6 easy time-management tips

Effective time management can help in both your work and personal life.

If you never seem to have enough time, better time management will help you take control of your days. Learning how to manage your time can also help you feel more relaxed, focused and in control.

1. Set some goals

How you spend your time and how you manage it will be shaped by:

• your priorities in life
• what you want to achieve in your career
• what you want in your personal life

You could set some goals around these areas to help you focus.

Start with some short or medium-term goals. For example, perhaps you would like to be more active, or cook a little more at home.

Once you’ve achieved your short-term goals, you could look at bigger things you would like to do.

Knowing your goals will help you plan better and focus on the things that will help you achieve them.

2. Make a ‘to-do’ list

A ‘to-do’ list is a good way to stay organised. It will help you work out your priorities and when you can do things.

There are lots of ways to create a to-do list, so you may have to try it out and see what works best for you.

When creating a to-do list, you could:

3. Prioritise important tasks

Tasks can be grouped into 2 categories. These are urgent and not urgent.

Having to deal with too many tasks can be stressful. Grouping tasks in this way can help you prioritise tasks and manage your time better.

You should focus on urgent and important activities first. If you get through these, turn to other things that are less urgent.

4. Have a lunch break at work

Lots of people work through their lunch to get more work done, but this may not be helpful for you or the quality of your work. Taking time away from work for at least 30 minutes can actually help you become more productive by allowing you to refresh and refocus.

You could go for a walk outdoors or, if you work from home, prepare a homemade lunch. This will help you come back to your work re-energised and with renewed focus.

Planning your day with a midday break will also help you to break up your work into more manageable chunks.

5. Organise your work emails

Work emails can be a source of stress and managing them can take a lot of time. To help use your time better, you could organise your emails clearly.

When it comes to managing emails, think:

• delete – most emails can probably be deleted straight away
• do – complete the task quickly if the email is urgent
• delegate – send the email on if it can be dealt with by someone else
• defer – set aside a time to deal with the email later on if it needs more attention

6. Plan your working day

At work, good time management is about producing high-quality work. It’s not about focusing on the amount of work you produce.

Staying an extra hour at work at the end of the day may not be the most effective way to manage your time. Instead, it may be more helpful to break work into blocks and complete it within a specific time.

There are online tools and apps that can help you do this. For example, you could create a colour-coded calendar to plan your working day.