Projects creeping in, slipping deadlines, and a to-do list that seems to get longer with every passing moment — these experiences are all too common in both life and work. We all have the same 24 hours in a day, but some of us seem to achieve more with the time on hand than others. The secret lies in the Art and Science of Good Time Management. Time management is the way in which we plan, prioritize and organize specific activities as well as how long we will spend on each of them. Good time management allows us to get more done and increase our productivity.

From sticks in the ground to caesium atomic clocks, human beings have been keeping track of time for centuries. As per archaeological evidence, the Babylonians and Egyptians began to measure time around 5,000 years ago, introducing calendars to organize and coordinate activities and events. The importance of time has been stressed in all cultures, be it Benjamin Franklin's famous phrase ‘Time is Money’ or the Arab proverb ‘Time is Gold’. So, time is a resource that should be used wisely.

The human race has rolled through numerous transitions. An undisputable recent one has to be the transition towards work from home & freelancing. As a freelancer, you are your own boss and therefore time management for freelancers is essentially crucial. By not getting your tasks done on time, you can lose credibility, trust and most importantly Clients. With being a freelancer, you are in charge of your time and you need to spend it intentionally in order to succeed.

Here are some useful tips and applications to help you better manage your time and hence your life.

Get your priorities straight

The first step is to get clear on your priorities and to do this deliberately. You need to be aware of what’s important and worth spending your time on. A very useful tool in this respect is the Eisenhower Matrix. It’s a task management tool that helps you organize and prioritize tasks by urgency and importance. This way you can effectively prioritize your most important work. The 34th President of the United States Dwight D. Eisenhower presented the idea that later lead to the Eisenhower Matrix. In a 1954 speech, Eisenhower quoted an unnamed university president and said, “I have two kinds of problems, the urgent and the important. The urgent are not important, and the important are never urgent.”

Using the tool, you’ll divide your tasks into four boxes or quadrants.

Quadrant 1: This box contains the most Urgent and Important tasks. It contains things like fast-approaching deadlines and things that you must fix and resolve right away. However, spending too much time in this quadrant may indicate that you’re going about life in a reactive manner and are waiting until the last minute when things must get done.

Quadrant 2: Here you put things that are Important but Not Urgent. Examples include planning, learning, and investing in yourself in some way. These are things that in the bigger picture, are actually very important for your success. So by doing all these things in quadrant 2, you’ll save yourself to do so much in quadrant 1. So the key here is learning to focus more of your time on things that are in quadrant 2.

Quadrant 3: This box contains things that are Urgent, but Not Important like certain calls and emails.

Quadrant 4: The fourth quadrant contains things that are Not Urgent and Not Important. It includes trivial activities that you use to escape what you have to do, like randomly browsing social media or stress-induced binge-watching. All of these are time wasters.

So you should focus more on quadrant 2 and less on quadrants 3 and 4.

Effectively schedule your time

Once you figure out the important things for you to do, it’s time to schedule them. Set aside a specific day called the ‘Strategy Day’ weekly or monthly or both. On this day you can schedule for the next week/month. To schedule your time effectively make sure to keep the following in mind:

Identify available time
Schedule Contingency time
Schedule Discretionary time
Schedule the activities that represent your priorities and personal goals, in the remaining time
Analyze your activities to identify tasks that can be delegated, maybe outsourced or removed altogether
Stay flexible

There are certain techniques that can be used to schedule your time efficiently & effectively.

Time Blocking: By applying this method you divide your day into blocks of time. Each block is dedicated to accomplishing a particular task, or group of tasks. Time blocking promotes focused deep work and makes you aware of how you spend your time.

You can use Google Calendar or tools like Todoist to effectively apply time blocking as a scheduling technique. You can even integrate Todoist with your Google Calendar for enhanced productivity.

The Personal Kanban System: Kanban (meaning signboard in Japanese) is a Japanese project management technique established in the 1940s by an industrial engineer at Toyota, Taiichi Ohno. He was attempting to streamline the daily workflow at the Japanese automotive giant. Kanban is a board to visualize tasks and manage your time. Setting up a Kanban system is fairly simple:

On a board/paper draw three columns: Choices, Doing and Done
Write your individual tasks down on separate cards/post-it notes. You can customize these by urgency, importance or type with colours or symbols. Post all of these cards/post-it notes in the “Choices” column.
From the “Choices” column, pick no more than three tasks to move into the middle “Doing” column. These are the tasks in progress you’re focused on completing.
When a task is complete, move it to the “Done” column, and pick new tasks from the “Choices” to bring into the “Doing” column.

The aim is to minimize the In-progress tasks ie. the tasks in the “Doing” column. Starting but not finishing too many projects puts a person at risk of the so-called Zeigarnik effect — a psychological phenomenon describing a tendency to remember interrupted or incomplete tasks or events more easily. Unfinished tasks that we’ve left hanging are like cognitive itches. So by minimizing these we can remove distractions and increase productivity. Applications like Trello can be used to set up & implement a Kanban System digitally.

Keep track of time spent on each task

It’s quite easy to lose track of time when you’re swamped with work. You can’t change what you’re not consciously aware of! You need to be able to know what you are spending your time on and whether it’s worth it or not. Consider using a stopwatch or a time tracking tool, which can ensure you know exactly how long you spend on a task. Applications like Toggle or Clockify can really help you out here and many of our Odetta freelancers use them too!

Hold yourself accountable

You need to hold yourself accountable. Set aside time to constantly self-reflect. It’s necessary to analyze your time management system, look for any problems and make changes accordingly. This way you can track your progress realistically, boost your confidence, and create alternate plans when required. Applications like StickK and Asana can really help here by tracking your progress for specific goals.

Prioritize some necessary “Me Time”

You’ll be far more effective in your work if you also schedule time for yourself on a regular basis – whether it’s going out for coffee or a walk or ensuring that you get to a yoga class or another personal commitment. You need to leave time for yourself in order to work at your full potential and enhance your overall productivity. Humans are simply more productive when rested. Researcher Mark Rosekind of Alertness Solutions discovered that the respite effect of a vacation can increase an individual’s performance by 80%.

So take breaks, enjoy your well deserved time off and come back to your daily life routine refreshed & energized!

Learn to say NO

Finally, the most important skill any working professional possesses, whether they work for an organization or for themselves, is the ability to draw boundaries. Learning to say NO at the right time is really important. Don't be afraid to turn down a job or project you don't have time to do. One of the greatest benefits of the freelance lifestyle is that you have plenty of freedom with respect to your time and how you spend it. But, you have to be mindful of how much work you can take on at any given time.

What separates time management success from failure?

Three particular skills distinguish time management success from failure.

Awareness: thinking realistically about the time at hand by acknowledging it as a limited resource.
Arrangement: designing and organizing your objectives, plans, schedules, and tasks to effectively use the available time.
Adaptation: monitoring and analyzing your use of time while performing activities, including adjusting to interruptions or changing priorities.

We need to become better time managers in order to work at maximum productivity and achieve success. This path begins with turning away from the tempting quick fixes and instead toward assessing and restructuring our underlying time management skills before another new year’s resolution reaches its dissolution. Golda Meir rightly said, and we quote:

Freelancing & The Craft Of Time Management