Time management experience

30+ Time Management Skills & Examples for Your Resume

Time management skills are precious, both in the workplace and in our everyday lives.

And you came to the right place to learn all you need to know about them.

So let’s not waste time and get straight to the point.

This guide will show you:

A list of the best time management skills.
How to put time management skills on a resume to impress recruiters and land more jobs.
How to describe your time management skills during job interviews and how to answer time management interview questions.
Expert tips on how to improve your time management skills—starting today!

Want to present your time management skills on a resume the best way possible?

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Organization Skills Examples
Hard Skill Examples

Time Management Skills Examples

Time management at work is indispensable. In fact, a recent LinkedIn study revealed that time management is one of the top-five most in-demand soft skills.

And what makes time management even more important?

It’s a transferable skill.

It means it can be applied across all industries and positions. No matter what your job is, being good at time management will greatly improve your hireability.

Without further ado then, let’s have a look at the most important time management skills examples.

(If you’re more interested in how to improve your time management skills, scroll down to see the best tips!)

Here is a list of the most important time management skills:

Prioritizing
Delegation
Decision-making
Goal setting
Multitasking
Problem solving
Strategic thinking
Scheduling
Managing appointments
Record keeping

Need more examples? Here are some less popular (yet crucial!) abilities related to time management:

Organization and filing
Meeting deadlines
Self-awareness
Stress management and coping
Strategic planning
Effective teamwork
Documentation
Assessment and evaluation
Office management and maintenance
Stock inventory
Resource management

The thing is—

Generic skills lists should only work as a point of reference.

It’s not enough to list your time management skills in the skills section of your resume or to simply say “I’m great at time management” during a job interview.

You need to prove you have these skills. Ideally, by providing examples of how you applied them.

Let’s see how you can do it.

First, we’ll walk through listing your time management skills on a resume.

(If you’re more interested in how to answer time management interview questions, move on to the next section.)

How to Put Time Management Skills on a Resume

The job ad requires candidates to be good at time management.

Like I said, putting “Time Management” in your resume skills section won’t do.

Sure, listing a few time management resume keywords amongst your skills could help you pass the ATS scan.

But once human beings start reviewing your resume—they’ll be looking for proof.

You’ll need to provide real-life examples of your time management skills.

The best place to do it?

Descriptions of your past jobs and achievements in the work experience section.

Check out these examples of time management skills described on resumes.

Time Management Skills—Resume Examples

Secretary

Piloted a new appointments booking system which increased office efficiency by 15%.
Commended by 2 supervisors for meticulous record-keeping.

Executive Assistant

Managed busy schedules and travel plans of 3+ corporate executives while performing general office administration duties.
Designed a new system of internal communication between assistants to save 4 work hours a week on average.

Project Manager

Managed the highly successful Lean Training project for three years. Improved quality by 32%, cut lead times 21%, cut costs 48%.

Scrum Master for 15 products, completed an average of 10% under budget, staying within deadlines for every project.

Software Engineer

Optimized beta-testing workflow to double the Timely Project Delivery scores.
Assisted in re-prioritizing the Software Development Roadmap to complete all critical projects on time.

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For great tips on how to put any skills on your resume, see: Skills Employers Want and How to Present Them on a Resume

Sample Time Management Interview Questions & Answers

Congratulations!

You nailed the descriptions of your time management and prioritization skills on your resume.

You made it to the interview. Now, employers will most likely want to ask more detailed questions on how well you manage your time. And it will get trickier.

Interview questions on time management usually fall into the category of situational interview questions.

Let’s go through some examples of time management interview questions and see good and less-than-perfect answers.

1. Tell me about a time your workload was very heavy.

This question focuses mostly on your prioritization skills. See these sample answers. What’s the main difference between them?

right
We had three big orders at the same time. I delegated the least complicated one to the assistant lead and rescheduled less urgent tasks to handle the other two. We got both orders shipped on time and landed $200,000 in repeat business. The assistant lead turned out to be a capable leader and was later commanded by upper management.

wrong
We had a couple big orders come in at the same time. I worked overtime and we got everything done.

The first answer shows two great time-management skills: prioritization and delegation. (It actually shows general management skills, too!)

