Why Time Management Is Important? – The Definitive Guide

5 Reasons Why Time Management Is Important

Time management is an important skill to develop regardless of your level in the organization. Good time management will benefit you in the following ways:

Get out of the weeds and focus more on managing your team
Find time to do deep work or strategy development
End your day feeling accomplished
Give you some breathing room and improve your well-being
Eliminate overwhelm

Without strong time management skills, your day dissolves into small 15min/30min blocks which results in what I call “time confetti” – small snippets of time that in the end don’t amount to a feeling of accomplishment or satisfaction.

Time Management Skills

One of the key changes to make in how you structure your day is to use a technique called time blocking and task batching. Time blocking requires you to create blocks of time in your calendar for activities that you would like to be intentional about. Task batching is the technique of grouping like tasks together to avoid radical context switching.

One of the biggest time wasters for professionals that goes unnoticed is context switching. Whenever we shift our attention from one task to another, we lose anywhere from 10-15minutes. It takes us that long to refocus and remind ourselves where we left off and where we would like to go next with our idea.

Let’s step through an example to better understanding time blocking as a useful technique for time management.

1. Email Management

Your workday starts at 8:30am with the checking of emails. A best practice is to set a timer for 30min and devote uninterrupted time to this one task. Ideally, every email should only be touched once.

There are four possible options for every email:

Delete
Archive for future reference
The message allows for a quick response that can be written and sent immediately
The email creates action items for your TO DO list

2. Time Manage Your Workday

When the timer sounds at 9am, turn off all your email notifications, put away your phone, and close your Teams or other Instant Messenger tools. Ahead of you is now a 3-hour block (9am – noon) of focused energy and attention on either a full morning of meetings or on deep work which might include strategizing, report writing, the creation of a presentation, etc….

From 12-12:30pm, it is advisable to take an uninterrupted break for lunch. This downtime is vital and will allow you to have a productive afternoon.

At 12:30pm it is time for another email block to check-in on what has come in during the morning. Again, I would recommend following the process above for touching every email only once.

From 1-4pm your calendar should be blocked again for another 3-hour session of either back-to-back meetings or deep work. This will depend on how you spent your time before lunch.

Below is a sample of what time blocking might look like during a typical week.

As you can see from the calendar above, there are days and times devoted to all of life’s important activities, relationships, and tasks. If we begin to let activities and tasks spill out of their defined time blocks, then they very quickly start to take away time from other areas of our lives that are important to us.

“Always ask yourself…. “If I am saying yes to this, what am I saying no to?””

3. Managing for Emergencies and Unforeseen Tasks

Sometimes, my clients tell me that there are unforeseen tasks or emergencies that come up regularly during a typical workday. Let’s talk about how to handle those fires so that our schedule doesn’t get derailed.

My recommendation would be to build in time for those “burning platform” items that will invariably surface. Perhaps you know that an unplanned task requires two hours of your time per day on average. Be sure to schedule it as a block in your calendar. Likely, you will not know when it will show up in your day; so, consider it a floating block of time that can move around. The beauty of building it in is that it will never take away from other tasks or meetings because you have accounted for those two hours in your day.

4. Declining Meeting Requests

Another topic many of my clients bring up is meeting overwhelm. In most companies, managers and senior leaders are in an endless string of meetings all day long. Consider which meetings you don’t need to attend. Ask yourself…is it essential that I accept every single invitation?

Perhaps you can tag team with your team members or other managers where only one of you attends and provides the others with a summary of the discussion topics and decisions.

Only you can set boundaries and guard your time.

“Boundaries are like mittens;
it is our responsibility to put them on.”

Importance of Time Management

My clients have had great success in lessening overwhelm and feeling more in control of their schedules after implementing the strategies outlined above. Admittedly, your calendar might be slightly different to the one above, and that’s ok. Find what works for you. The important consideration is to make sure that all the key areas of your life have a place on your weekly schedule.

Don’t strive for perfection…start small. Maybe time block one or two days starting next week or the week after and see how that feels. Do you notice a shift if your mood and energy? Do you have a greater sense of accomplishment at the end of the day? How does it feel compared to some other days of the week that have not been organized in this way?

Do you want more personalized help with your time management? Don’t hesitate to reach out here.

Interested in Learning More About These Time Management Skills?

Here are some additional resources to time management articles. Please Google the titles below.

Time Blocking...and its cousins task batching and day theming. Control your schedule so it doesn't control you. DOIST
Could Time-Blocking Replace Your To-Do List?

Interested in Learning More About Deep Work?

Check out Cal Newport’s book here. (As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.)