7 Essential Time Management Skills That Will Improve Your Life

Do you want to improve your time management skills?

If you’ve created a time management plan and still failed to reach your goals, it’s likely because you’re too flexible and easy on yourself and others when it comes to your schedule. You’ve met with a manager that needed to talk to you urgently and given up your ‘admin’ time. There was the incident that you had to respond to immediately and there goes that time to reflect. A member of your team is going through a difficult time and you wanted to be supportive. Do you want to improve your time management skills with our 7 essential time management skills?

1. Set boundaries and learn the art of saying no!

Let’s start with the tough suggestion.  Just say no!  It’s easier said than done.

It’s not that straightforward to say no, particularly when you are delivering a service to the internal stakeholders.  This is actually about managing expectations upfront.

One of the Senior Talent Managers I worked with said that it’s far better to have a difficult conversation about delivery expectations at the beginning, rather than having a difficult conversation about NOT delivering later down the line. 

He was right.

The stakeholders might not like the ‘reality check’ and the mention of other demands on the service, however, that’s the time to agree on a way forward.  When you agree on the way forward, you are contracting and compromising with the stakeholder.  Be sure to document the agreement, even if it’s in an informal email.  Summarize what was agreed, and document the timelines, and responsibilities. 

Saying no is about being transparent and honest.  Explain the reasons for saying no.  Don’t just say no.  It’s about integrity and being confident to hold those tough conversations at the beginning of the brief.  Your goal is to achieve a win-win by building long-lasting relationships with good foundations and agreeing on deliverables.

2. Understand your internal clock

Did you know you had an internal clock?  Everyone has an internal time clock.  You probably know when your best time of day is.  Are you a morning person?  Do you naturally wake up early?  Are you more productive in the afternoon or early evening?  Do you have a burst of energy late afternoon?

It’s important not to fight against your internal clock and be aware of what it is. Some people are early risers and some people are night owls and others are in between. It’s important for you to determine for yourself what your own internal clock is and then work with it.

3. Make a list

I love lists!  Do you love lists?  I have lists for everything!  Shopping, things to do at home, and at work, lists to plan holidays, lists to plan family weekends, and the list goes on!  

If you understand each step that goes behind a calendar listing, it will be more beneficial because it’s easier to allocate enough time for each thing when you know what it takes to complete any given task. You won’t be able to accurately determine the time it takes without all the information.

4. Use your Calendar

Put everything in your calendar including everyday tasks, small steps for a project due in the future, and time with family, friends, and yourself. Don’t skip this step so that when someone asks for your time you can easily schedule them in (or not) based on your availability.

This process will prevent people from booking time in your diary, and keep the focus on the tasks that need time to complete.  It will reduce the number of distractions, or reduce time wasted wondering which tasks to do next.  If you schedule your time at the beginning of the week, it will help you achieve your goals.  

There will be occasions, events, and people that will need your time and you can build some flexibility into your calendar.  

5. Get up on time

This is a difficult one for some people but it doesn’t have to be as hard as you think.  It’s about planning ahead, and being disciplined.

Again, this is about understanding what you need first.  Are you the type of person who needs 8 hours of sleep at night?  Or are you one of those people who can function on 5 hours?  Go to bed at the same time every night and get up when you wake up or when the alarm goes off.

Snoozing the alarm will not only lose you some precious time, but studies also show that it will make you feel lethargic and less energetic during the day.  Get up, stay up, and get on with your day.

6. Get there early

You may think this is going to use up more time in your diary.  However, being on time or late will be counterproductive.  You’ll be under a lot more pressure, you may need to spend more time catching up with what you’ve missed, or just stressed all the time.

Again, organizing ahead of time will save you time in the bigger picture.

If you need to drive places or you have deadlines for work, schedule your time so that you are going to be early. The reason is that this is one of the ways to eliminate urgency from your life, which in turn causes stress and can cause problems with time management. This way if something does happen out of the ordinary, you will still have time to meet a deadline and be on time.

7. Plan ahead 

The theme throughout this blog and the essential time management skills is to plan ahead.  This means, planning your working week, planning family time and events, planning your sleep, and any other social activities.  

Finally, don’t be too hard on yourself in terms of the hours you schedule yourself to work. Yes, be ruthless about the schedule, but also schedule in fun time. Humans aren’t designed to work 20 hours a day. Go ahead, schedule 8 to 10 hours a day of work. But, in between, schedule breaks. Time with friends, family, and spouses during any given work day is important too. Also, remember to schedule breaks like weekends and vacations. If you do that, it’ll be so much easier to be ruthless with time and stick to your schedule normally.

Bonus: Turn Off Technology

The very thing that is supposed to make our time more productive can have the opposite effect too. The notifications of new emails, your Facebook stream, and unscheduled time on Pinterest and don’t get me started on TikTok (by the way, are you following me on TikTok??  Sorry!) can get out of hand. Turn it off. You’ll gain so much more time. That includes your TV, too.

How many times have you said to family and friends, or colleagues at work, “I don’t have the time…” when the reality is you’re spending your time doing other things.  Check out your time on social media, check what level you are at on Candy Crush, or how many views you have on Quora or Reddit.  This is time you could be spending on other priorities.  Even if you limit your social media activity or give up temporarily to catch up or progress with other tasks, it will be worth it and may even break the habit!