10 Time Management Techniques

The Pomodoro technique was developed by Francesco Cirillo when he was a student in the 1980s. Named after the pomodoro (italian for tomato) shaped timer that he first used, the technique uses a timer to break your work down into set intervals, referred to as Pomodoros. 

How it Works:

1. Choose a task.
2. Set a timer for 25 minutes.
3. Work on the task until the timer rings, then put a checkmark on a piece of paper to mark one completed Pomodoro.
4. Take a short break, aim for no longer than 5 minutes.
5. Repeat steps 2 – 5. After every four Pomodoros you complete, you can take a longer 20 – 30 minute break. 

The Pomodoro Technique allows you to ‘turn time into an ally’ as Cirillo himself puts it. The 25 minute intervals, followed by short but frequent breaks, enhance your focus and concentration by keeping your mind alert and engaged. There are various different Pomodoro apps and products, however a timer and a piece of paper is all you need to get started.

In 2014, DeskTime ran a study to discover the preferred work-to-break ratio for efficient workers. They found that the most productive people worked, on average, for 52 minutes before breaking for 17 minutes and thus the 52/17 ratio was born. The 52/17 ratio is similar to the Pomodoro technique in that it is aimed at achieving intervals of high concentration and focus, followed by high quality breaks. The 52/17 ratio is a useful alternative for those who enjoy timed periods of intense focus, but find the 25 minutes of the Pomodoro technique too short. 

First introduced in 1955 in a satirical essay for The Economist by British naval historian Cyril Northcote Parkinson, Parkinson’s Law is the notion that ‘work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.’ That is to say, if you give yourself an hour to write an email, it will inevitably take an hour to write. However, if you only give yourself 10 minutes, it will take 10 minutes. Parkinson’s Law in and of itself isn’t a time management technique but instead something to overcome once you have an understanding of how it impacts your day-to-day life.   

How it Works:

1. Assess your tasks and prioritise them by importance and/or deadline. Focus on high priority tasks first to stop them being pushed to the bottom of your list and becoming last minute. 
2. Define the parameters of your task. Parkinson’s Law states that work expands to fill the allotted time, so it is easy to find yourself taking on other tasks due to some vague correlation to your original task. Set clear parameters of the task so as to stop work expanding further than it needs to.
3. Set a deadline that is tight enough to reduce chances for procrastination, but realistic enough to complete the task competently. 
4. Minimise or eliminate any distractions around you to enable you to concentrate fully on the task. This ensures that more time is spent focusing on the task itself, reducing the overall amount of time you need to spend on it. 

Parkinson’s Law is a concept to be overcome. As such, you can utilise other time management techniques from this list along with an understanding of Parkinson’s Law to avoid procrastination and increase productivity. Remember, the key to overcoming Parkinson’s Law is not to rush all of your tasks and give yourself far less time than needed to complete your work. Instead, the key is to recognise when an inadequate deadline is causing procrastination and subsequently adapt your approach so as to be more productive.

The Eisenhower Matrix was developed by Dwight Eisenhower, the 34th President of the United States. Eisenhower posited that there are two kinds of problems, the urgent and the important and argued that ‘the urgent are not important, and the important are never urgent.’ The Eisenhower Matrix prioritises tasks by urgency and importance, dividing them into four categories; 

• Important and urgent – Do
• Important, but not urgent – Decide/Schedule
• Not important, but urgent – Delegate
• Not important and not urgent – Delete

The positioning of each task will help you decide the order of completion and whether a task should be delegated to someone else, scheduled for a later time or deleted entirely.

In 1989, Steven Covey created the Covey Matrix which also divides tasks into four quadrants based upon their urgency and importance. Whilst the Covey Matrix categorises tasks in the same way as the Eisenhower Matrix, it focuses on the amount of time you spend on the tasks in each quadrant. Comparatively, the Eisenhower Matrix focuses on how tasks are prioritised and their order of completion based on their importance. You can learn more about the Covey Matrix in our article here. Whilst there are slight variances in focus, both matrices are effective time management techniques.  

How it Works:

1. Write a list of all the tasks that you need to complete within a set timeframe.
2. Assess and categorise each task according to its urgency and importance. It’s easy to mistake urgency for importance so take the time to consider the actual value of the task.
3. Use this categorisation to decide which tasks you need to do, decide/schedule, delegate or delete.
4. Try to limit yourself to eight tasks per quadrant and ensure that you complete a task before adding a new one to any given section.

The Eisenhower Matrix enables you to prioritise your tasks and clearly identify what tasks need completing when. It provides you with a practical framework with which to examine the type of tasks you spend the majority of your time on and adjust accordingly so as to be as productive as possible. 

As the great Mark Twain once said, ‘if it’s your job to eat a frog, it’s best to do it first thing in the morning. And if it’s your job to eat two frogs, it’s best to eat the biggest one first.’ Though an undeniably visceral image, the premise itself is actually quite simple; complete your most difficult task first. Eat That Frog is a technique that encourages you to start your day by tackling (eating) the most challenging task (frog) that you have before anything else. 

