Kara was recently coaching a leader who wanted to work through her time management problems. Kara asked her, “What brings this to mind today?” Her client said, “Because it makes me stressed.” Two days later, another client brought up the same topic and said it was important because, “I’m overwhelmed.” The same day, another client shared, “I have urgent requests that I deal with every day, and then I feel like I never get anything done.”
Maybe it’s cutesy to say that time management is an evergreen challenge… but it’s true. It ebbs and flows as our work lives and personal lives change. The busier we are, or the more important the task in front of us is, the harder it is to successfully and gracefully manage our time. And the crazy thing is, it’s in these moments of high stress and overwhelm where we most need to be able to trust and rely on our time management skills.
Depending on your situation, there are several ways you can better manage your time. Time management is an ongoing and continuous process of assessing, organizing, and executing.
Assess
This phase of time management is about knowing yourself, how you work, when you’re most productive, and when you need breaks to be your best self.
You can learn these things by:
- Paying attention to what you have done in the past.
- Tracking your time for a week and seeing what you did and how long things took.
- Asking your manager, friends and colleagues what they notice about how you spend your time.
- Taking note of when you start the day, when you break (whether on purpose or not) and when you “shut down” both mentally and physically.
Then you can draw some conclusions around how you should design your calendar to bring out your best and use your time efficiently.
Organize
This phase of time management is about creating systems that enable you to stay on top of your calendar and task list.
These systems may include:
- Your calendar and calendar blocks.
- To do lists and prioritization.
- Project management programs.
- Email reminders.
The systems you choose should be unique to you and tailored to how you work. The tools and approaches need to fit within your life… not be separate from it. Part of the trick is treating your systems as “works in progress,” and taking the time to iterate and improve on them over time.
Execute
This phase of time management is simply about getting the work done, ideally quickly and well.
Execution strategies include:
- Eat the Frog, a concept popularized by Brian Tracy in his
book by the same name.
- Set timers.
- Turn off notifications.
- Schedule time.
- Break down tasks.
…and so many more. There are a million productivity hacks out there. You don’t need to try them all. Experiment with a few, discover what works for you, and adapt them to be exactly what you need them to be.
In general, when we’re coaching folks who are dealing with time management challenges one of the biggest things they need is just the 30- or 60-minute coaching session with us as an opportunity to stop reacting, take a breath, and come up with a plan. Even that little pause can be a powerful way to help you take control back of your calendar.
What time management hacks work for you?
