How to Manage Your Time

Everyone is allotted 168 hours per week. If you sleep 8 hours each night and work 40 hours a week, you’re left with 72 hours of free time per week. That is 3 full days of time to spend however you’d like. Time is our most valuable resource—are you spending it wisely?

Accepting your finitude

How often do you feel you have too many things to do, yet so little time to complete them? We are finite creatures with seemingly infinite ways to spend our time. Even though you can think of a plethora of things you need to do, you have to decide what to actually do in the present moment.

The first step in managing your time is to accept that your to-do list will never be completely empty—there’s always something you could be doing. Racing through your to-do list each day to achieve a sense of accomplishment is futile. But it’s important not to tie your self-worth to how productive you are on a given day. Life is short enough, there’s no need to race through it.

Prioritize your values

Facing an insurmountable to-do list can be daunting. This is why you need to make a list of the things you value most in life. This could be exercising, reading, spending time with your partner, being outdoors, playing video games with friends, or volunteering in your community.

It’s not so much what your values are, it’s more so you identifying what’s most important in your life.

Once you have a list of your top values, you need to make time for them. Read for 30 minutes in the morning even if you “should” be doing something else. Play with your kids right after work even if you “should” be cleaning out the garage.

There’s an analogy of being presented with rocks, pebbles, and sand that all need to fit into a jar. If you put in the sand first and the rocks second, it won’t all fit. But if you put the largest rocks in first and then the pebbles and sand, everything can fit in the jar.

Life is too short to spend time on meaningless tasks just for the sake of checking them off your to-do list. Start prioritizing the big rocks in your life and the sand will find room in the remaining time.

Schedule your days

If you want to be deliberate with how you spend your time, try scheduling each hour of your day, even on weekends. This may seem excessive at first, but it can be liberating not having to decide each hour how to spend your time.

You can even schedule times for relaxation, playing with your kids, or spending time with your partner. It doesn’t matter what you put on your schedule, it matters that you have an idea of how you’re going to use your time throughout the day to eliminate decision fatigue.

Decision fatigue hinders your ability to make good decisions. So at the end of the day when you’re mentally and physically tired, it can be hard to put on running shoes and get outside. But if you have a 30-minute run in your calendar after work, you don’t need to decide if you should go for a run or watch another episode of The Office.

By planning out what you’re going to do at certain times throughout the day, you will get better at estimating how much time a task will take you. If you haven’t scheduled your days like this before, you may notice that you underestimate how long a given task will take. Adding a buffer to your schedule can help account for any extra time a task may take.

Inevitable circumstances will come up in life, don’t get discouraged when your schedule gets disrupted. Simply reorganize your schedule when you get a free moment during the day. The goal of scheduling each day is to live a more intentional life, not to become rigidly fixed towards the blocks in your schedule.

Embrace deep work

Cal Newport describes deep work as, “professional activities performed in a state of distraction-free concentration that push your cognitive capabilities to their limit. These efforts create new value, improve your skill, and are hard to replicate.” Deep work is when you’re able to resist distractions, be fully present, and complete meaningful work.

Shallow work is non-cognitively demanding work often done while distracted. This is where most people operate most of the time. Shallow work is easier than fully diving into the task at hand. If you can set aside 3 or 4 hours per day of distraction-free deep work on a consistent basis, you’ll be surprised at how much you can accomplish in a short period of time.

By eliminating distractions in your environment, you can complete a task in a few hours that may have taken you days in a typical shallow work environment. Embracing deep work is what allowed me to be a successful student in grad school without ever pulling an all-nighter or rarely studying in the late evening. Find a time of day when you’re mentally at your best and can allocate time to meaningful and distraction-free work.

The power of no

Saying no is a powerful tool for managing your time. When you say yes to something, you are saying no to everything else. In an ideal world, you would be able to accept every invitation or meeting that sounds like a good use of time; however, we are living in a finite world with limited resources. Greg McKeown in his book Essentialism said, “The more you think about what you’re giving up by saying yes, the easier it is to say no.”

Before you commit to something, take time to think about what you will be giving up to say yes to this opportunity. Don’t be afraid to say no to things that don’t serve you, your values, or your goals.

A general rule of thumb is, if an opportunity comes your way and you’re not 100% excited about it, don’t do it! You may sacrifice your popularity by saying no, but you will gain respect in the long run.

Take a break

It’s easy to get caught up in the productivity hampster wheel. It’s easy to keep the momentum going when you’re in the zone of completing tasks. But if you don’t do anything you truly value, you won’t feel fulfilled at the end of the day.

I like to schedule breaks throughout my day to do things I enjoy: exercise, listen to music, go for a walk, or meditate. If I don’t feel productive on a certain day, at least I will have done something that I enjoy and value.

Another useful tip to use when you’re stressed out about not having enough time is to imagine your cosmic insignificance. Just picture your place in the universe. You are spinning 1,000 miles per hour through space on a little blue ball in a universe with over 200 billion galaxies. When you feel overwhelmed, remember: the thing you’re worrying about isn’t all that significant in the big picture of the universe.

Final thoughts

Time management is a skill that takes practice, but it's worth the effort. We have a limited amount of time on this beautiful planet, make sure you’re making the most of it. You are a finite human incapable of experiencing the infinite amount of opportunities to take. Examine your daily tasks and ask yourself: does this enhance my life, or diminish it? Prioritize your values and be deliberate with how you plan your days to live an intentional life.