Time Management Skills, Techniques and Strategies – The Ultimate List

What's the difference between time management strategies, techniques, and skills? What are some of the best ways to improve your overall time management and how to implement different techniques and methods into your daily work schedule?

Apart from answering those questions, we’ll let you in on some of the best strategies, techniques, and skills to help you better manage your time.

Let’s begin!

Time Management Skills, Techniques and Strategies – The Ultimate List
In this guide, you’ll learn:
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What Is Time Management? 

Time management is a system that allows you to plan out in advance the exact amount of time you'd want to allocate to performing a specific task or tasks per day.

Making the most out of your day and ending it with that pleasant feeling of knowing you’ve done all you could do in that single 24-hour period - that’s what time management is all about. It means you’ve made effective use of your time and accomplished what you’ve set to do for yourself for the day.

Being good at managing your time makes you better at successfully completing all of your work and life-related activities, tasks, or responsibilities. 

The principal idea behind efficient time management is to prioritize your work tasks based on their importance and urgency and estimate the time needed to complete them in advance. 

What Are Time Management Strategies?

A time management strategy is the overall plan for effective time management. It can encompass a specific time management technique and a set of skills to perform it efficiently. 

You can decide on a time management technique because you have the skills needed to successfully implement that technique, or choose a technique based on the skills you want to improve.

So for example:

  • Let’s say you’ve just started practicing the Pomodoro technique, which centers on 25-minute-long bursts of work activity followed by 5-minute long breaks. This technique is great for improving your focus and concentration, as it’s all about short periods of productive work that add up when put together. So, in that case, your time management strategy would be to use the Pomodoro technique to improve your skills - focus, concentration, and, ultimately, your overall productivity.

You can decide on a time management technique because you have the skills needed to successfully implement that technique, or choose a technique based on the skills you want to improve.

Another example would be: 

  • If you are good at delegating and want to use that skill to create an effective strategy for time management, you could try the Getting Things Done or GTD technique. In this case, your overall time-management strategy would be to use your innate delegation skills to successfully implement the GTD technique and improve your and your team’s productivity.

Finally, if you don’t want to focus on any particular time management technique and create your own time management strategy instead, there are also ways to do that. We’ll talk about those ways in more detail, further in the article. But, for now, let’s talk about time management skills and try to explain the meaning behind the term.

6 Most Important Time Management Strategies

Time management strategies are an overall plan for improving your time management. You can make up your own strategy, try out different time management techniques and incorporate them into your strategy, work on individual skills, or do something completely different. At the end of the day, it’s completely up to you.

Here are some of the most popular time management strategies that have been proven to be successful time and time again.  

6 Most Important Time Management Strategies

1. Make a To-Do List

Many of us spend our days doing stuff and periodically wondering whether we forget something. Well, not anymore. A simple to-do list can alleviate that burden.

Usually, a to-do list should include your work tasks as well as any personal activities or responsibilities you wish to complete. Maintaining a proper balance between work and life obligations is important. This is where a to-do list gets very useful, as it allows you to see more clearly how much time you spend on each.

When you make your own to-do list, be sure to rank your tasks based on their importance. It’s easy to make a list of stuff that you can finish quickly. But, if you do that, you risk allocating insufficient time for the day's most important tasks.

To successfully use a to-do list time-management strategy, you should not only jot down your daily tasks but also regularly update and check your list. This will help you prioritize and make adjustments if anything unexpected pops up (e.g., a client wants a project report earlier than usual). 

2. Tackle the Most Difficult Task First

This time-management strategy is centered around the idea that if you do the most difficult task of the day first, everything else will feel easy in comparison. It’s like diving into the deep end of the pool instead of slowly building up your way to it. 

The downside is that this strategy might not work for everybody, as some people like to start their day with easier tasks and warm up, in a sense. 

Tackling high-value tasks at the start of your work day might not be for everyone, but it has been proven as an effective time management strategy. To find out if starting your day with the most demanding tasks will improve the way you manage your time, all you have to do is try it.

3. Remove Any Distractions 

Being distracted while you work can negatively impact your productivity and ability to accomplish your daily tasks successfully. So, it goes without saying that one of the most important time management strategies is to try and minimize any and all distractions.

