Effective Time Management: Unlocking Productivity Techniques

The modern workplace is characterized by multiple tasks squeezed into tight schedules. Time-slicing, prioritizing tasks, and constant decision-making have the potential to adversely affect your productivity. Outside of office hours, there is so much that needs to be done—important tasks that compete for time with activities of personal interest. To top it off, we need to carefully navigate through distractions in our daily lives. In all of this, effective time management becomes a key skill that we need to excel in.

In this blog, we focus on the importance of time management and make a case for it by showing the economic and social costs of not doing so efficiently. We discuss techniques that have been proposed to become better at managing this most precious resource.

The cost of mismanaging our most important resource#

There is a cost associated with time mismanagement. Context switching between multiple tasks each day, meetings with objectives that could have been achieved by a short email, and time spent doomscrollingAimlessly scrolling through social media posts and browsing websites on the phone are some of the time bandits that over a period of time translate to a significant loss of revenue. In a survey spanning twenty industries, conducted by Professor Steven Rogelberg and including 632 employees, it was observed that attending noncritical meetings translates to a loss of around $101 million a year for organizations with more than 5,000 employees.

In recent years, the impact of distraction caused by tech gadgets has grown to such an extent that a specific term has emerged to describe it: cyberloafing. A company reported that 62% of their employees wasted about 60 minutes daily on personal phone use. Phone calls are not the only culprits - mobile applications are a bigger contributor to distraction. Mobile applications are addictive by design. The amount of time that people spend on them has to go up for the company to make profits. Infinite scrolls, likes, and clickbaits ensure just that.

“Time isn’t the main thing. It’s the only thing.” —Miles Davis

Losing money is not the only issue; effective time management is important for our well-being as well. Time mismanagement can contribute to increased stress levels and burnout. For us, that can lead to health issues, and by not giving our 100% to the time we spend with family and friends, negatively impact our relationships. For the company, this can result in reduced employee morale and low job satisfaction.

“The bad news is time flies. The good news is you’re the pilot.” —Michael Altshuler

Once we identify where the leakages are in our productivity, we can take remedial action. So let’s dive in and have a look at various techniques to better manage our time.

Managing time like a pro#

Several techniques have been suggested over the years to minimize distractions and make the best use of our time. Let’s look at some of the strategies we can incorporate into our daily lives.

Strategy 1: Prioritize, prioritize, prioritize!!!#

The first goal should be on prioritizing tasks. One class of such techniques focuses on assigning tasks to the four quadrants of a grid based on factors like urgency, importance, rewards, and effort required. Another set of techniques focuses on triggering the brain’s reward center and minimizing the mental clutter.

The four quadrants of priority#

The Eisenhower Matrix is one such approach for prioritizing daily tasks. The idea is to split your tasks into a grid consisting of four groups, namely:

• Quadrant 1: Important and urgent
• Quadrant 2: Important but not urgent
• Quadrant 3: Not important but urgent
• Quadrant 4: Neither important nor urgent

This grid, shown below, is also called the Urgent-Important Matrix. Let’s have a look at what each cell represents and how should we prioritize the tasks in each.

Quadrant 1 consists of tasks that if not completed before the deadline or delivered in time by compromising on quality, would lead to serious consequences. For example, suppose you have arranged a meeting with a potential client and need to present the company performance report. By doing sloppy work or not completing the presentation slides before the appointment, you would lose a client and maybe your job with it. The tasks inside this quadrant need to be completed before moving to other tasks.

Quadrant 2 constitutes tasks that are important but can wait. Suppose you need to present the company performance report at the year-end conference. No one can deny its importance, but if you have a couple of months before the actual presentation, you can delay it.

Quadrant 3 contains those tasks that are not so important that they require your attention, but they still need to be completed urgently. Administrative tasks usually need to be wrapped up before a deadline, but many of these are menial tasks that anyone can do. You can delegate these tasks to others and focus on other more pressing tasks.

The last quadrant, Quadrant 4, consists of tasks that are mere distractions—neither important nor urgent, and ignoring them would not have any serious consequences.

The Eisenhower approach suggests that the tasks that lie in the first quadrant should be done first. The second quadrant tasks are important but can wait; they should be scheduled for a later date. The third quadrant consists of tasks that need to be completed urgently but your involvement is not necessarily needed, so these tasks can be delegated to someone else. The last quadrant tasks are distractions with little impact—either drop them and forget about them completely, or squeeze them into your schedule when there is no other task pending in the pipeline.

The Covey Time Management Grid is another famous technique for prioritizing tasks. It splits tasks into the same four groups as was done by the Eisenhower Matrix. The only difference is that Eisenhower’s approach takes a very narrow approach and focuses only on the tasks at hand, whereas Covey’s approach expects people to add long-term personal improvement and growth plans into the second quadrant for long-term planning.

“The key is not to prioritize what’s on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities.” —Stephen Covey

A third grid-based prioritization approach is the Action Priority Matrix. Different from the other two approaches, it doesn’t focus not on urgency; it instead classifies tasks according to their impact and the required effort. The four groups in this technique are:

• Quadrant 1: High impact and low effort
• Quadrant 2: High impact and high effort
• Quadrant 3: Low impact and low effort
• Quadrant 4: Low impact and high effort

The image given below shows the four quadrants. The high-impact but low-effort tasks should be wrapped up first. They are quick wins that will boost morale and also deliver high-visibility results. Tasks in the second quadrant have a longer-term horizon and require more planning and resources. They should be prioritized next. Low-impact tasks are not really important and should be delegated if they don’t require much effort. Otherwise, they should be discarded or put on the back burner for when the pipeline doesn’t have any pending tasks.

