4 Practical Tips for Taking Control of Your Time

This post is part of my How to Actually Get Things Done Series, which covers these four principles for productivity:

1. Take control of your time
2. Know your priorities
3. Minimize distraction
4. Take time off

This post digs into principle #1. Check out the other posts in this series:

• 4 Practical Principles for (Actually) Getting Things Done

As I stated in my first post in this series, we are not taught how to effectively use our time in life. That means we have to intentionally work to manage our time in order to feel more productive and less exhausted. One common experience I’ve observed is feeling beholden to your calendar, where things are happening to your time, causing you to feel unproductive and unfocused.

In many situations, you have much more control of your time than you think you do. This means you can often control your calendar and reduce the feeling of having too many meetings or obligations, and not enough time to do your work. It’s important for you to identify the things you can and can’t control about how your time is used. You should be actively opting in to every event/meeting/task that takes up your precious, beautiful time. By being intentional about how you spend your time, it will be easier to focus on what actually needs to get done.

image credit: https://giphy.com/gifs/billions-season-4-episode-6-showtime-H1w2FnoP33wgrK0Rqt

Let’s dig into some practical tips for taking control of your time:

1. Get rid of unnecessary things

• Take a look at your calendar for the day/week and see if there are any meetings/events you don’t actually have to attend. If you’re not sure, you need to find out. You can ask your manager/colleague/meeting organizer! Find out if you need to attend, and if so, make sure you’re clear on the “why.” Also be clear on the impact of you not attending.
• If it’s truly optional, consider where you’re at with your capacity and then decide.

2. Tweak your schedule to work for you

• Adjust your calendar by moving around meetings/tasks to optimize your free time and meeting time in a way that works for you.
• For example, let’s say your calendar for today includes a few scattered 30-minute free time blocks, but you’re going to need an hour of focused time to complete that important thing. Try to move around a few things to free up a one-hour block in your day! It might not happen, but it’s worth a try.

3. Look at your calendar with your to-do list in mind

• Be clear with yourself on when you’re going to tackle the items on your to-do list. Spoiler: in order to do this, you need to know your priorities and how long(-ish) they will actually take.
• It’s important to be ruthlessly honest and realistic with yourself. You’ll want to really think about how long each task will take. Based on your calendar, do you actually have the time to do all those things today?

4. Schedule tasks onto your calendar

• Scheduling your tasks onto your calendar allows you to see how you’ll be using your time for the day/week.
• For many, this increases the likelihood of completing the task. It also helps you be realistic about what you can achieve in a day. On a day of energy consuming meetings, you might be too tired to actually tackle something big, even if you have the time available on your calendar.
• You’ll also be able to answer the important questions like “when will I eat lunch today?” or “when will I take a break today?”
• You don’t necessarily have to schedule every single task onto your calendar, but it can be helpful to schedule the big things — the things that you know need 30, 60, 90 minutes of your focused energy.
• Color-coding these tasks can be helpful in quickly scanning your calendar.

A sample day from my calendar. I color-code those events on my calendar in yellow so I always know that a yellow event is a to-do list item. I also use the prefix “to do” in the task name.

I hope you found these tips helpful and that you’re able to find some more focus and control in the way you use your time and complete your tasks — whether at work or at home. Next week we’ll dive into how to get really clear on what your priorities are. I’m always happy to chat about time management, productivity and prioritization! Hit me up on twitter @alikrausman.