To do that efficiently, you should:

  • Identify the things that distract you from your work.
  • Remove those distractions and/or try to minimize their impact on your productivity.

For example, if your phone is constantly chirping because someone created a new post on any of the social media you use, simply turn off your phone. If checking emails or slack messages distracts you from completing your tasks, try to either turn off the notifications or avoid checking them until you finish your work.

You can give website blockers or app blockers a try. Those are apps that block specific websites or other apps (you choose which ones you want to block) that distracts you during work.

4. Lead a Healthier Lifestyle

A huge part of a successful time management strategy is ensuring you lead a healthy lifestyle. 

Now, don’t get us wrong, this is not a way to tell you how to live your life, far from it. It’s about showing you the importance of managing and increasing your energy levels to increase your productivity and concentration.

Studies have shown that people who exercise and eat healthy foods regularly have higher energy levels when compared to those who don’t. And having more energy means you will be able to spend more of it on completing your tasks, projects, and activities in a more productive and stress-free manner. 

5. Figure Out and Set Your Priorities

Finding out what your priorities are and setting them according to their importance is another great strategy that can be used to manage your time. Making a clear distinction between what's important and what’s not can help you improve your daily productivity significantly.

By organizing your tasks according to their priority, you’ll have a clear vision of what needs to be done and in what order. You might even surprise yourself by discovering that some tasks don’t need to be completed at all. That’s the power of setting priorities. 

6. Try Out Software

When all else fails, turn to the machine

For almost any pain point, regardless of whether it’s connected to time management, software tries to solve it. And, some of them actually do solve the problem of efficiently managing time, tasks, projects, and more.

weekly timesheet tracker

What Are Time Management Techniques? 

Time management techniques are specific methods that, when implemented into your daily schedule, can help advance how you manage your time.

For the most part, time management techniques have been proven to be quite successful, with one important caveat – not every technique will work for everybody. This means that there’s no “one size fits all” regarding this matter.

Some time management techniques are related to specific skills or skill sets. Naturally, people who already possess these skills will find the technique in question easier to implement. For example, the Pickle Jar technique centers around one particular skillvisualization. So, if you’re good at visualizing, you’ll have no trouble with this technique. 

On the other hand, if visualizing tasks is not your forte, this technique might help you develop this skill. All you have to do is be open to the challenge.

Luckily, there are many different time management techniques, so you can be confident you’ll easily find the one that suits your needs. 

17 Most Important Time Management Techniques

17 Most Important Time Management Techniques

The most popular and successful ones are: 

1. The Pomodoro Technique

The Pomodoro time management technique was invented by Francesco Cirillo. He used a kitchen timer to split his work into 25-minute intervals. Every period of work, or as he called it, pomodoro, was followed by a short break, usually lasting around 5 minutes. 

The name “pomodoro” comes from the Italian word for “tomato.” Cirillo chose this name because the kitchen timer he used to split his work periods looked exactly like a tomato. 

If you want to try out the Pomodoro method for yourself, you should do the following:

  1. Choose a task you wish to complete.
  2. Start a 25-minute timer. You could use an online stopwatch or the one on your phone. 
  3. Do some work until the clock runs out.
  4. After the 25-minute interval ends, take a 5-minute break.
  5. Following the 4th pomodoro period, take a longer 25-30 minutes break.
  6. Rinse and repeat until your task is done or until you feel you’ve done enough for the day.

2. Eisenhower Matrix

Developed by the 34th US president, Dwight Eisenhower, the Eisenhower Matrix is a time management technique that focuses on prioritizing tasks in terms of their importance and urgency. The more important and urgent a specific task is, the higher it should be on the “to-do” list.

To try out the Eisenhower Matrix and see if it works for your specific needs, do the following steps:

  1. Create 4 quadrants with these categories: Important and Urgent, Important but Not Urgent, Not important but Urgent, Not important and Not Urgent.
  2. Take a closer look at your current tasks and put them into those 4 quadrants based on the previously mentioned parameters. 
  3. Important and Urgent - you do them immediately.
  4. Important but Not Urgent - you schedule a time to do them in the future.
  5. Not important but Urgent - delegate these tasks. 
  6. Not important and Not Urgent - delete these task. 
Eisenhower Matrix

3. Parkinson’s Law

Created by and named after a British historian, Cyril Northcote Parkinson, Parkinson’s law is hugely based around Ciryl’s famous quote: “Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.”