The second answer? Well, “working overtime,” might show dedication, but actually it’s the exact opposite of effective time management in the workplace.

2. Tell me about a long-running project you handled. How did you manage your time to meet your deadlines?

right
My team had to develop a SaaS application for a major client. We used the Agile SLDC model with 2-week sprints and daily standups/scrums. By delegating time management, we were able to finish the project 20% ahead of time.

wrong
We had to develop a SaaS app for a big client. It took a year to get all the kinks worked out. I kept myself on a strict schedule the entire time.

The right answer shows project management and effective teamwork.

The wrong one? It’s far too unspecific, thus, hardly believable.

3. Describe a time when you had too many to-do items on your list. How did you solve the problem?

right
Our department downsized and I got twice my normal workload. I found ways to do things quicker by sourcing new transcription software and making a new system for sorting interviews. I was able to do twice the work with the same effort.

wrong
During the holiday rush, I had a lot more to-dos than normal. Since that would mean working overtime every day, I convinced my supervisors that some of the tasks cannot be completed within deadlines and they agreed with my reasoning.

The right answer is a perfect example of problem-solving, coping, as well as creative thinking.

The wrong answer isn’t actually awful. Sometimes it’s necessary to give some projects up and it’s good to realize it when the time comes.

But the answer sounds as if the candidate showed no initiative at all, which might be a red flag for hiring managers.

To get ready for every interview that might be ahead of you, make sure you read: Common Job Interview Questions and the Best Answers

How to Improve Time Management Skills? 3 Top Tips

I hate to break this to you:

To get better at time management requires both time and practice. But—

There are things you can start doing today to get better at managing your time. And it all starts with prioritizing.

1. Understand the Difference Between Urgent and Important

Urgent things require your immediate attention. But just because something is urgent, doesn’t mean it’s important.

Doing things that seem urgent but are actually of little significance costs us all a lot of time.

You should always focus on what’s important: starting with urgent issues, and following with less urgent ones.

For things that are urgent, but not important: try and delegate if there’s someone who can do them for you. If not, come back to them later (if necessary at all).

Things that are neither urgent nor important? Ignore them. Or save them for last if they’re your guilty pleasures like playing video games.

Use a priority matrix like this one, to keep tasks organized:

Here are some practical examples to help you see the difference:

Urgent and Important Tasks: Do Now

Tax deadline.
Sudden work crisis.
Phone call from a strategic client.

Not Urgent but Important Tasks: Do Next

Exercising
Long-term planning
Learning new skills

Urgent but Not Important Tasks: Do Later (If Still Necessary) or Delegate

Phone call from a telemarketer.
Most emails.
Requests for favors from coworkers.

Not Urgent and Not Important Tasks: Ignore

Browsing social media.
Playing video games.
Binge-watching TV series you’ve already seen 8 times.

2. Do Difficult Work When You Know You’re Most Productive

All of us have certain times of day when we’re most productive. Schedule difficult tasks that require full focus for these times, if possible.

Personally, I’m the exact opposite of a morning person. I know I can’t write for the first 2 to 3 hours after waking up. So I fill this time with smaller tasks such as replying to emails, taking care of the proper documentation of my work and so on.

The priority matrix from the previous section also helps here: if you have a list of smaller, non-urgent but important tasks, you can always pick from them when you have a moment of spare time, but feel unable to do anything complex.

3. Stick to a Schedule and Don’t Miss Deadlines

Keith Wilcox, a researcher out of Columbia University, analyzed half a million tasks entered into a popular to-do list app to check the users’ behaviour.

He found that when they changed the deadline for a task, it took them an average of 16 more days to complete the task than when they kept the original deadline.

Missing deadlines is not a once in a while occurrence either—users changed deadlines on 51% of tasks.

Creating a schedule for your whole week, in turn, helps you save time you’d spend deciding what task to do next.

It’s best to use a to-do list to schedule out everything we’re going to do each week (and day) into our calendar and then just let the calendar direct us.

A calendar itself can be your most important productivity tool. You can use it to measure the value of your work time so that you can make the most of your working hours.

