Author: Carla Lempera, LPC
With evolving work models, blurred lines between work life and personal life, and an increased need for flexibility, the importance of time management has never been greater. Understanding how to approach your work, and your life, in a way that is most aligned with your body and mind while applying some key tactics can help increase productivity, reduce stress, and achieve your goals.
In this post we will cover the value of prioritizing time management, along with the cost associated with poor time management, various psychological habits that play into time management proficiency and ultimately, impact peak performance and impactful tactics to improve your time management skills.
Time management is the process of organizing and planning how to divide your time between different activities. Get it right, and you'll end up working smarter, not harder, to get more done in less time – even when time is tight and pressures are high. The highest achievers manage their time exceptionally well. Not only is good time management important, but the cost of poor time management is high. Poor time management not only affects our ability to get things done, it also can lead to increases stress and burnout.
Did you know, in research conducted by Finances Online Reviews for Business (2023), they found:
The average worker puts in almost an entire extra day/week
¾ of workers report experiencing burnout
Two of the top reasons people leave a job are burnout and lack of work-life balance
And while many companies have taken these numbers seriously and begun to introduce programs and benefits to support these needs, there is also a personal responsibility to practice good time management. Why…because your health depends on it! Believe it or not, stress and burnout are linked to a variety of health issues including, but not limited to, anxiety, depression, insomnia, obesity, infertility, blood disorders and cardiovascular disease.
In their book entitled “Peak Performance”, Stulberg and Magness explain that Stress + Rest = Growth. In studying the highest performers across all industries – science, technology, athletics, and more – they determined that the highest achievers are those that practice periods of high intensity with periods of total, intentional rest. You may have heard that multi-tasking makes you less productive! The extent to which we can create routines and habits, minimize distractions for our mind, and intentionally rest, greatly impacts our performance! The better we get at this the bigger the impact. In fact, when Mark Zuckerberg was asked why he wore the same jeans and t-shirt every day, his answer referred to the lack of thought and attention he needed to burden his brain with to think about a clothing choice.
Reflection questions:
If you could go to bed any time you wanted to with no restrictions based solely on when you felt tired, what time would that be?
If you could wake up naturally without an alarm, what time would that be?
Is there a time of day you consistently feel sluggish or have increased difficulty in concentrating?
Working with your natural rhythms, to the extent possible, can help determine the best way to organize your day with a focus on performance. When do you stress yourself and when do you rest yourself? “Why would I want to stress myself” you might ask. Well, stress can be good! Stress prepares our body for a challenge and readies us to perform. With practice, performance stress can be harnessed to challenge yourself and grow!
The procrastination pitfall. Before we cover tactics for good time management, we must first address the biggest threat to time management, performance, and stress: procrastination. Procrastination is the act of delaying or postponing something. For many it serves as a coping mechanism, but in truth, it simply delays the inevitable. In doing so it also contributes to chronic stress that burns energy, leads to fatigue, and takes up mental space. There are several strategies to ward of procrastination; following are 3 to get you started:
Wake up call. Make it the very first thing you work on when you are fresh before spending any mindshare or energy elsewhere.
Set a timer. Set aside 30-60 minutes to get started. Often beginning something is the hardest part and before long you are off and running. By setting aside a timeframe you are limiting the commitment without putting off the entire body of work. Execute in small time-bound increments.
Outline it. Plan your work by creating an outline of the major topics, sections or points and then work through the outline little by little.
Motivated to grow! While there are many tactics to improve time management, if you don’t fully understand why time management is important, you may not have the motivation to change. As we can see, the cost is high, but what are the benefits?
Improved self-discipline. Good time management skills enhance self-discipline which means you can stop procrastination dead in its tracks and drive forward to achieve your goals. This extends to other areas of your life too, from your career to your relationships, making you more successful at meeting goals in all areas of your life.
