7 Essential Time Management Skills

Learning to manage your time effectively enables you to meet deadlines, explore new ideas, and find a healthy work-life balance. If you feel overwhelmed and overworked, learning a few time management tools may help you reduce stress and plan how to meet your goals.

Discover seven skills that, when developed, can significantly boost your productivity.

Build job-ready skills with Coursera Plus

Start 7-day free trial

• 
• 
• 
• 

Start 7-day free trial

What is the definition of time management?

Time management refers to the art of effectively planning your time. This allows you to efficiently and productively complete the activities and tasks you need to in the appropriate amount of time. Time management also involves prioritizing your to-do list so that you complete urgent or essential tasks before others. This helps to avoid missing important deadlines or rushing through important tasks.

7 time management skills

If you're ready to control your time, develop these seven time management skills.

1. Prioritization

To effectively manage your time, you must decide in which order you should complete your tasks. Reviewing your schedule each day and deciding whether tasks are urgent, important, or neither can help you plan when and how to manage your time throughout the day. In general, you will want to prioritize your urgent tasks in order of importance. Following this, you can complete your non-urgent tasks in the same manner. This makes sure you complete critical tasks with the needed attention and time.

One key difference when prioritizing tasks involves “urgent” and “important” tasks. Urgent tasks require completion as soon as possible. Important tasks matter, and not doing them may have negative consequences, but you have more flexibility when they get done.

For example, you might label picking up your prescription from the pharmacy as an important task because you likely need the medication, and waiting too long could have negative health consequences. However, you may have freedom over the next couple of days when you pick up the prescription. If you expect an important phone call and your phone rings, then picking up the phone call becomes an urgent task because it demands your immediate attention.

2. Goal setting

Career goals provide a measurable way to determine progress toward the end product. Setting goals can also help you organize your to-do list and determine the priority of your tasks. If you have a goal set for the end of each week or month, you can create a priority list specifically for each goal. This can reduce the feeling of being stressed or overwhelmed when working toward larger goals.

3. Planning

Writing down your schedule can give you a realistic idea of how much time you have to allocate to different tasks. For example, you may have a standard 9-to-5 work day and assume you have eight hours to complete your five project-based functions of the day. Let’s say you then write down your schedule and see you have an hour-long lunch meeting, a 30-minute internal meeting on a different floor, and have to leave 30 minutes early to pick up your kids from school. When you write this down, you see you actually have six hours outside of meetings.

You’ll realize each meeting is a 10-minute walk from your office by breaking down your schedule. In addition to this, you know it takes you at least 10 minutes to get organized at your desk before beginning work each time you return, and you will need a 30-minute break in the day to recharge. You now realize you have to factor in 40 minutes of walking time and 50 minutes of non-working time at your desk. This leaves you 4.5 hours of working time for your project-based tasks.

When you write down your schedule, you can better allocate time for each task and make reasonable daily plans.

Tip: Analyzing your daily and weekly patterns can help you find which times in the day you are typically most productive. Some people may find they tend to have hours of uninterrupted time before lunch, while others may work their best in the afternoons or evenings. By understanding when you focus best, you can schedule more complex tasks during these hours. For mindless and simple tasks, you can schedule these assignments during less focused hours.

4. Delegation

Delegating tasks can help you avoid being overwhelmed. If you have the capacity to delegate tasks within your workplace, consider assigning specific projects to team members who have the ability to take them on. This gives you time to focus on more challenging tasks.

5. Setting boundaries and saying "no"

If your supervisor or colleague asks you to complete a task and you don’t have the time, practice being assertively honest about your work capacity and current workload. Taking on too many responsibilities can prevent you from completing important work and contribute to missing deadlines, so setting some boundaries at work is smart. If you repeatedly have more tasks than you can effectively complete, consider scheduling a meeting with your supervisor to discuss the limits of your role and how you can best perform in your current position.

6. Focus

Organizing your workspace can help you focus on your assignments and prevent you from wasting time on distractions. To work productively, ensure you can find the needed materials and have a comfortable space where nobody will interrupt you.

Instead of trying to complete several tasks simultaneously, focus on one task at a time. This may improve the quality of completed tasks and allow you to reduce distractions.

7. Automation

Many technologies exist to automate everyday workplace tasks. Depending on your profession, using project management software, human resource software, email templates, or scheduling software may help streamline your workload.

Benefits of good time management

Managing your time well can help you in the workplace in many ways. In general, good time management skills offer the following benefits compared to poor time management skills:

• Lower levels of stress

• Lower anxiety levels

• Improved reputation in the workplace

• Better focus

• More productivity

• Improved decision-making

• Attainment of goals

• Increased ability to meet deadlines

• Improved work quality

• Better work-life balance

• Increase professional confidence

• More free time

• More energy for personal activities

Expand your skill set with Coursera Plus.

Learn job-ready skills from industry leaders like Google, Microsoft, and IBM with a Coursera Plus subscription—available in monthly and annual tiers. You’ll get a certificate for every program you finish, which you can add to enhance your resume further.

Build job-ready skills with Coursera Plus

Start 7-day free trial

• 
• 
• 
• 

Start 7-day free trial