Want to learn more about getting better at managing your time and priorities? Read our article with insider hacks from professional project managers (plus, a list of the coolest time management and productivity apps!): How to Manage Your Life Like a Professional Project Manager (Insider Tips)

Plus, a great cover letter that matches your resume will give you an advantage over other candidates. You can write it in our cover letter builder here. Here's what it may look like:

See more cover letter templates and start writing.

Key Takeaway

Here’s a recap of the most important points about time management skills:

Time management skills are amongst the 5 most desired soft skills on today's job market.
Examples of time management skills include: prioritizing, organization, delegation, strategic planning, and problem solving.
To show off your time management skills on a resume, don’t just list them: back them up with real-life examples.
To improve your time management skills: focus on the most important tasks and ignore those that are urgent but not vital to complete. Do difficult work when you feel most productive, and create a schedule and stick to it.

Thanks for reading my article! Now I’d love to hear from you. What time management skills do you think are most important today? Do you have any questions about how to put time management on a resume or discuss it during a job interview? Drop me a line in the comments and I’ll get back to you straight away!

Time Management Skills | SkillsYouNeed

Have you ever wondered how it is that some people seem to have enough time to do everything that they want to, whereas others are always rushing from task to task, and never seem to finish anything?

It cannot just be that some people have less to do. It’s much more likely that they are using their time more effectively: in other words, showing good time management skills.

Time management is the ability to use your time productively and efficiently. You could also think of it as the art of having time to do everything that you need, without feeling stressed about it. It sounds simple, but it is much harder in practice.

This page explains some of the principles behind good time management.

The Importance of Time Management

Time management skills are essential because few, if any, of us ever have enough time to do everything that is asked of us, or that we want to do.

Time management is defined as using your time productively and efficiently—but what about when you are working as productively as possible, and you still can’t get everything done? It may be better to think about time management as a combination of working productively and prioritising your time.

In other words, people who are good at time management are good at getting on and doing things. They are also, however, better at prioritising, and working out what really needs doing—and then discarding the other things.

They can do this because they understand the difference between urgent and important.

‘Urgent’ tasks demand your immediate attention, but whether you actually give them that attention may or may not matter.
'Important' tasks matter, and not doing them may have serious consequences for you or others.

For example:

Answering the phone is urgent. If you don’t do it, the caller will ring off, and you won’t know why they called—and it might be important. It may also, however, be an automated voice telling you that you may be eligible for compensation for having been mis-sold insurance. That’s not important.
Going to the dentist regularly is important (or so we’re told). If you don’t, you may get gum disease, or other problems. But it’s not urgent. If you leave it too long, however, it may become urgent because you may get toothache.
Picking your children up from school is both urgent and important. If you are not there at the right time, they will be waiting in the playground or the classroom, worrying about where you are. You may also inconvenience others such as teachers who are waiting with your children for you to arrive.
Reading funny emails or checking Facebook is neither urgent nor important. So why is it the first thing that you do each day? See our page minimising distractions to help you recognise and avoid other things that may distract you from getting your urgent and important tasks done.

This distinction between urgent and important is the key to prioritising your time and your workload, whether at work, at home or when studying.

It enables you to work out what to do first, and what can be left either until later, or not done at all. For example, if you leave an urgent but unimportant task, you may find that it becomes unnecessary.

Using a grid like the priority matrix below can help you to organise your tasks into their appropriate categories:

Using the Priority Matrix

To use the priority matrix, it is best to review your tasks on a daily basis. Each day, ask yourself:

Which of my tasks needs doing within the next 48 hours?

Those are the ‘Urgent’ tasks.
Of the urgent tasks, which ones are more important?

It is a good idea to list your tasks in order of importance, rather than giving them an absolute ‘important/not important’ distinction.
Of the non-urgent tasks, which ones are more important?

Again, it is a good idea to list them in order, rather than giving them an absolute distinction.

Now use the answers to these questions to allocate your tasks to the boxes in the priority matrix, following these rules:

Each box should contain no more than about seven or eight tasks.
Start with the ‘Do Now’ box.
Crucially, don’t put off urgent or important things just because they are unpleasant. They won’t get any better for procrastinating.

