Focus on Task-Management, Rather than Time-Management, to Be Less Busy

Illustration for article titled Focus on Task-Management, Rather than Time-Management, to Be Less Busy

“If only there were more hours in the day,” you tell yourself. You have so much to do and, no matter how effectively you use your time, there always seems to be more to do. Rather than try to use your time efficiently to manage your to-do list, focus on managing the list itself.


As business psychologist Tony Crabbe. points out, time management is a nice idea. If you’re careful to make sure you spend your time effectively, you can get more done. The only problem is, the result of getting more done is often having even more to do. The more emails you can send, the more you’ll need to reply to later. The more projects you can start today, the more projects you’ll need to finish tomorrow. Rather than try to cram as much as possible into one day, focus on managing your tasks first, then dole out your time:


That’s not to say that time management has no place in your life. You need to be able to effectively allot your time to the tasks you decide are important. However, if you don’t start from a place of prioritizing your tasks, your time management is just going to be an exercise in futility, trying to keep all the plates spinning at once.

Why Time Management Totally Backfires | Inc.

Photo by McCready.


This is my lifesaver. Scheduling things on the calendar never works for me because life is too fluid, priorities change too quickly. As soon as you have to re-prioritize, all of that time you spent scheduling goes out the window. I just keep a meticulous task list, pruned every week (or sometimes more often) of everything I have to do in the order I should do it. I also use a few labels (I use Todoist) for things like Easy or Quick, so if I have a small amount of time I can get something done. When I need to re-prioritize a task, I just move it to its new place in the list and continue working top to bottom. If I’m having a rough day and the tasks at the top of my list are more effort than I think I can achieve while still doing the task well, I’ll do tasks I know I can handle. Even if it’s not quite the order I’ve prioritized, I can consciously make that decision because my priorities are right in front of me. Works like a charm!