Time Management: Tips To Better Manage Your Life

Drowning under a pile of emails? Late home from work again as you struggled to reach a deadline? You are not alone. It seems more and more people are trying, and often failing, to complete a seemingly endless list of tasks – and in the rush to do it all we can end up achieving less and feeling worse. So how can we be more effective, and less stressed, with the time we have?


Stop being on autopilot and prioritize

Nearly all time management advice tells people to prioritize their activities. While this is important (deciding each day what is the most urgent or important task for you to complete first), it is crucial to remember that “time” management is really “life” management. We have to first determine what is most important in our lives and then learn how to prioritize it.


The sad fact is that most people spend most of their time doing things they not only do not enjoy, but which in the long term are not even that relevant to their overall goals. This is a fast track to unhappiness and stress.


Avoid this trap by first taking time to think deeply about what matters most to you in life. Then make a list outlining your core values and what you consider to be your priorities and goals in life. If you do not start deciding clearly where your priorities lie, you will never be able to select the right tasks to focus on and which ones to avoid in the first place.


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Do not have a big discrepancy between your core values and your activities.


There can be no success, or lasting happiness, if your daily activities are not aligned with your core values.


If you believe your first priority is your family, yet you spend the majority of your time doing a million other activities each day, you will be a lot more stressed than if you feel your daily actions are supporting or contributing to what is most important to you. To achieve your goals, you need to be realistic. If you think health is a priority for you but you never make time to exercise, maybe health is not your priority.


Write down in a diary for one week all your activities during each day. Then you can see exactly how you are spending your time and adjust your activities accordingly.


Do not be glued to your diary – you need to be flexible!


That´s not to say there aren’t genuine emergencies and urgent tasks that can arise at any time and change your plans. And the best managed diary in the world can easily fall victim to the whims of a demanding boss.


If an urgent task arises, you need to make time for it. But by having a clear set of priorities and tasks for the day in your head, it will be much easier to determine where to take time from (instead of just reacting in the moment like a headless chicken.) What is key is that overall your diary and daily activities help you work towards your goals and aims in life.


Learn to say No


I cannot stress enough how important it is to say no to tasks that do not fit in with your values or goals. As Frances Booth wrote in an article last year on the topic in Forbes, “When we say no to one thing, in effect we’re also saying yes to something else.” That means saying yes to more time for yourself, that trip to the gym or having dinner with your family.


There is one thing everyone has in common: time. And it is limited. A day has 24 hours, not 36 or 40. So in order to achieve our goals, we need to manage these 24 hours effectively and learn where to invest time and where not to. It is not easy to wake up early to go running or skip a fascinating conference to take your child to a basketball match. This is the reason why we have to have our goals and priorities clear in our mind. It is the only way to avoid stress and make better decisions.


Cosimo Chiesa is a professor of Marketing at IESE Business School and author of the book Liderándome para liderar. Read more: 25 keys to managing your professional life.