If it’s your job to eat a frog, it’s best to do it first thing in the morning. And if it’s your job to eat two frogs, it’s best to eat the BIGGEST one first.
Mark Twain
Next, look at the less urgent but still important tasks. Decide what you are going to do about them, and then schedule time into your diary to do them, or consider delegating them to someone else.
Delegate the urgent but easier/less important tasks.
Now eliminate the non-urgent and non-important tasks.
Finally, do the work. Start your ‘Do Now’ list. When you finish it, move onto the scheduled work or tasks.

If there are more tasks that you can manage in any quadrant, it is time to a) do some, b) delegate some or c) eliminate some.

Regular pruning of your matrix in this way will ensure that you can focus on what really matters, and keep work flowing.

An individual judgement

The urgency and/or importance of a task is not absolute. Only you can decide what you really think is important or urgent.

Some people, for example, prefer to wait until they are asked a second time for a piece of work before they start to do it. If they are never asked again, they never start the work—they simply decide that it is not important enough to anyone for them to spend the time.

Remember, too, that you and your health are important. Just because you have lots to do doesn’t mean that doing some exercise, going for a 10-minute walk or making time to eat properly is not important. You should not ignore your physical or mental health in favour of more 'urgent' activities.

Warning!

Urgency and/or importance is not a fixed status. You should review your task list regularly to make sure that nothing should be moved up because it has become more urgent and/or important.

What can you do if an important task continually gets bumped down the list by more urgent, but still important tasks?

First, consider whether it is genuinely important. Does it actually need doing at all, or have you just been telling yourself that you ought to do it?

If it really is important, then consider delegating it. See our page on Delegating Skills for more.

Case Study:
A Win-Win Situation from Delegating

Jenny was the leader of a busy, highly reactive team, with constant and urgent demands on her time. She knew that she needed to think about the longer-term strategy for her team , but it was very hard to set aside the time.

In a development discussion, Sara, one of her team, expressed her desire to do some more strategic work to build up her skills. Jenny saw an opportunity for both of them, and offered Sara the opportunity to map out the strategy for the team.

Sara jumped at the chance and produced a carefully-considered plan which was a great foundation for further work.

Personal vs. Professional

What about the balance between personal and professional priorities? There are two ways to manage this:

Include both in the same matrix

Advantages: your personal items do not get lost.

Disadvantages: you will need to find a balance between work and personal items.
Use two separate matrices, and allocate separate time slots for dealing with each

Advantages: means that you can deal with both, with a realistic view about urgency.

Disadvantages: can get quite complicated.

It is really up to you which you choose—the key is to make it work for you.

Further Principles of Good Time Management

The priority matrix is therefore key to prioritising your workload. However, time management is more than just prioritisation: it is also about being able to work more productively. There are a number of other ways in which you can improve your efficiency and productivity.

Keep Tidy

For some of us, clutter can be both a real distraction and genuinely depressing.

Tidying up can improve both self-esteem and motivation. You will also find it easier to stay on top of things if your workspace is tidy, and you keep your systems up to date.

Top Tip for Tidying:
Create three piles of your stuff: Keep, Give Away, and Throw Away.
- Keep, if you need to keep it for your records, or do something with it. If it needs action, add it to your task list.
- Give away, if you don’t want it, but someone else might be able to use it, and/or it is work that can and should be delegated.
- Throw away (or recycle) for things that have no value to you or anyone else.
Use A ‘To Do’ List

Whether electronic or paper, lists are a good way to remember what you’ve got to do, and to see at a glance what you’ve forgotten.

Consider highlighting the most important items in some way, and remember to take things off your list when they are complete and/or no longer need doing.
Pick Your Moment

All of us have times of day that we work better. It’s best to schedule the difficult tasks for those times.

However, you also need to schedule in things that need doing at particular times, like meetings, or a trip to the post office.

Another useful option is to have a list of important but non-urgent small tasks that can be done in that odd ten minutes between meetings: might it be the ideal time to send that email confirming your holiday dates?

Top Tip: Using Scheduling Technology
Some people still prefer to use a paper diary and to-do list—and that’s fine.
However, for those who like technology, there are now plenty of tools available to help you with scheduling. Apps like Doodle, Calendly, Microsoft Bookings and Google Calendar can help you to schedule your work, and also make appointments with others.
You can also provide pre-set appointment slots for others to book meetings with you, keeping the rest of your diary hidden. This means you can schedule in ‘me-time’ or family time without worrying what anyone will think, or whether they will try to override your priorities.
This allows you to automate your meetings, without handing over control of your time to anyone else.

