Time management – (n) the practice of using your time effectively
I’d imagine if you clicked on this article you are someone that has a busy schedule or you are trying to fit more things into your day. We all only have 24 hours in the day, 8 of which I hope you are using for rest, so how do you maximize the other 16? The quick answer is planning, multi-tasking, and thinking ahead aka time management.
Step 1: Planning Ahead
What does it mean to plan ahead?
Planning ahead is huge! The only way to plan is to know what you have coming up. Knowing what your week is going to look like, where you have to be and when, how you are going to get there, and what tasks you need to complete throughout the week – knowing the answer to all of these things makes planning ahead possible. Off the bat, it might seem overwhelming and stressful to figure out these answers, but once you get the hang of it, it’ll become second nature for you. So going into this next week ask yourself the following:
- Do I have to go into the office every day this week?
- How am I getting there and how long is my travel time?
- Do I have any long traveling this week? (ie via plane or train)
- What deadlines are coming up this week?
- Do I have any personal commitments or desires?
- What household chores do I need to take care of this week? (ie grocery shopping, deep cleaning, laundry etc)
- Is there anything I didn’t get to do last week?
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Now that you know what it means to plan ahead….
How do you plan ahead?
Tip: this would be a great time to get a weekly planner, or utilize the calendar app on your phone. Click here to download the Our So Called 20s Weekly Calendar Template.
You start putting together the puzzle! You know what you need to do throughout the week, so let’s start figuring out the best way to place these in your calendar. I like to start with the non-negotiables – work. Let’s just assume you work from 9am-5pm. (This is just an example, I know very few people actually get off work at 5pm nowadays.) Drop these into your calendar as a block.
Tip: add travel time to your work block. The reality is, unless you are remote, it probably takes you a subset of time to get to and from the office. Make sure to account for that in your schedule so you don’t set yourself up for failure.
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Now that you have the non-negotiables down, let’s check off the other necessities. Eating breakfast and dinner, let’s just assume lunch is included in your work block. Well what time do you normally eat dinner? Right after work? An hour after? Jot that down and block off 45 -60 mins for it. As for breakfast, this might look different for everyone. For me personally, I like to eat breakfast before I work out, and then munch on something after I work out, but before I shower. What does this mean? It means my morning would look like this
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Figure out what your morning will look like, and drop all of these things into your schedule. Make sure you leave time for the in-between.
Now that you have the bones down, let’s add in the fluff. Always start with the important stuff and then move to the fun stuff. If you’ve been meaning to clean your space, estimate how much time that is going to take and what day you want to do that and put it on the schedule. If you want a really fun weekend, maybe you can make time to do this after work during the week, to allow for a free weekend. No matter what, don’t neglect the responsibilities you need to tend to. Make time and prioritize them. Although they might not be super fun in the moment, keeping your home life in order allows for more flexibility and a smooth week ahead. When things are constantly out of place or a mess, I promise you it will slow you down in everything you do. Even something as simple as looking for your shoes when you are walking out the door. Time management is also about efficiency, so make sure you are always setting yourself up for success.
Once you have these things in place, fill the remainder of the space with how you best see fit. Whether that is time to relax, time to hang out with friends, time to go on a run, whatever. Make it fun and enjoyable and perfect for you to reset. Busy schedules can get overwhelming, so make sure you are setting yourself up for success.
Tip: If you use public transit to get to work or you utilize a ride-share app, this is time that you have at your disposal! Utilize this transit time to the best of your ability. Whether that’s paying bills on the go through your phone, reading another chapter of a book, making time to text, or call back your friends, make use of this time to the best of your ability.
Step 2: Maximize Your Time
What does it mean to maximize your time?
Now that you know how your day/week is structured how can you maximize the time you have blocked out for each task? We’ve already touched on some of this with the tips in the previous step, but the jist of it is figuring out where you can multi-task, or have some things prepped before you even get to that task. What do I mean by this? For example, meal prepping your dinner on the weekends might save you a lot of time and energy throughout the week. Or, if you arent into meal prepping, how can you simplify your meals Monday through Friday to make them easier? If you like to workout after work, maybe you throw rice in the rice cooker while you’re at the gym, so when you come back to the gym you only have to worry about cooking your protein and veggies and you’re off to the races. Maybe maximizing your time looks like throwing your laundry in the washer too while you’re at the gym. This way you have your laundry running, your rice cooking, you’re actively working out, and when you come home, you can throw your clothes in the dryer as you cook your dinner. By the time you eat and take your post-gym shower, you have crossed off four things: laundry, cooking, gym, and shower – with the exception of folding your clothes of course.
