We all wish for longer days, hoping that the hours would exceed 24, enabling us to get more done and reach our goals more easily. Therefore, we need to learn how to maximize our available time, our 24 hours.

Fortunately, this is achievable, as successful people use time management tricks. You'll discover that the responses to questions concerning these tricks are consistent: setting goals, prioritizing tasks, and creating a daily schedule.

Effective time management is a required skill, but it cannot be mastered overnight. Therefore, this article presents 7 steps to manage your time better, enabling you to create an effective schedule that will get you closer to your goals.

7 steps to manage your time better

1. Recognize the Time-Waste Distractions

It may seem counterintuitive, but the first step is determining whether you're a bad time manager. This is easily recognized. Do you frequently miss deadlines or feel overwhelmed by tasks or goals? These situations are usually brought on by multitasking and time-wasting behaviors like continuously checking emails or messages.

Many research studies show that multitaskers are less productive. This is not surprising, as there is a cognitive cost to multitasking. We slow down because our brains require time to focus on something else.

Moreover, frequently checking messages consumes a lot of time. Responding to emails or messages might make you appear productive, but remember that multitasking has costs.

If you’re unsure how to recognize your time-waste distractions, the best approach is to track your time for a specified period (at least one week). Record every activity you engage in throughout your day to identify inefficiency patterns. You can do this using digital or traditional time-tracking tools.

2. Set Goals and Priorities

The golden rule of time management is that not all tasks are equally important. So, prioritize the most challenging tasks. For example, imagine you are a project manager at a tech company and have a six-month deadline to introduce a new product. How will you start working?

Will you just dive in and hope everything goes well? Certainly not. You need to break the project down into smaller, more manageable tasks. You should identify key objectives such as product development, testing, and marketing. The same principle applies to time management. However, how can you prioritize? You can use the Eisenhower Matrix (named after former President Eisenhower). This matrix allows you to categorize tasks and activities based on their urgency and importance.

The Eisenhower Matrix helps you identify the most urgent tasks, as you need to evaluate a task within one of the following four categories:

• Urgent and Important (tasks that need to be done immediately).
• Important but Not Urgent (tasks you can postpone).
• Urgent but Not Important (tasks you can delegate or complete later).
• Not Urgent and Not Important ( tasks you will delete).

In our tech project example, you might define smaller sub-goals. These could include tasks like finalizing the design, coding the product, testing, and creating a marketing plan. The Eisenhower Matrix allows you to prioritize each task as follows:

• Finalizing and coding: Urgent and Important.
• Testing: Important but Not Urgent.
• Creating a marketing plan: Initially, it is not urgent, but it becomes urgent and important as the launch date approaches.

3. Create a Daily Schedule 

Effective time management requires prioritizing tasks and setting clear goals. However, these alone are not sufficient. Relying solely on goals and priorities can leave you feeling directionless and hinder your progress, as they guide you toward your ultimate goal but don’t provide a roadmap for achieving it. 

The answer is preparing a task list or daily planner. This helps you break down the difficult task or goal into manageable steps. It also allows you to be flexible and adapt to unexpected changes.

4. Time Blocking Technique

This time management technique will appeal to Elon Musk’s fans. Although Musk did not invent the technique, he certainly popularized it, which explains how he can manage multiple successful companies like Tesla and SpaceX. 

Musk schedules his day in five-minute blocks to enhance efficiency. Put differently, he gives allots 5 minutes for a single task, such as meetings, responding to emails, and having meals. However, you don’t have to be as strict as him. This technique aims to divide your day into time blocks that suit you. Ideally, schedule one task after another to prevent distractions.

Here are some time-blocking key advantages: 

4.1. Improved Focus

Time blocking helps you concentrate on one task during a specified period.

4.2. Enhanced Efficiency

Procrastination and multitasking will decrease if you set aside specific time for each task.

4.3. Accountability System

Time blocking holds you accountable by establishing a framework for what you need to do and when.

If time-blocking is challenging for you, you can try alternatives like the Pomodoro Technique. This technique involves shorter work intervals of 25 minutes followed by 5-minute breaks.

In Conclusion

This part discussed four time-management steps. Part II will cover the remaining steps.