Don’t Procrastinate, but Do Ask Why You’re Tempted

If a task is genuinely urgent and important, get on with it.

If, however, you find yourself making excuses about not doing something, ask yourself why.

You may be doubtful about whether you should be doing the task at all. Perhaps you’re concerned about the ethics, or you don’t think it’s the best option. If so, you may find that others agree. Talk it over with colleagues or your manager, if at work, and family or friends at home, and see if there is an alternative that might be better.
Don’t Try to Multi-task

Generally, people aren’t very good at multi-tasking, because it takes our brains time to refocus.

It’s much better to finish off one job before moving onto another. If you do have to do lots of different tasks, try to group them together, and do similar tasks consecutively.

Stay Calm and Keep Things in Perspective

Perhaps the most important thing to remember is to stay calm. Feeling overwhelmed by too many tasks can be very stressful. Remember that the world will probably not end if you fail to achieve your last task of the day, or leave it until tomorrow, especially if you have prioritised sensibly.

Going home or getting an early night, so that you are fit for tomorrow, may be a much better option than meeting a self-imposed or external deadline that may not even matter that much.

Take a moment to pause and get your life and priorities into perspective, and you may find that the view changes quite substantially!

Time management by personal example: 10 theses / Sudo Null IT News

One of the most expensive and irreplaceable resources that we all have is time. On average we have 66.29 years, which is equivalent to 24212 days or 34865280 minutes or 2091916800 seconds. Considering that a third of the time a person spends on sleep, and for most readers of this article, a whole third of this resource has already been spent, there is not much precious time left to scatter. Time is money, time is life.

There is no excess and lack of time - you just need to appreciate it and be able to use its course, like a stream of rivers - thanks to which a person moves on ships and uses the power of water in mills. This should also be done correctly so as not to row against the current. Even the smallest streams grind rocks, and seconds can turn into years of useful deeds and success.

I myself, in the process of thinking about and writing this article, often complained about the lack of time. More than one month passed from idea to execution, and so that this article does not seem like a rewriting of the next theses from time management, I spent quite a few minutes, hours, days and tried different ideas that I want to share. So if you want to do time management, do it, don't read about it! This time. If you are interested in practices, methods, techniques, please refer to the primary sources : S. Covey, G. Arkhangelsky, D. Allen - from managing yourself, personal space, tricks. This is two. In my article, I will talk about my own experience, about the flow of time and how I am in it.

"Remember that your own decision to succeed is more important than hundreds of others" - Abraham Lincoln

So, it all started with the fact that one day in May my life changed, and instead of the standard schedule from eight to five and following the roadmap, it became necessary for me to hand out, create schedules and monitor their implementation. From a technical point of view, this is not difficult: we select a task, set deadlines, assign a resource. Since our resources are alive - people, as well as a changing code, to correct it, we will introduce the risks and costs of tea drinking, kissing the thigh of a darling in the dining room, the complexity and intricacy of problems and requirements - which is even easier, because requires an assessment of the performance of a particular algorithm, or the application of technology. We take a task in Jira, click and ... From a technical point of view ... But in practice this is not entirely true. Instead of sitting in a chair and moving resources, you have to be involved in the whole process, not just your piece of code, but the entire project, or even several projects that do not quite intersect with each other. Those. answer questions, make decisions, explain… and, in fact, in this mouse fuss, in constant switching from task to task and from person to person, my day began to pass…

I thought about it and decided that there must be something wrong here, because. I need my time myself, and not just my subordinates and projects. And if so, then it means that you need to learn how to manage it.

To begin with, it is worth understanding what we ourselves want. This is a fundamental question. Not only in work, but also in life. We each have roles in life. My roles, for example, can be called: worker, friend, teacher, student, son, husband, etc. It is worth highlighting the main and fundamental ones for you. They will be different for everyone, of course, but, most likely, we would all like to have a good career, and be a good friend, and an excellent spouse, and somehow prove ourselves in society - with our talent or public recognition. And the easier and better it will be to live, the more harmoniously and more evenly (of course, taking into account the internal coefficient of importance) these areas will develop.