This, in more simple terms, means that whatever amount of time you allocate to finish a particular task is the exact amount of time you’ll need to finish the said task

Although Parkinson’s law sounds like something straight from a philosophy book and less like a time management technique, when it works, it really works. But, to figure it out and reap all of its benefits, you’ll have to put in the time!

Here’s what it boils down to:

  1. Work more efficiently and in short bursts of time.
  2. Put yourself in situations in which you have time limits to finish your work or impose time limits on yourself. The easiest example would be working on your laptop without the charger being plugged in. This will put you in a position to finish your work faster before the battery runs out. 
  3. Finish your work early! If your deadline is set at midnight, try finishing your tasks before that (say noon, five o’clock, or even 8 o’clock). The main point is to be done with your project before the deadline. 
  4. Limit the amount of time you spend on certain tasks to avoid procrastination. For example, give yourself half an hour each day to answer emails. And, whatever you manage to accomplish in those 30 minutes, that’s it! This will force you to work more efficiently and limit the amount of time you spend procrastinating. 

4. The Kanban Technique 

The reason why the name of this time-management technique sounds Japanese is that it was first embraced by Taiichi Ono in the 1960s while working for Toyota Automotive. The main idea behind this method was to increase the overall productivity and efficacy of Toyota’s manufacturing process.

The main idea behind the kanban board is that you move tasks from one stage to the next and this helps with transparency and every team member can see the state of every task at any time. 

To start incorporating the Kanban time management technique into your daily routine, you should start with the following:

  • First, you’ll need software for project management, a whiteboard, some sticky notes, or a plain old piece of paper. Any one of them will do. 
  • Second, you should figure out all the stages that are included in finishing a specific project. For example, you could divide your project into 4 distinct phases and create columns for each stage.  

There are no specific rules on how to divide a specific project or how to name each stage, but the most common way of doing it is as follows:

  1. Backlog - A column for brainstorming, detailing, and deciding on tasks, i.e., a place to figure out the order and priority of tasks.
  2. To Do - A column for the tasks you are going to work on.
  3. In Progress - A column for the tasks you are currently working on.
  4. Done - A column for all your finished tasks. 

5. Getting Things Done or GTD

Created by David Allen and thoroughly explained in his book “Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress Free Productivity,” the GTG method is widely thought of as one of the most successful time management techniques.

The main idea behind the Getting Things Done method is to first declutter your mind from the entirety of tasks, projects, and other work or life-related responsibilities and then take specific steps to finish them all successfully. The steps, as per the GTG technique, are as follows:

  1. Capture - write down any and all tasks you wish to complete.
  2. Clarify - Make a decision about each task: Do it, don’t do it, or delegate it to your team members.
  3. Organize - Create different categories of tasks and put each task in its corresponding category. For example work, home, emails to send, and such.
  4. Reflect - Focus on reviewing your tasks and figuring out the timeline for their completion.
  5. Engage - After all the previous 4 steps are done, it’s time to start working on the tasks.

6. The Time Blocking Method 

Time blocking, widely popularized by Elon Musk, is a time management technique that focuses on creating awareness about how exactly you spend your time during the day. The main idea is that with “awareness,” you can strategize more easily and ensure that every part of your day is spent as efficiently as possible. 

The time blocking technique revolves around dividing your day into smaller periods of time or time blocks. To do it, you should:

  1. Divide the entire 24-hour day into smaller chunks of time - time blocks. 
  2. Try to estimate the time you’ll need to complete your daily tasks and put them into time blocks.
  3. There’s no specific recommended length for each time block. It depends on the type of activity or task you are performing. For example, you could create a 3-minute time block for brushing your teeth or a 30-minute block to complete a specific work-related task.

As a side note, when you’re just starting out with time blocking, it’s a good idea to create time blocks that are a bit longer. This will allow you to make adjustments on the fly until you completely figure out this time-management method and tailor it to your particular needs and wants.  

7. The Pickle Jar Theory

Pickle Jar, also known as the Glass Jar time management technique, is a great method for individuals who are good at visualization.