How it Works:

1. Write a list of tasks that need completing and identify your frog. This is the most challenging or difficult task that you need to complete. It is important that it is a meaningful task and not an easy or ‘quick win’ as those are not actual frogs. If you find that you have multiple frogs, try to be as objective as possible and pick the most challenging.
2. Eat That Frog! Once you have identified your frog, start your day by focusing solely on that task. You can break larger tasks into smaller chunks, but only focus on the task at hand and ensure that any smaller aspects are still part of the larger frog. Make sure that you don’t focus on any other tasks until you’ve eaten your frog.
3. Repeat the process and start each day by eating that frog.  

Eat That Frog is a simple yet effective time management strategy that forces you to concentrate your time and energy on one critical task at a time. Eating your frog at the start of your day leaves no room for procrastination and ensures that once you have eaten your frog, you are left with a great sense of accomplishment for the rest of the day.

The Pareto Principle, also known as the 80/20 rule, was developed by Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto in 1896. Rooted in Pareto’s observation that 80% of the land in Italy was, at that time, owned by only 20% of the population, the Pareto Principle states that 80% of outcomes stem from 20% of actions. Applying this principle to your workload enables you to prioritise the tasks that will be the most effective at solving problems or yield the highest reward. 

The principle can be applied to many different aspects of working life such as decision making or improving productivity. In any instance, you need to identify the most impactful tasks (the 20%) that will lead to the greatest reward (the 80%). 

How it Works:

1. Identify your top priorities. This could be a target you want to hit, a goal that you are trying to achieve or a problem that you are trying to solve. 
2. Determine the most impactful influences on these priorities. What is causing your team problems? What is the greatest obstacle stopping you from hitting those targets?
3. Identify the 20% that will deliver the 80%. Assess which tasks will have the greatest impact and lead to larger successes. 
4. Prioritise tasks based on their perceived impact and develop a strategy to focus on the 20%. 

As with Parkinson’s Law, the Pareto Principle is a concept that works well in conjunction with other time management strategies. For example, the Pomodoro Technique is an effective way to ensure that time is spent focusing on the 20%. Conversely, you may set the 20% as the frog that needs to be eaten at the start of your day.

It should be noted that 80/20 is not a fixed ratio nor does it mean that with only 20% of effort you can achieve 80% of results. 80/20 as a ratio highlights the functional relationship between a task and its impact. Therefore, rather than suggesting that you need only put in 20% worth of effort, the principle encourages you to give that 20% more effort so as to reap greater rewards. You may find that for some projects the ratio is more 70/30 or 90/10; regardless of the split, the Pareto Principle encourages you to focus on what will be the most impactful.

Time blocking is a technique that you may already be unknowingly using, especially if you are in the habit of blocking out time in your calendar to focus on a specific task. Time blocking is the process of scheduling each part of your day and dividing it into manageable blocks.  

How it Works:

1. Identify what you need to work on in a given timeframe whether that be a day, a week or a month.
2. Schedule time blocks in your calendar so that your work can’t be interrupted or scheduled over. Think about when you are most productive during the work day and try to schedule your most challenging tasks for this time. 
3. Group similar tasks together so that you can spend one concentrated block of time focusing on similar tasks. It’s also helpful to group meetings together so that they do not disrupt your flow of work at other times of the day.

Time blocking allows you to be intentional about your time and energy at work. It helps you to direct your focus, reduce distractions and have a clearer sense of what you are spending your time on each day. It’s important to remember to block off personal time throughout the day when time blocking. Not only can it help you to be consistent with personal activities such as hobbies you want to maintain, it also ensures that you are taking frequent, good quality breaks to replenish your energy.

Time boxing is very similar to time blocking in that it also involves allocating a block of time for a set activity. However, unlike time blocking, time boxing includes limiting the time you spend on a specific activity.

How it Works:

1. Identify what you need to work on in a given timeframe whether that be a day, a week or a month.
2. Define the goals or purpose of the tasks that you need to complete so that you will know when it’s finished.
3. Schedule time blocks in your calendar so that your work can’t be interrupted or scheduled over and set a time limit. For example, you may decide to block out time every morning to respond to emails and set yourself a limit (time box) of an hour. 
4. Work on your time box and assess your results. If you have given yourself too much or not enough time to complete your work you can adjust the size of your time box accordingly. 

Time boxing, like time blocking, allows you to have fixed periods of concentrated time in which you focus on one task. It is also an effective way to overcome Parkinson’s Law as you set yourself a time limit, ensuring you do not spend more time than necessary on a given task. 

Getting Things Done (GTD) was developed by productivity consultant David Allen. The method centres on the premise that ‘your mind is for having ideas, not holding them.’ When using the GTD method, you capture tasks and ideas in an external system in order to declutter your mind, enabling you to concentrate on completing the tasks rather than remembering everything.