Secondly, you need to make a list of all the cases, projects, desires that you currently have and classify what area they will relate to. It may well be that some of the desires or deeds that we often put off, that put pressure on us, turn out to be not at all important for our guidelines. Here you should choose the most important and not exchange for trifles. What exactly will affect our key areas of life? When is it important? Will it matter in the future?

For myself, for simplicity, I singled out only four areas:

Career
Self-development
Society
Family

In practice, each of the categories could be broken down in my case in the same way:
- Career - a list of what is responsible for professional success - steps, actions, accomplishments, acquired skills. I also included here both professional (and corporate) training (myself as a student), and the role of a teacher and mentor - exchange of experience, trainings.
— Self-development — because one of the most unpleasant things in life for me is living in existing conditions. I want to develop my knowledge and skills. So, for example, here I included language classes, reading literature (professional and fiction), playing sports, obtaining rights, time management, hobbies.
- Society - both communication with colleagues, friends, and establishing and maintaining relationships with people, including some kind of publications.
- Family is also relationships with relatives and loved ones. As including routine, business, material relationships, and non-material relationships.

As a result, after a thorough analysis / analysis, I left 28 tasks that require my close attention and execution. This is the third thesis: knowing what and when you want - start doing it!

“We are what we do all the time. Perfection is not an act, but a habit.” - Aristotle

Be sure to try it - you'll love it! In my case, in addition to job responsibilities at work, keeping abreast of new trends and technologies, improving my skills, I had to go to a driving school, study English, keep fit, read books, magazines, watch movies, meet friends, parents, give gifts compliments to your beloved and indulge her from time to time with culinary masterpieces. So, after a few days, I had a sense of time. More precisely, a feeling of lack of time. And it became a pity to waste time looking at cats on the Internet. In addition, there was a problem that, despite the fact that an important task hung on the list, it stubbornly did not want to be completed.

The fourth thesis of will be a typical advice from time management: formulate actions in tasks rather than goals. In my case, “keep fit” was transformed into “sign up for a fitness club”, “go to a fitness club”, “exercise”. The goal has become separable and measurable, and therefore executable. If you follow the terminology of Gleb Arkhangelsky, then in order to eat an elephant, you need to swallow it in steaks, at least daily (weekly). The result of reworking my list of steaks and frog to-dos (small but unpleasant things that are put off every day until tomorrow) was to reduce the list of goals to a list of repeatable and measurable tasks - weekly planning.

Of course, I agree, it sounds strange that you should “compliment” seven times and mark “done” in a day, but it is a completely measurable approach that allows you to assess the quality of one or another chosen area of life. I can hardly say that this is less important to me than checking the reports from my subordinates.

As a result of these searches and conclusions, I came up with the following spreadsheet, in which I had to mark progress daily and track success rates. Contrary to my expectations, in the first two weeks, the results against my goals were not just worse, but catastrophically worse. Of course, not every task in the table is mandatory for 100% execution, but if it turns red instead of green, this is an alarm signal. Therefore, I slightly complicated the excel book by collecting statistics by days of the week, by weeks, by spheres. I determined for myself what a “productive” and “effective” day and week are.

Efficiency \ productivity on the days of the week :

Production :

Efficiency :

Efficiency (relevant) 9000 As a result of the re-analysis, I, of course, concluded that some things can be combined (for example, you can read on the way to work, as well as watch movies, by the way), fiction can also be obtained in the form of an audio recording, and therefore you can listen to how to road, and in the same fitness club. Instead of browsing news portals, you can set up the desired selection, rss feeds, and / or take a thematic magazine, printouts from the reception and read them during lunch. Things got off the ground, but not too well. I re-read Lyubishchev's instructions and tried to follow them, but, alas, I could not achieve everything. What was taking my time?

