If you are constantly overwhelmed with work and household chores, it may be worth reconsidering the approach to planning. Time management is a whole science. We tell you how time management works and how to manage your time
What is time management?
Economist Peter Drucker wrote that management will increasingly go beyond commercial enterprises, where it appeared in an attempt to organize the production of things.
Time management is techniques and methods for time management. This is self-organization and self-management. Time management helps a person or company to plan time and save resources.
For example, if you are overwhelmed with work, and you do not know what to do first, you should prioritize. The Eisenhower Matrix helps you figure out which tasks are urgent and important, and which ones are just distracting.
The more we have time to do, the better the quality of our work and life in general. And in the context of digital transformation and accelerating changes, a clear time management helps to keep the focus on goals and not deviate from the course.
Principles of time management
Almost all existing methods of time management consist of three components: prioritization, planning and structuring.
Prioritization. To complete a task, you need to determine how urgent, complex and important it is, and only then proceed to its implementation.
Planning. To complete a task, you need to figure out when it should be done and how long it will take.
Structuring. To complete a task, you need to understand how to track its execution and results.
Most of the time management techniques rely on structuring and prioritization, and only a small part is a complex combination of all three principles. We will analyze the 15 best methods of time management: from simple techniques to complex management systems.
The best methods of time management
- Preparation from the evening
Preparation in the evening is suitable for those who find it difficult to get up early in the morning – the advice of psychologist Nick Wignal [1]. Write down work and personal tasks for tomorrow at the end of the working day. This way you will understand your workload in advance and distribute tasks without morning rush. You can prepare a task plan in the evening, work clothes or lunch with you if you work outside the house.
You can make a task plan for tomorrow in a notebook on paper or in an application
You can make a task plan for tomorrow in a notebook on paper or in an application
- At least N minutes
The method helps to cope with procrastination – postponing tasks “for later”, even if they are important or urgent matters. If you don’t want to do anything, try to start with at least a few minutes per task: five or ten. According to Julia Muller, a professor at the University of Leipzig, this way a person will have the right to change his mind, and it increases the sense of control over the situation. He stops thinking that he is being forced to do something that he absolutely does not want to do [2], so further work is easier.
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- Deadlines
Set clear deadlines for the completion of work – deadlines. Clear deadlines encourage you to work faster and help you cope with procrastination. Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have found that even independently set deadlines help to move things from a dead point [3]. At the same time, such deadlines work worse than external deadlines set by the head or the competition commission. In personal matters, an external supervisor can be a friend, colleague or relative.
- Eating the “frog”
Business coach Brian Tracy suggests eating a “frog” every morning [4] — doing the most difficult and unpleasant task first. In the morning, the brain is less loaded with information, so it will be easier for you to cope with a difficult task. After such a task, all the others will seem trivial and they will still have strength.
- Small tasks
This is the complete opposite of the previous method. Do small tasks – for 1-2 minutes – first, if possible at the same moment. For example, check your mail and equipment, send requests, or distribute tasks. This rule is taken from the method of Getting Things Done (GTD) by business coach David Allen [5].
- Autofocus
The “autofocus” method is suitable for people who often work with tasks without a deadline. The two previous principles oblige you to choose a case, and this sense of obligation causes rejection. The author of the method, Mark Forster, believes [6] that first you should write out all the cases in a single list, and then slowly read it until you want to stop at one task. The scope of the task does not matter, the desire to do it right now is more important. If you managed to complete the case today, cross it out. If it didn’t work out, move it to the end of the list and read it again.
- Do it tomorrow
The author of the book “Do it tomorrow” [7] Mark Forster recommends not to take on urgent tasks immediately, but to postpone them until tomorrow. To do this, you need to keep closed to-do lists. It is not possible to add a new task to the closed list, but you can add it to the list the next day. This approach helps to keep the focus on current affairs and do only your job.
Forster divides “his real job” and “employment.” A real job helps to advance in business or profession. Here you fully apply your skills and knowledge. Often get out of your comfort zone – you do things that you haven’t done before. It is really difficult to work, such work can cause a little resistance.
Employment appears when you postpone real work for the sake of small tasks. Activity is not the same as action. If the work causes a feeling of congestion, but does not seem difficult— it is most likely that it is busy. Real work can be difficult, but it does not make you feel like a “squirrel in a wheel”.
- Division of a large task
This technique is also called eating salami or elephant in pieces. A global task can frighten with volume. To start it, you should decompose a large task into small stages, decompose it. For example, “launching a new project” sounds loud and crushes responsibility. But when concrete steps appear in it, it becomes easier: “start audience research” → “talk to Sasha on the points of analysis” → “study the results” → “prepare a layout based on the results of the study”. The task is “overgrown” with specifics and no longer seems like an impossible mission.
- One task in one time interval
Multitasking in intellectual work does not work. In 2009, researchers from Stanford University conducted an experiment [8]. They found out that when a person does several intellectual things at the same time, for example, reads and talks on the phone, he remembers both the content of the conversation and what he has read worse. At the same time, it cannot determine which information was important and which could be omitted. If a person works on only one case in one period of time, he copes with the task better and remembers the information well.
- Fixed-time methods
This includes methods of working on a timer. If you get into the habit of working on a timer, you will know the value of your time, work more productively, learn to manage expectations, train willpower and prevent burnout.
Pomodoro technique. The tomato method is the “25 minute system” by Francesco Cirillo. A “tomato” is a period of time in 30 minutes – 25 minutes to work and five minutes to rest. You work for 25 minutes, take a five-minute break, then go back to work. Every four repetitions — a break of 30 minutes.
By the way, the timer is called “tomato” because Francesco Cirillo initially used a small kitchen timer in the form of a tomato.
Most often, the Pomodoro timer looks like this
The method “90 by 30” by Tony Schwartz [9] and the method “52 by 17”, which appeared as a result of a study of The Muse service [10], are based on a similar principle. The first value is the time in minutes that you need to set aside for work, the second is the time for a break.
We can say that this is a modification of deadlines, but they strictly limit the time for work itself. The abundance of short breaks helps to “unload the brain”, change activities and distract.
If you want to try the methods in practice, remember that not only the intervals of work, but also the intervals of rest are equally important in them. In order for the methods to work, it is important to rest and return to the task at a set time.
- The principle of nine cases
This method is based on a hierarchy of tasks. According to the principle, during the day you need to “close” one large task, three smaller tasks and five small ones. Things like preparing for a meeting with future clients are suitable, and tasks are simpler, for example, buying pet food. So household chores do not disappear from sight and are included in the calculation of their own load.
A variation of this method is the “three-case principle” by Chris Bailey [11]. This method will help those who are easily immersed in routine and do not pay due attention to their long-term goals. According to Bailey, you need to complete three tasks a day that bring you closer to achieving a global goal. For example, do grammar exercises in English for an hour a day or apply for a scholarship if your global goal is to study abroad.
- Kanban
Kanban is a method of organizing work in order to distribute the load between people and do the work on time. The method helps to see the increasing pace of work and not forget anything.
Classic kanban is a table with three columns “Need to be done”, “In progress” and “Done”. But there may be more columns, for example, by the number of stages in your project or in production, and their names may also change at the discretion of the company.
By default, all cases are entered in the first column in a separate row or on a separate sticker, card. Then they are dragged from one to the other until they get to the last column. Thanks to this “dragging”, you can easily track the progress of an individual and the entire team.
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