To start with the Pickle Jar technique, all you have to do is imagine a pickle or a glass jar that’s filled with sand, pebbles, and rocks. The sand sits at the bottom, and the rocks are at the top of the jar. Everything in the Pickle Jar represents some part of your daily schedule

  1. Sand represents anything that can disrupt you from fulfilling your daily tasks. Here goes everything from social media to unwelcome phone calls. 
  2. Pebbles represent tasks or other obligations that are not due soon or can be delegated to someone else.
  3. Rocks are the most important tasks of the day and should be done first. 

To successfully master this technique, you should try categorizing all your daily work tasks and obligations into these 3 categories. If you’re dealing with an 8-hour work schedule, try planning for six or seven hours of dealing with “rocks” to leave enough time in case the “sand” decides to veer into your jar.

8. Eat That Frog 

The Eat That Frog time management technique was inspired by the famous Mark Twain quote: “Eat a live frog the first thing in the morning, and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day.”

To put it simply, the Eat That Frog method revolves around prioritizing and doing the most strenuous and difficult tasks of the day first. The reasoning behind it is that after finishing those tasks, every other work-related obligation will feel easy in comparison. 

9. Timeboxing Technique 

James Martin was the first to explain and expand on the time boxing technique in his book titled “Rapid Application Development.” 

Similarly to the time blocking method, the time boxing technique revolves around splitting your day into multiple timeboxes and allocating specific tasks to each singular timebox

The main difference between these two time management techniques is that time blocking focuses more on when to perform tasks, whereas time boxing is more about limiting the amount of time you spend on each of your daily tasks. The end goal here is to improve your overall efficiency.

10. Deep Work 

The deep work time management technique was first introduced to the world by Cal Newport in his book titled “Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World.” In his works, Cal Newport makes a clear distinction between two types of work: 

  1. Shallow work - defined as less strenuous or demanding tasks or other work-related activities. 
  2. Deep work - defined as more demanding or onerous tasks or other work-related activities. 

To successfully implement the deep work time management technique, you should:

  1. Create a timetable or leave enough time during your day to perform deep work tasks. During this period, you should focus on the most important activities or tasks only and try your best to remove or minimize any distractions (e.g., turn off your phone). 
  2. Make an effort to schedule deep work activities during that time of the day when you feel like your best self, i.e., when your energy levels are high enough to deal with “deep work.”

After completing deep work tasks, ensure you have enough room to complete all of your shallow work activities (e.g., answering unimportant emails), which typically require less energy.

11. The “ABCDE” Method 

Like the Eisenhower Matrix, the ABCDE technique aims to help prioritize tasks and revise and optimize the time needed to complete them

Alan Lakein is accredited as the one who created the ABCDE technique for time management. He defined the ideas behind this method in his book called “How to Get Control of Your Time and Your Life.”

To start incorporating the ABCDE method, you should first organize your tasks in the following categories:

  1. Category A - is reserved for the most important daily tasks.
  2. Category B - for tasks that are important but less so than those from category A.
  3. Category C - for activities or tasks that would be nice to do.
  4. Category D - tasks in this category should be delegated (e.g., to your team members or other personnel)
  5. Category E - this category is reserved for tasks that are not at all necessary to do or important. 

After categorizing all of your tasks into the above-mentioned groups, start doing the tasks from Category A, then move on to B, and so forth. 

12. The Rapid Planning Method or RPM 

Created by the motivational speaker Tony Robbins, the Rapid Planning Method or RPM is a popular time management technique. It focuses on helping people train their brains to first envision the success they are trying to achieve and then make it a reality.

RPM is about first figuring out the goals that you should focus on and then realizing those goals successfully. Apart from standing for Rapid Planning Method, the acronym RPM, according to Tony Robbins, also means:

  • R - stands for Results-oriented
  • P - stands for Purpose-driven 
  • M - stands for Massive Action Plan

This time management technique, or “system of thinking,” as Mr. Robbins calls it, is all about focusing on achieving your life goals, completing the most important tasks, and finding the best ways to do just that.

13. The SMART Method 

The SMART method is another acronym-based time management system aimed to help you complete your work or life-related tasks with ease. This technique focuses on setting and creating a way of measuring your productivity and efficiency, allowing you to improve both if necessary.

