12 Top Time Management Skills and How to Improve Them

Time management is critical to accomplishing tasks, reaching goals and maintaining a healthy work-life balance. That may make it sound like a magical superpower, but it’s a very real skill set that can be developed over time.

What Is Time Management?

Time management is how you control your time to be productive and reach your goals. It requires a series of skills, like setting goals, creating a plan to reach those goals and staying focused on achieving the tasks in that plan.

Time management skills help you be more proactive instead of “letting the day happen to you,” productivity and time management consultant Alexis Haselberger told Built In. When you merely react to issues as they arise, you may end the day feeling unproductive and anxious about all the work you’ll need to do tomorrow.

While emails and meetings might be a necessary component of your job, true productivity is about “achieving significant results,” productivity expert Maura Thomas told Built In. After all, it’s those substantive accomplishments that leave us feeling productive, satisfied and happy at the end of the day.

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12 Time Management Skills and How to Improve Them

According to experts, honing the skills below may help you manage your time better and feel more productive throughout the day.

1. Goal Setting

Setting goals can feel daunting, but you can make them feel more tangible by setting specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-based (SMART) goals.

Clarity for goals is key: “When you don’t have a clear goal, when you don’t have clear steps to get there, you’re just not going to spend your time as efficiently and impactfully as you could,” time management coach Anna Dearmon Kornick told Built In.

2. Prioritization

If you’re not prioritizing what’s most important to your work, you may be busy with less important tasks but not productive in achieving significant results. Start by looking at your most urgent tasks and prioritize those in order of importance. From there, you can prioritize your less-urgent tasks.

Without the skill of prioritization, “we will constantly be swimming in too many things to do because we are going to look at everything as being equally important,” Kornick said.

3. Planning

Create a game plan for your day by writing out a schedule or list of things to do. This can be done either on paper, in a digital document or in a time management app. By getting those thoughts out of your head and onto a list or schedule, you can better organize your thoughts (and ensure you won’t forget anything).

At the end of the day, Haselberger suggests making a realistic plan of action for the following day. This will also prevent some of the nighttime anxiety about your workload, which is often due to feeling overwhelmed. When you have a handle on what you need to do the next day, you are more likely to disconnect from work and enjoy your free time. It will also save you time in the morning because you’ll know exactly what to do instead of spacing out and wondering where to start.

4. Focus

While productivity is typically framed in terms of time management, Thomas said most people are really grappling with a habit of distraction — mainly caused by technology. 

“We come to expect some sort of ping or ding or interruption every minute or so,” she said. “Even when there isn’t one, we interrupt ourselves looking for one.”

By reframing time management as attention management, Thomas said we become more aware of the root problem of distraction and the impact it has had on our attention spans. It will take a conscious effort to replace a habit of distraction with a habit of attention management, Thomas said, but being mindful about where your attention goes will ultimately strengthen your ability to focus over time.

5. Delegation

If you’re in a management or leadership position, your attention should be on high-level, strategic initiatives. If you find yourself bogged down with tasks that could be performed by someone else, you should be delegating those tasks. It may not come easy at first, but learning how to delegate will free you up to make bigger moves that will help your business grow in the long run.

6. Boundary Setting

To focus on a task, it’s helpful to be in an area that is quiet and free from distractions. This can be difficult in office environments, where coworkers may be talking or asking you questions. Thomas suggests using a sign, like headphones or a closed door, that signals you are trying to focus. If you refuse to let people take your attention during that time, they will eventually understand the meaning of the signal.

7. Assertiveness

If you agree to every project or meeting that comes across your desk, you’ll quickly find yourself overwhelmed by the extra time commitments. If you truly want to be in control of your time, you’ll have to push back against taking the lead on new initiatives that fall outside your scope of responsibility or decline meetings that don’t feel productive.

8. Technology Management

Our laptops and smartphones demand our attention all day with notifications. Even when we’re not getting pinged, we might refresh our email out of habit or check social media for a quick dopamine hit. To counteract these urges, you might have to turn off smartphone notifications, close out your email or leave your phone in another room. There are also tools like inbox pause, which controls when you get new emails sent to your inbox.

9. Task Batching

Numerous studies have found that attempting to do multiple tasks at once or switching between multiple tasks is far less productive than focusing on a single task at a time. Switching gears between two completely different tasks comes with inefficient “switching costs,” or time needed to orient to the new task. To avoid these switching costs, some productivity experts recommend task batching, or performing similar tasks in succession.

10. Time Blocking

Finding time to accomplish something is a common hurdle. Time blocking allows you to proactively schedule time on your calendar for a specific task. You don’t have to do this with every task on your to-do list, but it’s worth carving out heads-down time for projects that require deeper focus. It can also be helpful from a mindset perspective to create a visual representation of your time. If you’re using a digital calendar, your coworkers will be able to see that you are busy during that period and should try to schedule any potential meetings around it.

11. Time Tracking

If you’re having trouble getting started with work, set a timer for 20 or 25 minutes and challenge yourself to work uninterrupted until the buzzer goes off. If you feel like you’re on a roll, you can keep working. If not, you can take a well-deserved break. One popular approach to this is the Pomodoro technique, which consists of 25-minute work intervals followed by a five-minute break. After four 25-minute intervals, you can take a longer 15- to 30-minute break to reset your mind.

12. Knowing When to Take a Break

Whether you use a timer or not, it’s important to take regular breaks throughout the day. If you feel unfocused or fidgety, Haselberger said it’s best to listen to your mind and body and go for a walk, drink a glass of water or listen to a short podcast. While it may be tempting to try to force yourself to focus, studies show that short breaks can improve productivity, focus and creativity.

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Why Is Time Management Important?

By mastering time management skills, you can reap many potential benefits, including:

Higher Productivity

By managing your time better, you can efficiently accomplish important tasks that will help you reach your short-term and long-term goals.

Less Stress

You’ll feel less stressed about upcoming deadlines when you have the time management skills to make a plan for reaching those deadlines. Time management can also prevent you from procrastinating, which creates a great deal of stress right before a deadline.

Better Work-Life Balance

When you manage your time successfully, you will have leftover free time that you can use to spend with your family, enjoy a hobby or simply relax. This will help you achieve better work-life balance and prevent your risk of burnout.

More Confidence

You’ll feel more confident in yourself and your ability to get things done when you have the tools to control how you spend your time.

Better Sleep

Time management skills allow you to plan ahead, focus on your most important tasks and ultimately be more productive, which will help you sleep without worrying about the things you have to get done.

Better Health

Less stress and more sleep are two important ingredients to good health. Time management will also give you the free time to exercise, eat healthy and spend time with friends and family.

Higher Self-Awareness

When you learn to manage your attention, you will be more present, mindful and aware of how you spend your time. Rather than reacting to email, social media or other distractions, you’ll be more in tune with what is important to you and use your time to advance those goals.

More Fulfillment From Work

Stressing about everything on your to-do list can suck all the enjoyment out of your day-to-day work. When you learn how to manage your time, you can engage more thoughtfully with your work and be more productive, which in turn makes you feel accomplished and fulfilled with your work.

Frequently Asked Questions