The best time management strategies for scheduling your day, week, or life

By the year

This works for seasonal workers.

Make a list of your annual commitments including work events and personal events. Plan your tasks around these events.


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By the hour

This works well for the chronic procrastinator: those who say they will do it later and then wonder why it never gets done.

Instead of getting overwhelmed, tackle your to-do list in small manageable chunks. Scheduling your time by the hour takes little effort to implement but provides real results.

The Pomodoro Method

Rather than trying to work flat-out, break down your day into a series of work-sprints with a short rest period after each session.

Set a timer for 25 min and focus exclusively on your work for that time, take a 5 min break, and repeat.

Some people find that taking a 5 min break destroys their flow. But it does help to break long complex tasks into a series on manageable sprints.

The 2-minute rule

The 2-minute rule is a strategy for quickly assessing and taking action on small tasks so they don’t take up too much mental energy.

Ask yourself if a task is going to take you 2 minutes or less. If so, just do it.

The Next Hour

This method involves literally planning out each of your next hours, rather than your whole day.

Start the day by writing a list of what you intend to do over the next hour. Top up the list throughout the day so it always contains approximately one hour’s work.

By the day

This works well for the over-promiser: those who overestimate how much they can do in a day.

To prevent starting the day unplanned, plan your day the night before.

Time blocking

Assign every hour of your day to a specific task.

Take your day’s to-do list and estimate how long each task will take. Plan your day out by assigning each task to your calendar. Include all related tasks such as commuting, breaks and admin tasks.

Eating the frog

Eating the frog means taking the biggest job you need to do and tackling it at the very start of the day, getting it over and done with.

Check out your to-do list. Pick the task you’ve been putting off.

Natural energy cycles

Identify when your peaks/troughs are and plan your day around your energy levels. Alternatively, you can also work with your chronotype.

  • Bears are active in the day, but they’ll likely hit the snooze button before they get up. They’re best tackling intensive tasks just before noon.
  • Lions are early risers and are most productive in the morning.
  • Wolves would prefer to sleep through the morning. They peak late morning and late evening.
  • Dolphins are light sleepers. They should save intensive tasks for later in the day and are most productive in sprints.

Big rocks first

The method involves identifying your big rocks (i.e. your priorities) then planning your day around them.

By the week

This is for the constantly over-committed - those who struggle to fit everything into a single day cycle. 

Theme days

Theme each individual day of your week to a specific type of task.

For example:

  • Mon: Research
  • Tues: Client work
  • Wed: Marketing
  • Thurs: Client work
  • Fri: Bookkeeping

By the month

When you have a plan for the month, it gives you a sense of what you can realistically get done.

Experiment with monthly planning and see whether or not it fits in with your productivity cycles.

By the quarter

This is good for the big dreamer because it helps with starting making progress on long-term goals.

The 12 week year

Planning for a year leads to a lax attitude throughout the start of the year, leading to a burst of frantic activity as the end of the year approaches. Forget about your annual plan and accomplish the same goals in just 12 weeks.

  • When you have just 12 weeks to reach your goals, every day counts.
  • It encourages you to think in terms of what you can accomplish in less time.
  • Promotes daily action to accomplish long-term goals.

By the year

This works for seasonal workers.


By the lifetime

Rather than planning your time, plan your goals. Ignore specific timelines and instead focus on progressing toward your key goals.

For example, if you want to be President, you might choose to volunteer for local political activities, as opposed to taking a high-paying job in the private sector.



Brian Tracy

Time management is not a peripheral activity or skill. It is the core skill upon which everything else in life de..."

Brian Tracy
Work Around Your Energy Levels

Productivity is directly related to your energy level.

Find your most productive hours — the time of your peak energy — and schedule Deep Work for those periods. Do low-value and low-energy tasks (also known as shallow work), such as responding to emails or unimportant meetings, in between those hours.

Plan Your Day the Night Before

Before going to bed, spend 5 minutes writing your to-do list for the next day. These tasks should help you move towards your professional and personal goals.

You’ll be better prepared mentally for the challenges ahead before waking up and there won’t be any room for procrastination in the morning. As a result, you’ll work faster and smoother than ever before.

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Time-management tools
They offer the promise that you would gain certain control over your life, but there's no guarantee it will work.
When it fails to work, most people try another app or another technique.&nbs...
Uncritical Productivity

Pursuing productivity for its own sake is counter-productive. 

Most people feel able to complete more tasks when they start using time-management tools, but they don’t bear in mind that they can’t keep increasing their productivity forever, and they commit to more and more. In a few weeks, they are more productive but still frustrated. 

Balancing act

Back when more people worked in factories, laborers did not have to deal with time management. At the assembly line, time was managed for you.

Freedom comes with responsibility: you have to think a lot more about how you manage your time.

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Time Management And Personality

In order for any time-management method to be successful, you have to take into account people’s individual behaviors at work. There is no one-size-fits-all method for time management.

The Action Hero

Give them a seemingly impossible list of tasks and they will have them done and dusted faster than a speeding bullet. But in their haste, they can miss things and prioritize nonurgent tasks.

Strategy: For this type, ranking tasks according to urgency is a good call. 

The Diva

Very sociable and upbeat but with a tendency to procrastinate, they often boast about their nonexistent achievements giving the impression they are more productive than they really are.

Strategy: breaking tasks into tiny steps, scheduling their resolution and setting reminders works well. Email management according to urgency is also crucial considering how much time it usually consumes. 

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