Time Management – more than just ticking boxes

With the first day of spring having arrived in South Africa and the days slowly becoming longer, we have reached the last stretch towards the end of the year with some much-deserved down time for many. However, you may feel a strong sense of being consumed with your task list continuously growing, email requests flooding your Inbox, as well as various personal and home life requirements and priorities that need to happen simultaneously. This may create the overwhelming feeling of being pulled in different directions and not knowing where to focus or place priority.

With this in mind, the term that stands out is time management. But you may ask, does time management not only mean making use of cell phone apps to remind you of tasks and ticking boxes on your ever-growing to-do list to create the sense of being in control? The easy answer is, no. Time management is about a lot more than just ticking boxes. To understand what the potential benefits of effective time management are and how one can incorporate it into our daily lives, one must firstly understand what time management refers to.

According to Dierdorff (2020), time management includes the process of decision-making whereby an individual’s time is structured, protected and aligned to changing environmental conditions. When successfully managing one’s time, Forbes (2023) indicates that it can lead to numerous benefits, some of which include:

• An increase in productivity;
• Reduction in stress and anxiety;
• Personal growth and development;
• Improved work-life balance; and
• Achievement of goals set.

To implement time management strategies successfully, one does, however, need to have a certain skill set according to Dierdorff (2020). Three particular skills have been researched and identified to have an influence on the success of time management strategies. These include:

• Awareness (“thinking realistically about your time by understanding it is a limited resource”)
• Arrangement (“designing and organising your goals, plans, schedules and tasks to effectively use time”)
• Adaption (“monitoring your use of time while performing activities, including adjusting to interruptions or changing priorities”)

Based on the researched conducted, all three skills were found to be equally important in terms of their overall success in time management performance. Interestingly, the awareness and adaptation skills were found to be most challenging and more difficult to develop in comparison to the arrangement skill given the plethora of technologies and resources available to assist one in arranging your time (Dierdorff, 2020).

The question that now comes to mind is: “How does one improve these time management skills?” Below, based on the research conducted by Dierdorff (2020), is an outline of possible evidence-based strategies for developing each of these skills to assist in becoming more successful in managing one’s time.

Developing Awareness Skills

• Peak performance – determine your peak performance time during the day and focus on using this time productively.
• Time up – rather than focusing on how much time you have left, record how long you’ve spent on tasks with clear deadlines.
• Treat your time like it’s money – create a time budget of your hours spent during a week and categorise the time into fixed time (“must do”) and discretionary time (“want to do”).
• Realistic evaluation of time spent – following completion of a task, evaluate time actually spent versus time planned.
• Future time perspective – think about and review how tasks completed now will help or impede you in the future.

Developing Arrangement Skills

• Prioritise obligations and tasks – it is not enough to only make a list. Priorities need to be allocated.
• Avoid “mere urgency effect” – tasks that are both urgent and important should be done first.
• Make use of a calendar app – record due dates for tasks immediately when requested / planned.
• Schedule “protected time” – calendar appointments with yourself to have uninterrupted time to focus on your most important projects / tasks.
• Reduce underestimation errors by obtaining input from others regarding forecasted time requirements for a task / project.
• Half-sized goals – set a less challenging version of a goal when struggling to attain a goal.

Developing Adaption Skills

• Use short effort bursts – when feeling overwhelmed, use maximum effort for 15–30-minute intervals to assist in avoiding procrastination.
• Experiment with relevant apps (e.g., checklist and time-tracker apps) – remember, gains should outweigh the time spent using the app.
• Detailed reminders – to ensure you have all the required explanations and descriptions to prioritise.
• Reduce time wasters – block social media sites during important work time and create do-not-disturb time slots in your day.
• Create contingency plans – review best-case / worst-case scenarios when outlining outcomes.

From the above, it is evident that improving time management abilities not only involves putting in quick fixes and easy-to-use life hacks, but rather focusing on assessing and developing underlying and highly valuable time management skills. At Joubert and Associates, we are committed to assisting clients in developing their skills and abilities to achieve their best potential and contribute to increased performance.

A concluding thought for when the feeling of being overwhelmed creeps in and you have to manage your already limited time: “The bad news is time flies. The good news is you’re the pilot.” (Forbes, 2023).

Article written by Talita Joubert

Resources:

https://www.forbes.com/councils/forbesbusinesscouncil/2023/11/02/the-ultimate-guide-to-mastering-time-management/

https://hbr.org/2020/01/time-management-is-about-more-than-life-hacks

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