If you are capable of managing your time in the workplace, you will find that you perform better and be less stressed, and have the opportunity to grow in your field. But good time management isn't always easy or intuitive, so finding the best time management tools and priority methods for your work and lifestyle is essential.
What Are the Principles of Time Management?
Depending on who you ask, there are anywhere between three and 15 guiding time management principles. It’s a broad topic with a lot of opinions. Still, as a brief overview, the core of time management strategies include making a plan, sticking to the plan, staying organized, and don’t let the scope of the plan grow beyond your capacity to enact the plan.
What Are the Time Management Skills?
Essential time management skills include staying organized, learning to prioritize different tasks, setting clear goals, and being an effective communicator. It also helps if you know how to plan efficiently. It’s also good to know how to delegate tasks to others and say “no” when someone asks you to take on additional duties. In recent years, people have added stress management to this list of skills, as it’s crucial to stay positive and be attentive to your mental health.
What are the Four D's of Time Management?
The four D’s of time management were initially outlined in The Power of Focus by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen, and Les Hewitt. It was developed to reorient time management and retake control of one’s time.
- Delete: This teaches people to curate their to-do lists and remove unnecessary emails and meetings from their schedules.
- Delegate: Reassigning tasks is an efficient way to reclaim your time, but be sure the new person has the appropriate skills (and time of their own) to accomplish the task.
- Defer: If a task isn’t time-sensitive, adjust the deadline so other jobs can take priority.
- Do: Put succinctly, start doing the work.
What Is the ABC Priority Method?
This time management tool has you list all your tasks and projects and assign letter labels to them. “A” for urgent and important, “B” for vital but not as critical, and “C” are neither important nor urgent.
What Is the POSEC Method?
The POSEC Method is typically represented as a triangle or pyramid reminiscent of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. POSEC is an acronym for Prioritizing, Organizing, Streamlining, Economizing, and Contributing.
What Is the Eisenhower Matrix?
This methodology creates a four-square grid to determine which tasks are urgent and less urgent and important and less important. Tasks that are more urgent and more important will be in the first grid, while the least urgent and least important are in the fourth. It came from a quote by Dwight D. Eisenhower, who said, “I have two kinds of problems, the urgent and the important. The urgent are not important, and the important are never urgent.”
What Is the Pickle Jar Theory of Time Management?
The Pickle Jar Theory is a theory that creates a visual to demonstrate how the amount of time we have in a day is finite (the amount of space in a pickle jar). We can only fit so many tasks and activities (rocks, pebbles, sand) into our day (the jar). Large rocks represent more significant objects requiring more resources, with less important things being smaller or sand.
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