you’ll have an overview of everything you need to tackle by the end of the month.
• Daily log — two blank pages that you’ll title as “Daily log”:
• Write down the day’s date.
• Then, add your entries — we can categorize them into three groups:
• Tasks (add a dot bullet next to each one)
• Events (add a circle bullet next to each one)
• Notes (add a dash bullet)

Now, if you have some very important tasks, you can note down an S (Signifier) next to them. That way, you’ll know these are your priorities.

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At the end of each month, you should review your tasks. For instance, you can delete some tasks, or migrate some assignments from your Daily log to a new Monthly log.

• The BuJo method helps you plan your long-term goals (for the next six months) and align them with your short-term goals (your weekly and daily goals).
• It allows you to plan your tasks, events, and notes.

• This technique can be too time-consuming — to make an effective BuJo journal from scratch, you’ll need to invest time, so it won’t be quite practical if you’re a busy person.