7 Essential Time Management Skills

Learning how to manage your time effectively enables you to meet deadlines, explore new ideas, and find a healthy work-life balance. If you feel overwhelmed and overworked, learning a few time management tools may help you reduce stress and create an effective plan to meet your goals.

Continue reading to explore seven essential skills that, when developed, can give a big boost to your productivity.

What is time management?

Time management is the art of effectively planning your time. This art allows you to efficiently and productively complete the activities and tasks you need to in the appropriate amount of time. Time management also involves prioritising your to-do list so that you complete urgent or essential tasks before others. Doing this helps to meet important deadlines and give yourself ample time to complete important tasks.

7 time management skills

Cultivating time management skills can help advance your personal and professional goals. If you're ready to take control of your time, work on developing these seven time management skills.

1. Prioritisation

To effectively manage your time, you will need to decide in which order you should complete your tasks. Reviewing your schedule each day and labelling your to-do list with whether tasks are urgent, important, or neither can help you decide when and how to manage your time throughout the day. In general, you will want to prioritise your urgent tasks in order of importance. Following this, you can complete your non-urgent tasks in the same manner. Doing this makes sure you complete critical tasks with the needed attention and time.

One key difference when prioritising tasks will be between “urgent” and “important” tasks. Urgent tasks are ones that you must complete as soon as possible. Whilst essential tasks matter, and not doing them may lead to negative consequences, you have more flexibility on when you complete them.

For example, picking up your prescription from the pharmacy is an essential task because you likely need the medication, and waiting too long could have negative health consequences. However, you may have freedom over the next couple of days as to when you pick up the prescription. If you are expecting an important phone call and your phone rings, then picking up the phone call is an urgent task because it demands your immediate attention.

2. Goal setting

Goals give a measurable way to determine progress toward the end product. Setting goals can help you organise your to-do list and choose the priority of your tasks. If you have a goal set for the end of each week or month, you can create a specific priority list for each goal. Setting goals can reduce feeling stressed or overwhelmed when working toward larger goals.

3. Planning

Writing down your schedule can give you a realistic idea of how much time you have to allocate to different tasks. For example, you may have a standard 9-to-5 work day and assume you have eight hours to complete your five project-based tasks of the day. Let’s say you then write down your schedule and see you have an hour-long lunch meeting, a 30-minute internal meeting on a different floor, and have to leave 30 minutes early to pick up your kids from school. When you write this down, you see you actually have six hours outside of meetings.

By breaking down your schedule, you’ll realise each meeting is a 10-minute walk from your office. In addition, you know it takes you at least 10 minutes to get organised at your desk before beginning work each time you return, and you will need a 30-minute break in the day to recharge. You now realise you have to factor in 40 minutes of walking time and 50 minutes of non-working time at your desk, leaving you 4.5 hours of working time for your project-based tasks.

By writing down your schedule, you can better allocate time for each task and make reasonable plans for your day.

Tip: Analysing your daily and weekly patterns can help you find the times of day you are typically most productive. Some people may find they tend to have hours of uninterrupted time before lunch, whilst others may work their best in the afternoons or evenings. Understanding when you can focus best allows you to schedule more complex tasks during these hours. For mindless and simple tasks, you can schedule these assignments during less focused hours.

4. Delegation

Delegating tasks can help you avoid feeling overwhelmed. If you have the capacity to delegate tasks within your workplace, consider assigning specific projects to team members with the capacity to take them on. Doing so gives you time to focus on more challenging tasks.

5. Setting boundaries and saying "no"

If your supervisor or colleague asks you to complete a task and you do not have the time, practice being assertively honest about your work capacity and current workload. Taking on too many responsibilities can prevent us from completing important work, often contributing to missing deadlines. If you are repeatedly assigned more tasks than you can effectively complete, consider scheduling a meeting with your supervisor to discuss the limits of your role and how you can best perform in your current position.

6. Focus

Creating an organised workspace can help you focus on your assignments and prevent wasting time on distractions. To work productively, make sure you are able to find needed materials, a place where nobody will interrupt you, and a comfortable space.

Instead of trying to complete several tasks simultaneously, focus on one task at a time. This focus may improve the quality of completed tasks and allow you to reduce distractions.

7. Automation

Many technologies exist to automate common workplace tasks. Depending on your profession, project management software, human resource software, email templates, or scheduling software may help streamline your workload.

Benefits of good time management

You will find many benefits to improving how you manage your time in the workplace. In general, those with good time management skills will experience the following benefits compared to professionals with poor time management skills:

• Lower levels of stress

• Lower anxiety levels

• Improved reputation in the workplace

• Better focus

• More productivity

• Improved decision-making

• Attainment of goals

• Increased ability to meet deadlines

• Improved work quality

• Better work-life balance

• Increase professional confidence

• More free time

• More energy for personal activities

Next steps

Cultivating your time management skills can be helpful at home and at work. These skills help you determine priorities and organise your tasks accordingly to ensure you meet your personal and professional objectives. Empower yourself to reach your goals at home and at work with Achieving Personal and Professional Success from the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School. Learn how to define success, communicate more effectively, and use your influence through hands-on exercises, surveys, and case studies, all at your own pace.