How it Works:

1. Capture. Write down everything that is on your mind, no task is too big or too small at this stage. Don’t worry about editorialising this list as that will be at the next stage, simply focus on capturing anything that crosses your mind such as tasks, ideas or potential solutions. David Allen refers to this information as your ‘inbox’ to represent how potential tasks ‘come in’ to your workflow. Though a helpful visual, your inbox can, and probably will, look like a list of information to be processed later. 
2. Clarify. Process what you have written down by turning it into actionable tasks. This stage is about deciding what you want to do about the information you wrote down, so it is important to include as much detail as possible. For example, instead of writing ‘Email Sue’ write ‘Email Sue with an update on Q2 project and new timeline for deliverables.’
3. Organise. Using your preferred work management tool, assign tasks to projects, set deadlines and delegate where necessary. This is a critical part of the GTD method and you can use whatever organisational system or work management tool you prefer. However, it is vital that by the end of this process each ‘to-do’ from the capture and clarify stage have been turned into actionable tasks, delegated or deleted. By the end of this stage your inbox should be empty with each point on your to-do list correctly categorised.
4. Reflect. Frequently review and reprioritise your list of work. Review regularly but not excessively so as to make checking your inbox a longer task than necessary. You may choose to perform smaller daily reviews followed by more in-depth monthly ones.  
5. Engage. Use your system to guide what you need to work on and when. Now that you have cleared your mind and organised what you need to do, you have the mental capacity to get things done. 

By externalising the work that you need to do, the GTD system frees up the mental energy to focus on actually completing the task. You can then use other time management techniques to focus on tasks which your GTD system has highlighted as the  most important. For example, once you have a list of clear actionable items you may choose to time block your calendar for the week to reflect the tasks that need completing. This structured approach supports stress free and consistent productivity as you have the mental capacity to focus solely on the work at hand.

A Kanban Board helps you to visualise your work and categorise it into the different stages of the work flow process. Kanban (Japanese for signboard) enables you to map out individual tasks as moveable notes that are placed into columns on a large board. The board can be as simple as a whiteboard or as complex as a specialist app, however you choose to display it, a Kanban Board provides structure to what can otherwise be chaotic project boards. 

How it Works:

1. Visualise your work flow into different columns. Start with a physical or virtual whiteboard and split it into columns that represent your workflow process. For example, you may have four columns, from left to right, with the headings; ‘To Do,’ ‘In Progress,’ ‘Stuck,’ and ‘Done.’ You can make each column more or less specific depending on your individual needs. 
2. Identify the tasks that you need to complete. Write a list of the work that needs completing within the time frame that your Kanban Board is covering. You can group like tasks together and use different colour sticky notes to represent a common theme. For example, green notes may represent sales focused tasks, whilst orange notes represent marketing focused tasks. 
3. Write the tasks onto the corresponding notes and place them on the board. The order of the task in each column should represent their priority so aim to put more urgent tasks at the top of the column. 
4. Start working your way through your Kanban Board, starting with the tasks at the top of each column. As soon as a task is ready, move it to the next column to visually indicate its position in the workflow. 

Kanban Boards are designed to maintain a high and consistent work flow. By visually mapping out your tasks you can identify bottle necks and adjust other tasks accordingly. It is also a good idea to limit the number of tasks in each column. Limiting work in progress (WIP) is a Kanban method in which you set a fixed number of tasks for each column. This limit helps to stop your workload expanding beyond what is achievable and to keep check of the number of unfinished tasks that you are working on at a given time. Limiting WIP can be applied to any column with any given header and is a useful way to ensure that you and your team only work on what you have capacity for.  

Anecdotally attributed to comedian Jerry Seinfeld, the Seinfeld Strategy, also known as Don’t Break the Chain is a productivity technique that can help you to build consistent habits. The story goes that after finding himself in the same comedy club as the formidable Jerry Seinfeld, aspiring comic Brad Isaac asked him for advice. Though Seinfeld himself claims the idea was not originally his, his advice to Isaac that night marked the genesis of the Seinfeld Strategy. The strategy focuses on consistently completing a task every day and marking its completion with an X on a calendar. Over time the Xs will grow into a chain and all you have to do is not break the chain. 

How it Works:

1. Set a task that can be completed every day. The task needs to be realistic and specific so that it is something you can clearly mark off as completed each day. For example, setting the target of writing 500 words a day is much more sustainable than writing 5 pages.  
2. Mark a big red X on each day that you complete the task. The Seinfeld Strategy has a large visual component so marking your Xs on a large wall calendar or somewhere digitally that you can see every day, will help you to see how your chain grows over time. 
3. Don’t break the chain. The longer the chain grows the greater the sense of satisfaction you will feel each day for having completed your task and the more hesitant you will be to break it. 

The Sienfeld Strategy allows you to focus on the process, not just the results and helps you to build and maintain consistent habits. This consistency then leads to mastery as the longer you go without breaking the chain, the more you are improving. The efficacy of the strategy lies in picking a task that is meaningful enough to make a difference, but simple enough to be completed every day. It’s therefore important that whatever task you choose is achievable and sustainable.