20 time-management tips that put you in charge of your day

If your job requires a lot of outreach or communication, chances are you spend a lot of time writing redundant emails. An easy tip to reduce the amount of time you spend emailing and increase the amount of time you have for important projects is to standardise your communication process. Put simply, never write the same message twice.

“If you write the same email more than a few times, save it as a template. Even if it’s just in your Drafts,’’ suggests Hannah Attewell, a success and business coach for Force of Nature Coach. Even if your emails do not follow the exact same format, you can save time by creating a template introduction that you copy and paste into every email.

While personalising your emails can be important to fostering professional relationships, creating messaging templates will greatly improve your time-management techniques. You should also learn how to block emails to clear your inbox of spam, making it easier to see important messages.

You can save a lot of time by having an organised and uncluttered email inbox. If you get more emails a day than you can go through, there are hacks you can use to keep your inbox tidy. On Gmail, for example, you can set up canned responses, have emails automatically organised into specific folders as they come in and use Smart Compose to help you type faster.

Check out these ways the most productive people handle their emails.

Many people actually have difficulty recognising the difference between urgent, important and standard tasks. Even when people do recognise that some projects are more important than others, procrastination often gets in the way of beginning our bigger projects first. This is one of the most foundational time-management tips: you have to prioritise.

Letting significant assignments take the backseat in your schedule is very dangerous, according to Jason Patel, former career ambassador at George Washington University and founder of Transizion. Patel reasons that “it’s easier to fill a tank using large rocks first and small pebbles second than it is to fill it with pebbles first and large rocks afterword. The same applies to your time. Prioritise and give your energy to the most important tasks first.”

How do you recognise which projects have the most value? “The importance of these tasks will depend on your company goals, growth and values,” says Patel. If you expect a project will greatly enhance your company’s success, make it a high priority. Otherwise, save it for later.

Your time is just as valuable as everyone else’s. If someone asks you for something that doesn’t align with your goals, politely tell them you don’t have time in your schedule and you need to focus on bigger things. If you want to buy yourself some time before declining an offer, tell them you’ll check your schedule and get back to them. This way you can plan out your day or week to see if you’ll actually have time to complete the additional task.

Find out how to think big and realise your goals.

When we arrive at work each morning, we’re faced with a daunting pile of assignments and no clue where to begin. In these groggy hours, we slowly sift through each task and waste the first block of our days constructing a schedule.

Although organising might feel like productive work, it’s actually extremely time-consuming and inefficient. That’s why Romy Taormina, founder and CEO of Psi Health Solutions, suggests planning your day the night before. “Working out the logistics and priorities in advance will minimise last-minute changes, rushing and frustration, increase your chances of getting done what is most important” and enable you to “start off the day on a positive and productive note,” advises Taormina.

Plus, planning your schedule in the afternoon, while your brain is still in work mode, takes much less time than it does in the morning, when your mind is still fuzzy from sleep. Rolling out of bed to find that your outfit is already chosen, your meals are all lined up and your work can be started immediately is extremely gratifying. It’s also a great way to be more productive in your first hour of work.

Whether you walk, drive or take the train to work, many of us have a period of the day that is lost in transit – literally. Instead of blaring music and staring mindlessly out the window, “fill time on your commute with tasks that can be accomplished” (providing you can do it safely), such as “taking phone calls or listening to a beneficial podcast,” suggests Lindsay Junk, president of YogaSix.

Even if you usually don’t bring work outside of the office, you might as well capitalise on this dull and necessary chunk of the day. Plus, scheduling quick conference calls or consuming helpful news on the go can help you foster professional relationships with co-workers or clients, meet deadlines and even slip out of the office at a reasonable hour. Hello, personal time!

When you’re asleep, your brain is working hard to organise your memories and thoughts, but your body feels totally relaxed. As you’re waking up, that combination makes it among your most creative points in the day – perfect for coming up with new solutions or having entertaining thoughts. But adding a mobile phone into that equation gets in the way of that creative flow.

“There is nothing on the internet that cannot wait for 20 minutes while you do some mindful breathing and think grateful thoughts,” writes Samantha Bennett in Start Right Where You Are. Use an alarm clock (yes, an actual clock!) to wake you up in the morning, and if you’re worried about emergency calls, leave your phone near the door, within earshot but out of arm’s reach.

As soon as you settle into your desk in the morning, get started on your most important work – the creative, strategic tasks that only you can do. If you start by checking your email or social media, you’ll end up wasting half your morning. “The next thing you know, two hours have gone by, you haven’t gotten to any of the important stuff and the rest of your day is crowded with meetings and calls,” writes Bennett.

Instead, set a timer for two minutes to skim your inbox for emergencies. If there’s nothing that requires your immediate attention, shift straight into your important work for a more productive morning that sets you up for a successful day.

Don’t miss these daily morning habits of highly organised people.

You should still be a reliable communicator, but dropping everything to answer people’s requests immediately not only forces you to adjust to their schedules and puts you off course, but it also doesn’t give you time to fully think out your reply. Bennett says she likes to wait 24 hours before responding to emails, calls and other messages.

“I find that this gives me time to prioritise, to consider people’s requests and give them a solid answer,” she writes. If you’re saying no to someone, no need to give a long-winded explanation – just be vague and thank the person for thinking of you as you kindly decline. It’s important to know how to set boundaries to allow yourself to focus on your work and your goals.

Your calendar shouldn’t be limited to big meetings and deadlines. Use it to schedule every little thing, from clearing off your desk to taking an afternoon walk. “I hear from people all the time: ‘I wish I had time to write a book,’” writes Bennett. “You do. You are just spending that time on other things.”

If you don’t write down nonessential activities, there’s a good chance you’ll let other tasks get in the way. In addition to these productive tricks to help you stop procrastinating, commit to blocking your time with a calendar. This will increase the chances that you’ll actually accomplish everything you’d hoped.