Improved quality of work. Having good time management skills doesn’t mean that you pull all-nighters to meet a deadline. It means that you manage your time effectively and space out your work while keeping your regular sleeping routine. You need a good night’s sleep if you want to produce quality work; good time management skills will help you get the rest you need.
Winding down is essential, reduces stress, and in turn, protects your health. Between work, family commitments and running errands, most of us don’t get enough time to relax. Rest and recuperation are an essential part of the growth equation.
Take a few moments to reflect on your day:
Do you feel as though you’re always busy, but accomplish little?
Is there something that’s been keeping you up at night with worry?
Are you unable to complete your work?
If you answered “yes” to one or more of those questions, you’re likely feeling stressed. When you don’t feel as though you have control of your time and are always frantically working to meet deadlines, it’s highly likely that your health is suffering. Time management skills can help to reduce or even eliminate stress. Good time management skills will make you more productive, helping you to meet your deadlines and lowering your stress levels. It creates space to challenge yourself toward growth and accomplish more and improve your career. If you go through life rushing from one task to the next, you never have the chance to explore different opportunities or challenge yourself outside of your comfort zone. You’ll find that you can get far more done in less time when you aren’t constantly rushed off your feet.
You’ll have enhanced focus and efficiency because you won’t lose momentum by multi-tasking. Time management also results in enhanced decision-making ability. Time management skills help you avoid stress and get enough sleep. This has a powerful effect on the quality of your decisions and, in turn, affects almost every aspect of your life, from your career progression to your relationships, friendships and social life. Through effective time management, you can avoid making the poor decisions that you make when you’re feeling stressed, tired or pressured.
In mastering good time management, you create a positive cycle. You’ll perform better at work, grab more opportunities, have more free time, and feel generally happier. The more free time you have to spend with your friends and family, the better your relationships will be. You’ll make better decisions, have better ideas, and people around you will notice. Stronger personal relationships will enhance all aspects of your life. Good time management skills dramatically improve all aspects of your life.
Top Time Management Tactics to Get Started:
Do a time audit: Assess your current state by noting and tracking how your time is spent now. You can reference your calendar, spend a week tracking it, or make some estimates and validate it over the next several days. It will be difficult to identify opportunities without the clarity of the current state.
Prioritize work/create a to-do list: This to-do list should be more than a run-on list of all the things you can conjure as tasks. What are the mission-critical, deadline-sensitive things? Is there a short-list of quick items to help enhance motivation and accomplish as you wrap your day or have unexpected time free up? What needs to be started, but not necessarily completed in the near-term. Whether it is color-coding, separate lists, or another approach that serves you, create a list that is prioritized and easy to reference quickly.
Set up deadlines: Some deadlines will be clear and imposed, others will need to be determined by you. When taking on something new spend a few moments outlining or chunking the work involved and create interim deadlines for yourself. This allows time to solicit feedback, check in with your plan, and mentally process the work in between, in turn enhancing quality. It also prevents procrastination.
Avoid multi-tasking: Splitting your focus has diminishing returns. It also consumes more energy and mindshare resulting in fatigue and burnout more quickly than focusing on one thing at a time. Quality suffers and tasks ultimately take longer. When it comes to time management it pays to go slow to go fast. Engage each task or project wholly and drive it to milestone before switching to something else. The result is greater productivity and higher quality work. It also creates a more realistic expectation of bandwidth and work planning.
Design your day: Start early to set up your day and avoid feeling like you are coming from behind or entering a bustling environment with an already mounting set of things requiring your attention. Schedule your most challenging or intense work or the time of day you are at your best. Schedule in breaks for the essentials and for a quick rest. This also creates space for the unexpected. Set aside time at the end to wrap up and close out. Cross off a few of the smaller/quicker items, assess and plan the priorities for tomorrow, and then shut down. Especially when working remotely, the act of “closing” your workspace for the day can help reinforce boundaries between work and life. Decide which things after hours are allowed to capture your attention and which are not and manage notifications, email checking, and other engagement accordingly. Setting yourself up for success promotes the best opportunity to achieve it.