SMART stands for:

  • Specific - You should define your goals as clearly as possible. With this method, there’s no room for unnecessary procrastination. Figure out what you have to do and do it.
  • Measurable - The best way to achieve a certain goal or complete a specific task is to actively measure its progress. You can use any sort of metric for this – from numbers to dividing projects into smaller tasks, anything will work, as long as it works for you.
  • Achievable - Make sure your goal is realistic and attainable. Leave room to surpass yourself but don’t set unrealistic goals.
  • Relevant - Your goal(s) should always complement the tasks, projects, activities, or long-term plans. Basically, don’t veer into uncharted waters.
  • Time-Bound - Set a time limit for achieving goals or completing tasks.  

14. The POSEC Method

The POSEC stands for: Prioritize by Organizing, Streamlining, Economizing, and Contributing. This time management method was created and defined by Steven Lam in his book titled “The Posec Method of Time Management.”

The main goal of this technique is to improve your work management skills by following five easy steps: 

  1. Prioritize everything from work-related tasks to life goals and long-term plans. Figure out and prioritize what’s truly important to you, specifically.
  2. Organize your tasks into categories and make a plan on how to tackle them head-on.
  3. Streamline work or life-related tasks, daily chores, and more. Essentially everything and anything you don’t enjoy doing but have to anyway.
  4. Economize on what you enjoy doing, like hobbies or hanging out with friends.
  5. Contribute to your society, socialize, and try to make a positive difference.

This method is based on the theory called the “Hierarchy of Needs,” first proposed by an American psychologist, Abraham Maslow. 

15. Biological Prime Time Technique

Biological Prime Time tries to impose some actual, biological, and scientific facts into time management techniques. The term “Biological Prime Time” was first used by Sam Carpenter in his book “Work The System.” 

This method for managing time essentially boils down to figuring out the exact time of day when your energy levels are at their highest. After that, the next step is to schedule and do the most important tasks during that time period, when you feel at your best and have the most amount of energy. 

To successfully implement this time-management technique into your daily schedule, you should:

  1. Try to figure out the time of day you are at your best in terms of energy levels, focus, and overall productivity. This process of self-discovery could last up to a month, so don’t worry if you can’t get it in the first couple of days.
  2. During the “figuring out” process, try to keep tabs on your focus, energy, and productivity during different times of the day. This will help you zone into your Biological Prime Time more easily.
  3. Write down the results for every hour of every day. 
  4. After a month or so, analyze your results and pinpoint the exact time of the day when your energy levels are at their highest.
  5. Once you’ve figured out your BPT, start working on your most important tasks during that exact time period.
  6. Leave low-priority tasks for those times in the day when your energy levels are lower. 

16. The Pareto Analysis Technique 

Pareto Analysis is a time management technique named after and created by an Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto. The main idea behind this method is that only 20% of the decisions we make are effectively responsible for 80% of the outcomes we face

The successful implementation of the Pareto Analysis can help you figure out the most practical decision or steps to make to get the best possible outcomes. The most basic way to perform the Pareto Analysis is to:

  1. Make a list of the problems you or your team are facing and wish to solve.
  2. Try to ascertain the main cause/causes behind each of your problems. Problems can have multiple sources, so don’t limit yourself by assigning just one cause to each of your problems.
  3. Give individual scores to problems based on the negative impacts they have. The bigger the negative impact is, the higher an assigned score should be.
  4. Organize and categorize problems into groups. For example, you could group problems that have the same root cause. The way you do this is not set in stone. Group up problems in any way you feel will work best for your needs.
  5. Add up the scores for each group you’ve created. The group of problems with the highest score is the one you should deal with first.
  6. Start dealing with it! 

17. The 1-3-5 Technique 

The 1-3-5 time management method is a constructive and interesting way to manage your daily tasks. It’s really simple, and if you want to try it out for yourself, you should:

  1. Try to categorize all of your daily tasks into these three groups: big, medium, and small.
  2. If you have more than one big task, rank them based on their importance and do the one that ranks higher first.
  3. Start with 1 big task first and work on it until it's done.
  4. The next step is to finish the 3 medium tasks (hence the 1-3-5 name).
  5. And, finally, it’s time to complete the 5 small tasks for the day.