Maybe you have some personal projects you are working on and you’re trying to find time in the day to do them without being distracted. For me, the best time to do this is in the morning before the rest of the world has woken up. I find that doing my personal tasks in the morning takes a lot less of my time than when I try to do them after work. The difference? There are fewer distractions for me when everyone else is sleeping. There’s no place I suddenly need to go, because everything is closed, and no one I need to talk to because everyone is asleep. I travel a lot for work as well, and sometimes grocery shopping is the last thing I want to do after a long work trip, but the reality is, I need groceries. I learned that I can order my groceries while in-flight and this has changed my life. While I’m on my plane, I will order my groceries via Amazon Prime Now and schedule them to be delivered to my doorstep within the time frame I’ve arrived back home. This has saved me SO much time. Find these little tricks in your everyday life and give them a go. It’s all about maximizing the time you have.
Step 3: Be Honest with Yourself
Sometimes we like to say we don’t have enough time, yet fail to reflect on the ways we are using our time currently. Below are some of the top ways to make sure you have a tight lid on your time management:
Check Your Screen Time
Ah the biggest mirror to your true time usage. I know we all avoid it, but keeping an eye on this will really help you see how much time you are actually wasting. Go to Instagram and check your screen time. Go to your settings and check to see how much time you are spending on other apps you have on your phone. Odds are, YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok might be some major culprits in how you are losing several hours a day. Multiple that by seven, and there is you amount of time wasted in one week alone. Get a lid on this, as it’s something that is so easy to fall victim to, but also so easy to fix. The answer to your problem might not be waking up earlier, but instead putting your phone done.
Tip: To help you break the bad habit of doom scrolling and wasting time, put your phone in another room, place it on Do Not Disturb (you can customize this feature to silence specific app notifications as well), or set time limits on certain apps. It may be a slight pain in the beginning, but it’ll literally save you so much time in the future.
Are You Nearing Burnout?
Sometimes you are giving life all you’ve got, but you struggle to stay focus. Maybe your quality of work is going down. It’s not that you don’t care, but your output is drastically decreasing over the course of time. This has happened to me before and I thought I was just suddenly becoming lazy. The reality is, you might just be overworked and getting close to burnout or just flat-out burnt out. This isn’t a reflection on you, but instead a reflection on the fact that you need to slow down, take a breather, step away and reboot. It may be frustrating in the moment, but you’ll thank yourself later.
Tip: Read 7 Work Life Balance Tips for 2025 or How to Avoid Burnout if you are struggling in these areas.
Procrastination
We all heard it in school and unfortunately, it can follow you into your adult life. Instead of pushing off the things you don’t want to do for the day, start with them! I know that seems backward, but the reality is, that these tasks aren’t going to sort themselves out, and you will have to do them eventually. So instead of letting them pile up and become more time-consuming, crush the now while you can. Make sure you’re being honest with yourself too. Is it that you don’t have time to get things done, or is it that you’re getting distracted with other things like doom scrolling, or just flat out neglecting your responsibilities? Odds are, you might just be procrastinating.
Prioritization
This is a tricky one, as it’s not always easy to know what is the “most important” things to worry about. I will say, everyone’s life is different and every situation in life is different, so take this with a grain of salt and understand when you have to break this guideline. Work or school and your adult responsibilities should always come first. Of course, if a loved one is sick and needs tending to, that becomes the priority, but again, that’s where the grain of salt comes in. Once you’ve tackled this part, then place the things that set you up for success next. That might be reading a book you’ve been meaning to get to, better optimizing your bank account and bills, cleaning your space, calling maintenance to fix something you’ve been pushing off, etc. Prioritize yourself and what you need, before you prioritize others. Then, and only then, do you fill the rest of your time with fun, filler activities. Of course, life is all about balance, but if you’re struggling with the basics, don’t overcomplicate your life. Set yourself up for success. If you are planning your days and weeks in the opposite order, you might have your priorities out of order, and in turn, your time management is not going very well.
Step 4: Adjust and Repeat
It’s important to remember that you aren’t going to knock time management out of the park the first time and that’s okay! Maybe the first schedule you make for yourself doesn’t quite play out well or maybe you find that you are overloading yourself on certain days. No worries, just adjust! It’s important that you make a routine that works for you and is something you can stick with. There’s no point in making a calendar that is unattainable and unrealistic. Try out a few versions and stick to the one that works best for you!
Time management can be a tricky thing to get a hand on, but once you do you’ll look back and wonder how you ever functioned without this skillset. Don’t be so hard on yourself during the process, but make sure you are honest with yourself on where the true problem lies. This way you can set yourself up for success and go about the solution the right way.
Sources:
“Time Management Definition | Cambridge English Dictionary.” Cambridge English Dictionary, dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/time-management. Accessed 7 Dec. 2024.
