The best time management strategies for scheduling your day, week, month, year, and even life
There is no single time management system that works for every single person. They all have strengths and weaknesses and their results will vary depending on your circumstances, goals, and personality. To help you find the elements of your ideal plan, we’ve gone through the most popular time management strategies out there so you can find the tips and tricks that work for your individual needs.
Big rocks first
The big rocks method, as popularized by Steven Covey, means identifying your big rocks (i.e. your priorities) then planning your day around them
- Less important activities (your gravel and sand) take second place
- Pros: Know the most important tasks are taken care of, while still fitting secondary tasks in around them
The Next Hour
Plan out each of your next hours, rather than your whole day
- Regularly top up the list throughout the day so it always contains approximately one hour’s work
- Pros: Easier to accurately estimate how much we can do in an hour (compared to a day).
- Ideal for those with unpredictable circumstances.
- Cons: Requires updating your ‘hourly’ list frequently
The Tickler File
A physical reminder system for your year
- Collect 43 folders (31 for representing days of the month, 12 representing months) and organize them in the following order: Today’s folder at the front, Next month’s folder, The remaining months of the year, The (emptied) current month, The days you’ve already gone through
- Keep reminders in the relevant folders
Planning out your year
Make a list of your annual commitments including work events, personal events, and any seasonal affective disorder (SAD) related changes
- Organize tasks around these events to maximize productivity
- This works best when used alongside short-term planning strategies
By the day
Plan your day the night before to avoid over-working and over-stressing yourself
Eating the frog
Takes the biggest, nastiest job you need to do and tackles it at the very start of the day, getting it over and done with.
- Pros: Getting your win in for the day early sets you up for the rest of the morning
- Cons: It’s eating a frog-if the task is particularly nasty, you might still put it off and sabotage your whole day
By the Hour
Scheduling your time by the hour can help you tackle your to-do list in small manageable chunks.
- It gives you the most bang for your buck and takes very little effort to implement, giving you the best bang for the buck in time efficiency.
The masterplan
Focus on progressing toward your key goals, then evaluate your time and actions with one simple question: Will this action get me closer to my goal, or not?
- Pros: Keeps sight of your lifetime goals and encourages regular progress on the things that really matter
- Stops you from taking actions that only benefit you short-term
- Cons: Focusing on the goal without identifying your pathway may mean you get lost along the way
The 2-minute rule
A strategy for quickly assessing and taking action on small tasks so they don’t take up too much mental energy
- Prevents wasting mental energy on tiny tasks
- Hard to accurately know which tasks will take just 2 minutes
- Great for tackling <2min tasks
By the week
This strategy works best for the constantly over-committed: Struggling to fit everything into one day, there’s just too much to fit in just one day
Theme days
Theming each individual day of your week to a specific type of task
- Break your work into five (or fewer) categories, then decide which days will have which theme
- Set recurring reminders in your calendar for each day to help build the habit
- Pros: Avoid the productivity hit associated with multi-tasking or task-switching
- You can also theme your days according to your weekly energy levels
- Cons: Difficult when other people (employees/clients) have other ideas about what you should do with your time
Natural energy cycles
Our energy goes through peaks and troughs during the day, so why not plan your day around them?
- Identify when your peaks/troughs are and schedule your day accordingly
- You can also work with your chronotype to make sure you’re doing the right tasks at the right time
Time Blocking
Assign every hour (or minute, if you’re feeling brave) of your day to a specific task
- Take your day’s to-do list and estimate how long each task will take, then plan your day out by assigning each task to your calendar
- Removes decision fatigue and emotionally separate yourself from the work by planning ahead
By the month
Monthly planning seems to be the middle ground of productivity planning: not quite short enough to track short-term goals but not long enough to cover the big picture plans.
- Catherine Beard of The Blissful Mind finds monthly planning a key part of her productivity
- By planning ahead of time, you can space out what needs to get done without feeling rushed
The 12 week year
Forget about your annual plan and accomplish the same goals in just 12 weeks
- Encourages you to think in terms of what you can accomplish in less time
- Promotes daily action to accomplish long-term goals
- Committing to projects for a quarter makes it easier to pursue your passions
- RescueTime helps you stay focused
The Pomodoro Method
Break down your day into a series of work-sprints with a short rest period after each session
- Set a timer for 25min and focus exclusively on your work for that time. Once the time’s up, take a break for 5min. Repeat as necessary, with a longer break after every four cycles.