Fifth thesis: know time in person: where and what you spend time on. The easiest way to start is with statistics: how much and in what areas it goes. Most of it will be expected - this is a dream, a road, some kind of routine - fees from and to work, preparations for bed, everyday life and the like. In my opinion, the most effective method of evaluation is to write down your employment in a journal. It turned out to be convenient for me to use an A4 notebook, where I entered the start time of some action with an ordinary ballpoint pen. This does not mean that every five minutes you need to write down what you are doing at this time - make notes when your activity changes. In this way, you can track which activities make up useful time and which do not. The main thing is to write it down as it is: if your colleagues were distracted by the question, write it down. Were distracted by the Internet - write it down. When you get back to business, make the following note again. The result should be a rather ragged graph, in which every now and then there will be holes from “garbage time”. How to deal with it is up to you. What useful things will you do while waiting for transport and how will you treat a colleague who distracts you. In my case, most of the garbage time was precisely these two categories. With the first one it’s clear - we listen to an audiobook, and with the second one - instead of the tendency to be a universal reference book, I decided that it’s better to accumulate and sort out questions during meetings en masse. Usually up to 99% of the information is in Google or a person's own brain (one has only to stir it up) in a short time. In addition, from the point of view of discipline and responsibility, this approach is also preferable. I will not dwell on this in detail, I will only say that such a “five-minute” assessment of my time greatly increased both my efficiency and productivity, and my guys - to evaluate parasitic urgent matters (phone calls, questions, e-mails, burning reactions to bugs , as well as on third-party and not very important for the project embellishment and code licking, sticking features - the code must be checked, and reviewed against standards and specifications). Constant distractions and attention shifts take you out of the state of flow and simply make you spend extra minutes, or even dozens, floundering to get back on track.

"You can do anything, but not everything" - David Allen.

However, there was a floating, third, category of waste time - when at the end of the day one wanted to break this self-established regime and surf the Internet instead of something useful. Although it sounds strange, one approach was to force myself, instead of wasting this time on idleness, to spend it in a more productive way - on the same movie watching - but from time to time I could not overcome myself, procrastination took over me, and on some days, I was overcome with reckless despair at how everything was planned, and what limits and inconsistencies I have with them. No matter how such a local “pinarik” kicked me, from time to time he demotivated me and demanded to switch off from life for a day or two. Day. Two days. Inefficient and reckless.

“The cause of all failure is reckless action” - Alex McKenzie.

Then I again began to reason and analyze how it began to turn out this way. Even once a month or two, but there were such holes, and they were a stable trend. They didn't suit me. Hence the sixth thesis: the effectiveness of time management is not in the number of cases supported, but in their quality. I began to understand that the further, the worse I can do parallel business per day. Roughly speaking, if I had to write code in a day, prepare a training, study English, visit the pool and read several chapters from professional literature, then 2-3 of these cases turned out to be effective, productive, and the rest were formally started, somehow hastily done , which influenced the feeling of the result, which, ultimately, was reflected in my subconscious assessment of my actions. Yes, of course, from time to time, as before, I could effectively complete 5 and 7 or more such resource-intensive and concentration-requiring projects at once, but for some short intervals of time, after which a breakdown followed. My conclusion has become that you should plan not only a weekly list of frogs, but have a plan for the day, which will clearly indicate no more than three key tasks. By the way, this observation also explained to me the performance drawdown on Monday, when weekend tails often remained. After all, rest is also an activity, business, occupation, and not a makeweight in the “remaining time”.

Seventh thesis: switch completely. Give your affairs exactly the amount of time and the limits they deserve. In other words: do not think about working at home, but when you come to work, work. Do not sit out at work, but do not run away from it either. Respect your choice both at home and at work. Unexpected “extra time”, saved on something, can always be filled with important things. Set a rule: "Your working hours are your time, not your boss's and timekeeper's time." Learn to appreciate him more than others - because. only you know its true value, invest in yourself. If you work 8 hours a day, then devote this time to what is most correlated with your affairs from work-related areas. If you spend time with your family, then spend it with your family, and not with communication with the TV or a glass of cognac, and even more so without simultaneously preparing for the upcoming working day. Look for opportunities. Switch. Delimit.

Eighth thesis: Conduct revisions from time to time. Collecting statistics and planning is good, but not enough. Because your goals and values may change, sooner or later you will have to make changes to the table, the list of goals and desires. The same is true for coefficients. However, still be honest with yourself, do not adjust the numbers to the results.