With this time management technique, it’s important to have a certain degree of flexibility. You won’t always have 3 medium or 5 small tasks, some days you’ll probably be bogged down with big tasks only. If that's the case, rank them based on their importance and complete them in that order.

What Are Time Management Skills?

Time management skills refer to one’s ability to plan and organize how to use their time to accomplish specific tasks, goals, and more. 

Some examples of time management skills include:

  • Setting clear and specific goals
  • Prioritizing tasks based on importance or urgency
  • Creating a schedule or to-do list
  • Breaking down large tasks into smaller, manageable chunks
  • Learning to say "no" to non-essential tasks or requests
  • Eliminating distractions and procrastination
  • Delegating
  • Evaluating and adjusting

9 Most Important Time Management Skills

Time management skills are the innate or acquired abilities that allow us to efficiently manage our time.

Eisenhower Matrix

Some of the most important time management skills are:

1. Organization 

Being able to adequately organize both your work and life-related tasks is one of the most important time management skills. Staying organized and knowing what tasks or activities you need to complete and when can make a significant difference when it comes to efficiently managing your time and alleviating stress.

If you are not a natural-born organizer, don’t fret, here are some things that you can do to improve your organizational skills:

  • Track your tasks using software, whiteboard, timesheets, or just paper.
  • Keep your workspace clean by throwing out the unnecessary stuff and decluttering it can put you in a more positive and productive mindset. 
  • Start taking notes about anything and everything work-related. This will help you keep up with all of your deadlines. 
  • Categorize your work documents to make them more accessible based on the parameters of your choosing.

2. Concentration

Being able to thoroughly concentrate on the task at hand and avoid all distractions is one of the core tenets of successful time management.

Periodic distractions, insufficient sleep, unhealthy eating habits, and more can all have a huge negative impact on our productivity. But don’t worry, just like with other skills, there are some things that you can do to improve your focus and ensure it stays with you throughout your workday tasks:

  • Get rid of distractions - Getting distracted is one of the sure ways of breaking your concentration and slowly veering into procrastination. To prevent this, try to remove anything that can distract you in your work (e.g., turn off your phone and social media notifications). 
  • Limit multitasking - Successful multitasking is a difficult skill to master. Doing it poorly can lower your productivity and have a continuous negative impact on your ability to focus. Instead, try to put all of your attention on one task at a time and work on it until it's done.
  • Sleep! - Many studies have shown that not having enough sleep can negatively affect your concentration.  
  • Short breaks at the right time - Taking a short break at just the right moment can help you recharge your energy levels and allow you to extend the amount of time you spend fully focused on a task.
  • Healthy habits - Leading a healthy life can have a huge positive impact on your ability to concentrate. Try to eat healthy foods, avoid junk food, include exercise in your weekly routines, and more.

3. Communication and Delegation

Communication and delegation go hand in hand, especially when it comes to team leaders and project managers. Being able to communicate and delegate tasks to different team members properly can significantly affect your time-management skills. 

If you are not apt at either communicating or delegating, you might end up bogged with a huge amount of work and not enough time in the day to finish it all. 

If you are not good at either of these two time-management skills or just want to improve them, here are a couple of things that you can do:

  • Ask the right questions at the right time - One of the main staples of having an effective work environment is knowing when to ask the right questions. This can prevent any misunderstandings about tasks or projects from ever happening in the future.
  • Use software to track projects - By using dedicated time tracking software, you can track the progress of your team members and effectively analyze their performance on certain types of tasks. When you have that data, you can delegate specific tasks to high-performers and improve the overall productivity of the team.
  • Prepare in advance - If you are unsure about your communication skills at the workplace, try to prepare for important conversations in advance. Go through the topics you wish to cover during your off hours and ensure everything you’ll say is concise and straight to the point.
  • Listen - Communication is a two-way street, at the minimum. To be effective at it, learn how to listen to your colleagues, family members, friends, and others around you.

4. Managing Stress Levels 

Properly managing your stress levels is one of the core time management skills. Not doing so can negatively affect your health, productivity, and ability to concentrate and can ultimately lead to burnout. 