The Pareto Principle, also known as the 80/20 rule or law of the vital few, states that 80% of your results come from 20% of your efforts. Therefore, we must identify the tasks that yield the most significant results and prioritize them.

Declutter your schedule and reward your brain#

A different approach to prioritizing focuses on decluttering your mind, the daily schedule, and small achievements that trigger your brain’s reward center. Eat That Frog is an approach that targets people who struggle with procrastination, have an overwhelming to-do list, and spend a lot of time on low-priority and low-impact tasks. The goal is simple: take the most important and challenging task (the not-so-beautiful frog) and do it first thing in the morning before turning your attention to other tasks. This will build your momentum and set you up for a productive day.

A less extreme alternative is the Power of Three. It suggests identifying the three most important tasks for the day and focus on accomplishing them. Narrow down your focus to a manageable chunk and you won’t be overwhelmed by all the other less critical pending tasks. On the other end of the spectrum, the Two-Minute Rule suggests that if a task takes less than two minutes to complete, wrap it up immediately rather than adding it to a to-do list. The idea behind this is that small tasks have the potential to snowball and overwhelm you.

Now that we have prioritized our tasks for the day, let’s have a look at how to ensure we get things done without procrastinating or getting distracted.

Strategy 2: Time slotting#

Distractions kill your productivity. How many children struggle with daydreaming in class? How many adults zone out during a particularly long presentation? Does the phone whisper to you: “Psst! Do you know the rules for curling? Let’s have a quick look so that we can study the strategy for winning at Shuffleboard next.” The good news is that you don’t need to practice meditation with Tibetan monks to develop razor-sharp focus. First, realize that working long stretches on boring and perhaps menial tasks is what plays havoc with our concentration over a period of time, and then address the root cause. Many techniques have been proposed to address that. Some focus on maintaining focus, while others try to minimize context switching.

Clear your mind and filter out the noise#

One thing at a time#

There are still other approaches that focus on minimizing context switching so that the task at hand gets the maximum attention. One technique is Batch Processing. The idea is to group similar activities together and tackle them consecutively. For example, reply to emails in one batch, make phone calls in another, and complete reports in yet another separate batch. A similar technique, Timeboxing or Time Blocking, involves scheduling specific blocks of time for different tasks. Both these techniques enhance focus by reducing multitasking and ensure that important tasks receive sufficient attention. By knowing the time limit for each task, chances are that a person will filter out distractions, clear their mind, and focus on the task at hand.

Breaking old habits—the first step to becoming a master of your time#

“Time is what we want most, but what we use worst.” —William Penn

Now that you are armed with techniques to better manage your time, let’s look at how we can make these a part of our daily lives. You need to internalize these techniques—they should come naturally to you. Habit formation (and breaking) is not an easy task.However, it is doable. According to Charles Duhigg, the author of The Power of Habit, the best way to form a habit, or replace another with a new, better habit, is to follow the Habit Loop. It consists of three components:

• Cue: In the first step, identify a specific trigger that will remind you to perform the habit (or avoid it in case you are trying to quit).
• Routine: In the second step, establish a clear routine that you will consistently perform in response to the cue.
• Reward: Create a reward system that reinforces the habit by giving a sense of satisfaction.

For example, let’s suppose every morning at the office, you make a cup of coffee and strike up a conversation with your chatty friend by the coffee machine. You end up spending half an hour on something which is neither adding value to you nor to the company. Making morning coffee is the cue that triggers the conversation. Avoid this cue by bringing your own cup of coffee instead of making it at the office. This needs to be made a routine. To do so, consider rewarding yourself by having lunch with that friend who takes up considerable time but whose company you enjoy. Over time, the habit becomes more automatic and ingrained in your daily life.

Sometimes it’s not the habit, but your goodness that needs to be channeled. Learning to say “No” when someone asks you to do something but you are already swamped is very important. Once you realize that by taking on additional responsibilities, you will not be able to focus on existing tasks. Therefore, that will be unfair to others who depend on you. In that case, it would be better to refuse a request. Similarly, some people are perfectionists. Doing a job well should always be the goal, however, sometimes you need to find a sweet spot where you stop improving your work and deliver.

Master your time management#

Habit formation should be a process of continuous learning and improvement. Keep monitoring your behavior and your output; tweak your method as needed to master your time. Self-improvement takes time. But once you are aware of what needs to be done and have a plan on how to go about doing it, the process should become enjoyable and the outcome would be rewarding.

Lastly, and I can’t emphasize this enough, be aware of your energy levels, motivation, and concentration. Sometimes, it is best to take a break and have a change of environment to recharge your batteries. Coming back fresh after a good sleep is better than pulling an all-nighter and feeling groggy all day—way more productive that way.

If you are interested in learning more about managing yourself and your team members and want to get a foot in, our course Grokking the Engineering Management and Leadership Interviews is a good start.

Test your knowledge#

Assuming you are using the Urgent-Important Matrix for prioritization, match the scenarios given below with the relevant quadrant.