Ninth thesis: always have a to-do list at hand . If you do not have such a list, be sure to get one. I'm not talking about a regular to-do list, not a list of frogs, but about some one-time goals and tasks. They may or may not be tied to time. It can either be tied to a place or not. In any case, always keep it in front of your eyes and / or at hand. Now there are not so few tools that allow you to manage such task lists, and the same Outlook is quite suitable for these purposes, although I prefer the simple but accessible RememberTheMilk platform. Enter the task, if necessary, indicate the time and place, determine the scope, priority. And watch from time to time. The main thing is to do it regularly: formulate goals and deeds as actions.

Success is half the battle; the main thing is to keep him - Orison Scott Marden.

Tenth thesis: be in the flow! After having a sense of time, a sense of its value (especially the value of minutes spent with loved ones and / or with your favorite hobby), you will certainly want to follow your goals, values, plans and be more flexible at the same time. Again, by analogy with water - the stream has tremendous power, driving force and direction, while it does not break, but goes around obstacles and rocks. To achieve this, you can try different techniques, you can learn from mistakes - in any case, you will be more successful in doing it effectively. This will bring satisfaction and free up time for new things. The more you do, the more you get done. So in the end, I just wish you good luck and the desire to catch your wave in managing yourself and your time. And, if you still don’t remember my first thesis, then remember the ever-relevant Chinese proverb:

A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step - Lao Tzu.

13 rules for effective time management - Personal experience on vc.ru

600 of these checklists can be downloaded on the "Marketing Tools" channel and even a warm-up scheme for 20 days.

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How to build your day to do more and get tired less? Let's find out in the article.

Morning

General Rule

Work full time. As soon as you get to the office, immediately get to work. Do not chat with others, do not read newspapers, do not "walk" on the Internet.

The rule is more important than the main one

Work only during working hours.

Fresh or Fried

In the morning, after sleep, the human brain is fresh. Then, over time, it "roasts", i.e. gets tired.

Fresh — place the most important and difficult things at the beginning of the day to do them first, while you can still be fresh and you have the strength.

Fried - those things that are not difficult and important or pleasant you should plan for the afternoon.

Eat that damn frog

Get into the habit of dealing with the big frog task fearlessly at first, and over time it will become a habit.

Method 10 minutes

Do you have a task that you do not want to start? Tell yourself, "I'll only do this for 10 minutes and then I'll go and rest." Most likely during this time you will be drawn into the work and will not be able to stop.

Day

Pomodoro Francesco Cirillo

What it is: set a timer for 25 minutes and during this time do the work without distraction. After that, take a break of 5 minutes and repeat the cycle again - continue to work. Every four cycles, take a long break of 30 minutes.

600 of these checklists can be downloaded on the "Marketing Tools" channel and even a warm-up scheme for 20 days.

"90 by 30" method

What it is: according to this method, one and a half hours (90 minutes) are allotted for work, and after that - 30 minutes for rest. After that, the cycle repeats. Each complete cycle takes 2 hours.

Important: assign the first cycles to the most important and complex cases, and the next cycles to less important ones.

Alternate activities. This will help increase productivity and not overwork due to monotonous work.

Don't check your email often. It is better to do this 1-2 times a day and respond to emails immediately.

Evening

Plan in the evening

At the end of the working day, make a plan for the next day, which will include those things that you did not have time to complete today, and new tasks.

When scheduling appointments and meetings, set aside 10-15 minutes for them in case something drags on. Plan ahead for breaks in your calendar when you're not texting or thinking about work.

The main secret

First plan your rest for the evening

Time anchor

Write tasks in order:

that do not move (meetings)
recurring (report)
the rest is just a list, do not arrange by time

On the first day of working with the list, work efficiency will increase by 25%. This is 2 hours from an 8-hour working day.

Analyze

In the evening, evaluate how your day went. What has been done and what has not been done, and what has prevented you. Are you satisfied with the result? Think about it and try to change something for the better.

Retro on oneself

To those who realize in the evening that they have not done anything and do not understand what time it took:

how much time do you spend on each task
tasks that take less than 2-3 minutes can be omitted

We run a tracker for a week, and in a week we analyze time killers

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