Manage Your Time Wisely

Learning Objectives

After completing this unit, you'll be able to:

• Conduct a time audit.
• Prioritize which tasks to do now versus later.

Take Stock of How You Use Your Time

These days, you may be spending your time differently than you did a few years ago. You may have new responsibilities and tasks. You may have come up with new rhythm in your household in terms of how you balance your remote or hybrid work situation with childcare, wellness, and other responsibilities and needs.

But even if you have a bit more flexibility than you used to, it can still be difficult to prioritize tasks, and identify what’s critical to do now, and what can wait. It’s important to talk about how to divide and balance the work among all the people who share responsibilities (both at work and at home). 

This unit provides tips to help you manage your time effectively, so you can achieve an optimal level of productivity at work and still maintain a good work-life balance.

Do a Time Audit

To maximize your productivity, you have to get serious about your time management. The first step is to figure out how you’re spending your time. If you want to know how you’re using every moment of the day, do a time audit. 

A time audit is, like it sounds, a detailed way of keeping track of everything you do—for a week. Just grab a piece of paper or create a spreadsheet, and every 30 minutes throughout the day, simply make a note of what you’re doing. Or you can use a time-tracking app. (See the Resources section for a list of options.)

Once you know where you’re spending your time, you can figure out if your time-intensive tasks are delivering the most return on your time investment.

Set Your Priorities

So how do you know if you’re focused on the right things? Figuring that out is as easy as ABC 123.

ABC 123 is a method to choose which task to do first and which later. Use ABC 123 to consider each task for its impact on your overall goal and the amount of time it takes to complete. 

Impact on your overall goal

A—Big

B—Moderate

C—Small

Time to complete

1—Quick

2—Intermediate

3—Long

Take your list of tasks, and assign a value to each item on the list (A1, B2, C3, and so on). Then look at your list and prioritize it, starting with the A1 items. Do those A1 items first, since they have a big impact on your goals and are quick. Do C3 items last, since they have a small impact on meeting your goals and take a long time.

Tips for Getting Unstuck

No matter how much you hack your task list and manage your time, there are those moments where you get stuck on a task. So how do you get unstuck? Try these tips for success.

1. Let people know early the project is late.
2. See if the due date can be pushed out.
3. Give your brain a break and get back to it later.

Don’t underestimate that third tip. Sometimes all you need is a short break, and you can come back and get unstuck on something that stumped you for hours.

Apps for Time Management

You learned some strategies and tips. Now look at couple of the apps you can use to stay productive with managing your time.

In Summary

By now, you’ve got some great ideas on how to manage time with grace. 

• Do a time audit.
• Rank what’s most important using ABC 123.
• Review strategies for getting unstuck.
• Use your technology.

In the next unit, explore how to manage your email and calendar like a pro.

Resources

• Blog post: The Best Time Tracking Apps in 2020: Toggl, Clockify, and More