Learn to say no Saying no is difficult. We want to be helpful, supportive, agreeable and viewed positively. However, boundaries are important, and just because you can does not mean you should. The trick is determining how to decide when to say no. Let your goals be your guide! Is the ask aligned with the company goals? With you team goals? With your personal goals? Is the ask better supported by another person or department? Is there value in spending time on it? Using these questions as a guidepost you are now equipped with a filter to help vet, redirect, or brainstorm alternatives in a constructive way making a much larger impact than simply saying yes.
Deal with stress wisely: Despite our best efforts, stress can creep up on us. When this happens, it would be ideal to carve out time for a stress-reducing activity such as going for a run, doing yoga, meditating, listening to music, calling a friend, or going for a drive. When time is tight here are a couple accessible strategize that take just a few minutes and can be done right in your desk chair:
Five senses grounding: Sit upright in your chair with your feet on the floor and your palms in your lap. Slow down your breathing by taking long, deep breaths, in through your nose and out through your mouth.
First, notice 5 things that you can see. Look around you and become aware of your environment. Try to pick out something that you do not usually notice.
Second, notice 4 things you can feel. Bring attention to the things that you are currently feeling, such as the texture of your clothing or the smooth surface of the table you are resting your hands on.
Third, notice 3 things that you can hear. Listen for and notice things in the background that you don’t normally notice. It could be the birds chirping outside or an appliance humming in the next room.
Fourth, notice 2 things you can smell. Bring attention to scents that you usually filter out, either pleasant or unpleasant. Catch a whiff of the pine trees outside or food cooking in the kitchen.
Finally, notice 1 thing you can taste. Take a sip of a drink, chew gum, or notice the current taste in your mouth.
Polyvagal breathing (massages your vagus nerve to naturally calm your nervous system):
Sit upright in your chair with your feet on the floor.
Clasp your hands behind your back to expand your chest.
Inhale deeply for five slow counts through your nose sending the breath to your belly until your belly expands.
Exhale five slow counts fully emptying belly and lungs with an added strong exhale at the end to push out all of the air.
Hold briefly and repeat for 10 full breaths.
Decatastrophizing: what is the impact and will the situation matter in 5 minutes? 5 days? 5 weeks? 5 months? 5 years?
Final thoughts: beware of overtraining! Despite being armed with all the insight in this post, and personally working in the field of mental health wellness, I too fell under the spell of overtraining. After doing my research and identifying an efficient and accessible way to incorporate cardiovascular exercise, I found myself strongly impacted by the endorphins and positive feelings created through aerobic exercise. I quickly went from exercising nearly never to making it part of my daily routine. After four weeks I suddenly started to experience stark changes. I was physically and mentally exhausted despite getting 8-9 hours of sleep per night. My appetite was ferocious and constant. Soon, I was having difficulty focusing and thinking clearly and day-to-day tasks began to feel overwhelming. After grappling with frustration, embarrassment and self-judgement, I took stock of the situation and, finally, applied what I know. I rested. Intentional rest with no exercise, balanced and nutritious meals, and a rescheduling of high-stress and high-stakes work. While burnout to weeks to peak, restorative rest only required a fraction of the time. Within 24 hours I felt restored and reset, the mental fog cleared, and my body felt stronger. The good news is that only very short periods of recovery are required to then return to and sustain long periods of performance, but the rest is necessary. We must give ourselves permission to rest in a quest to thrive.
Carla Lempera, LPC, is a clinician at Invited Psychotherapy and Coaching, a private practice outside of Chicago, specializing in helping high performing professionals embody their highest potential.
References:
Andre, L. (2023). 112 Employee Turnover Statistics: 2023 Causes, Cost & Prevention Data. Finances Online Reviews for Business. https://financesonline.com/employee-turnover-statistics/
Stulberg, Brad; Magness, Steve. Peak Performance. Rodale Books. June 6, 2017
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