What does time management mean? I realize that I talk about it a lot, but I’ve never defined it.
The answer, for me, is both practical and philosophical.
So let’s attack it from both ends.
“That’s what she said.” ~ Michael Scott
Sorry, had to do it.
That’s what she said.
Ok, serious now.
Time management is how you plan and organize your time.
For example, I am a volunteer baseball coach at the local Middle School. The drive is about 10 minutes each way from my house.
Practice for them is from 3 to 4:30 PM on Monday and Wednesday during the offseason (which is as I’m writing this). The travel baseball organization that I run practices on the same field from 6 to 8 PM.
Important to note is that neither of my kids attends this particular middle school.
Now, I have two basic options when 4:30 PM rolls around. I can either screw around until 6 PM, or I can run home, get my kids, ask about their day, and work a bit before heading back out.
My plan is the latter. It’s easy family time. And it’s a window for some quick creative work.
In fact, I’m writing this section of this post during the back half of that window.
But time management is a little more than that, isn’t it?
When people ask “what is time management?” they really want to know about how to manage their time so that they are more effective and productive. They want to be more efficient.
To do that, you want to think of time management like a life-size game of Tetris.
Tetris is all about fitting things in the right place. You want to get all the blocks you fit into different rows. Empty space is the enemy.
Sometimes, the pieces force you to have a gap. Other times, it’s your fault. But sometimes you can overcome it to get back on track in the game (if you have a plan). Other times, it spirals out of control. And then it’s game over.
In your daily script, you have a series of tasks and projects you need to complete. Non-productive time is the enemy. You want to minimize this. It’s like the pieces that don’t quite fit.
And unplanned unproductive time is worse. Those are the unforced mistakes.
But at the end of the day, time management is about finding ways to make sure everything flows together!
There are many time management apps out there. I use a custom spreadsheet template and the Motion app to manage my daily, weekly and monthly game of Tetris.
But, to make that (or any time management system) work, you need five basic things.
1. Clear Goals and Targets
Imagine you’re planning a road trip. The very first step is having a destination in mind.
Not having clear goals is like going on your trip without having that destination. If you don’t know where you’re going, how are you going to know how to get there?
There are entire books written on this.
My short version is that you want SMART goals.
SMART is an acronym for:
- Specific and Tangible
- Measurable
- Attainable
- Relevant Right Now
- Time-Bound
A good example is “I want to write and publish two blog posts a day so that I can build my following,” instead of “I want to start a blog.”
Clear goals help you have more discipline. And we can all use a little more of that.
2. A Solid Road Map/Plan.
An effective plan is like a road map. An effective plan is like a road map. It will show you exactly where to start, how to get there. It will have detours around potential obstacles. And, if it’s good enough, it will tell you the route with the least traffic.
Just like a trip, you want to plan well in advance. Your road map will consist of three components.
First, you want to brain dump your tasks. Once you have your list, write down both how much time you think they’ll take
Now, add 15% to your time estimate (trust me). This is your “squishy” time.
3. Set Deadlines. Hard. And Soft.
Next, we have to lay out our deadlines. For each task, identify its deadline. But, keep in mind deadlines fall into two buckets.
First, there is an “I must finish this by” bucket. These are your hard deadlines. And these deadlines cannot move.
Then there is the “Would be awesome if I finished by” bucket. These are your soft deadlines. Tasks that you want to do soon, but can move if something unexpected pops up go into this bucket.
Now, you know when the task needs to finish.
But if you’re like me, you’re often planning weeks and months ahead of time (and if you’re not, you should). So now you should figure out what day of the week you’d like to start your task on.
4. Prioritize Your Work.
So what work gets done first? You have to rank your tasks and projects. The highest priority work gets done first. But, keep your deadline types in mind. Rank all hard deadlines over soft ones when they occur on the same day. These are going to be more urgent.
For me, who works with clients, I use a matrix to help me prioritize my work. It is something called a pairwise comparison. It’s used in elections. But it’s also a neat project management tool to take the bias out of prioritizing tasks.
5. Work on the Right Things at the Right Times.
The priority list is gospel. Work down it with relentless focus.
Make sure you focus on one task at a time, and you get it done within your allotted time.
If you finish early, move on to the next task. Don’t think “Oh, I have free time now!”
You don’t.
Bank that time and save it for something more useful than social media or watching Netflix.
Now, this brings me to the more philosophical side of the question “What does time management mean?”
What Does Time Management Mean? Here’s The Happy Truth!
Time management is freedom.
If I get all my work done, if I get ahead of my task list, it leaves time at the end of the day, the week, and the month, for fun. And relaxation. And the stuff I want to do.
Put a real value on your time. And be stingy with how you spend it.
You’ll have more time to spend with your wife and kids. Or to finally go on that dream vacation to the Caribbean for a week (or two!).
You’ll have time to become a reader.
To start a side hustle. Or to build your side hustle into your full-time gig.
But most importantly, you’ll have time to be the person you want to be.
All by focusing on time management.
So when people ask me what time management means, my response is always, “Freedom!”