There are many ways of successfully dealing with stress. Some of them are:

  • Take regular breaks - If your job includes spending a lot of time in front of the screen, try to take breaks periodically to allow your eyes and brain to unwind.
  • Get enough sleep - One of the most important elements of effectively managing stress is to just get enough sleep. When sleep-deprived, people are more easily irritable and less capable of dealing with stress.
  • Eat a healthy diet - Healthy foods can significantly improve your body's ability to deal with everyday stress. Try to avoid sugar-filled foods, as they can lead to sugar crashes and negatively affect your stress levels.
  • Work-life balance - Having a proper work-life balance can do wonders when it comes to successful stress management. There are times when you should put your work first, but it’s important not to do it all the time and leave enough room in your schedule for your social life. 
  • If it becomes too much, ask for help - Remember, there’s no shame in asking for help. If all else fails, turn to a professional. 

5. Avoiding Procrastination

Procrastination, or too much of it, can have a serious negative impact on your productivity. That’s why avoiding it and staying disciplined, even when the task you’re working on is not to your liking, is one of the principal time management skills. 

So, how to effectively avoid procrastination? Here are some things that you can do that might help:

  • Admit to yourself you’re procrastinating - You can’t effectively deal with any problem if you don’t first admit that you have a problem. If you want to avoid procrastination and improve your overall time management skills, the first step to doing so is admitting to yourself you’re in fact procrastinating. 
  • Manage your goals - Maybe the reason for your procrastination is that your goals are or seem too lofty. Try to set smaller goals that take less time to accomplish.
  • Rid yourself of distractions - Distractions can lead to prolonged periods of procrastination. Try turning off your phone and putting it somewhere outside your immediate reach to remove the urge to check your social media while you work.
  • Set deadlines - One sure way to stop procrastinating is to set and keep deadlines. By having clear and predetermined time restrictions, you can push yourself to finish your work more effectively and in a timely manner.
  • Take accountability - Don’t scrutinize and punish yourself for procrastinating. Realize you’re doing it, take accountability for it, and make adjustments to change your negative behavior.    

6. Prioritization 

Improving your time management skills involves knowing both how and when to prioritize certain tasks. Analyzing all of your work responsibilities and assessing which ones need to be done first is an important step in efficiently meaning your time.

There are many ways to manage and effectively prioritize and deal with all of your daily responsibilities. Some of them include: 

  • Task management - Managing your tasks effectively can be done in different ways. From writing them down on a whiteboard to using time tracking software, take your pick.
  • Periodically review tasks and track progress - Tracking tasks and reviewing your progress regularly can help you choose which of your work projects needs prioritizing. 

7. Resting 

Resting is one of the principal ways to keep and maintain high productivity levels. Taking a rest when you need one and using that rest period to revamp your energy levels is a valuable time-management skill. 

For example, don’t use your time away from a PC or your laptop screen to visit social media sites on your phone. You might think you’re resting, but in fact, you are putting the same strain on your eyes and brain as you would while working. 

8. Setting Clear Goals

Knowing why and for what purpose you are doing something is important to manage your time productively. Having clear and precise short and long-term goals will give you a purposeful reason to get organized. 

Having straightforward goals will allow you to better prioritize your work, discern and focus on what’s important, and, at the same time, ditch anything that’s not part of your long-term plans.

9. Scheduling 

Making a daily schedule, and sticking to it, is one surefire way to bring your time management skills to the next level. You can considerably improve your productivity by planning your entire day and scheduling when to perform certain tasks. 

To effectively schedule your day, you could use:

  • A regular or digital calendar 
  • Software
  • A whiteboard
  • Sticky notes
  • Regular notebook

Just don’t forget to add rest times to your schedule. Remember that rest and recovery periods are important parts of effective time management.

The Differences Between Time Management Strategies, Techniques, and Skills

Eisenhower Matrix

Time management strategies, techniques, and skills all relate to the ability to effectively plan and use your time, but the terms themselves have slightly different meanings:

  • Time management strategies refer to the overall approach or plan you can use to manage your time. 
  • Time management techniques are specific methods or tools you can use to implement a particular time management strategy. 
  • Time management skills refer to the abilities or competencies you need to use time management strategies and techniques effectively.

Eisenhower Matrix