7 Proven Ways for Business Owners to Master Time Management

Published on October 26, 2023
5 min read

7 Proven Ways for Business Owners to Master Time Management

Startup owners and project managers are typically in charge of their entire team’s day-to-day activities– from ensuring that everyone is accomplishing their deliverables on time, to setting the strategic direction of the entire organization. That said, you fully understand the value of time in relation to employee productivity and business profitability.

Unfortunately, anyone can fall into the trap of losing track of time. It is becoming an increasingly common occurrence in today’s fast-paced world. In fact, research shows that this is caused by overstimulation of the brain, stress, or the lack of structure in daily activities– typical challenges among business owners and managers who handle multiple individuals and projects at the same time.

Whether you’re constantly absorbed in responding to emails, frequently engaged in meetings, or simply hyper-focused on a single task, losing track of time can derail you and your team’s productivity.

So, how can you confront these challenges and improve your time management skills?

Here are 7 proven ways to stop losing track of time while working.

Create A Daily Schedule And Commit To It

The simplest yet most crucial way to stop losing track of time is by establishing a fixed routine and schedule. In fact, studies show that having a specific timetable will help you accomplish things more efficiently and with less effort.

Starting your day with a structured list of the things you need to handle personally and those that you need to delegate. Doing so prevents you from unconsciously diving into the first thing that comes into your mind, and as a result, you lose even more time in jumping from one task to another.

Implement the same system with your team, aligning everyone’s schedules for an organized flow of execution. By committing to a daily routine and a dependable schedule, you will gain better control over your time, boosting your productivity and efficiency.

Implement a Tracking System for Time And Tasks

To make necessary improvements in your schedule and build on your time management skills, you need to be able to identify the activities you and your team spend the most time on. Most people often over or underestimate how much time they actually need to accomplish specific tasks or errands, messing up the schedule they’ve set for themselves.

Keeping track of the organization’s daily activities will help you determine a workable schedule, recognize time drains, and re-calibrate your team’s focus towards the most important, high-impact tasks.

One of the best ways to log your work hours and tasks is through the help of a time tracking app. An online time tracking software allows you to track work hours and monitor how much time you spend on each task per day, week, or month. Time tracking software provides you with accurate data that can be used to develop a more realistic schedule that molds to your lifestyle.

On the other hand, time sheets will also reflect the hours spent on activities irrelevant to your work that lead to losing track of time. As a result, you will be able to make more conscious steps toward avoiding those identified distractions.

time tracking template free download

Arrange Tasks By Level Of Priority

Mastering prioritization will lead you and your team to attain better results and achieve your goals. We know that it’s easier said than done, but there are scientifically proven methods for time management that can help you organize your to-do list, and segment them effectively to drive improved productivity.

The Eisenhower Matrix, also popularly known as the Urgent-Important matrix, provides a simple yet highly functional template that urges you to segregate tasks based on importance and urgency.

Eisenhower Matrix for effective task management and time tracking

Before finalizing your schedule, it’s important to start by categorizing each task into these four buckets:

      • Important and Urgent – The most important, high-impact tasks that need to be done on the same day. These are items with the highest priority that should be done first.
      • Important but Not Urgent – Essential tasks that don’t require immediate action. These are activities that may involve long-term conceptualizing, planning, and continuous optimization.
      • Urgent but Not Important – These are tasks that may pose as potential distractions from accomplishing more important responsibilities specific to your role. Delegate these items to appropriate team members.
      • Not Urgent and Not Important – These tasks do not add value towards achieving your desired output. Don’t spend time on these time-consuming activities that will not contribute to your goals.

Here’s an example of the types of activities that fall under each quadrant:

Eisenhower Matrix for effective task management and time tracking

In applying this to your time management process, the key is to incorporate your initial to-do list into the matrix by evaluating the levels of urgency and importance of each task lined up for the day. Practicing prioritization on a daily basis will eventually reprogram your mindset into focusing on tasks that will contribute to achieving your goals.

Place Time Limits On Tasks

A significant part of building your schedule is setting firm time limits on tasks. This is typically known as time blocking. For organizations and individuals working with multiple clients, this time management strategy works best.

Time blocking essentially means boxing in specific amounts of time for designated tasks or projects. To create a realistic time block schedule, use the data from your time tracking app as a basis for how long each itemized activity will take to complete. While it adds a bit of pressure to accomplish tasks within their determined time block, it also ensures that you are no longer spending hours on non-essential activities. As a result, you’ll immediately notice accelerated productivity and a depleting to-do list as tasks are quickly and efficiently ticked off your calendar.

time tracking template free download

Avoid Multitasking

While this is practically the most commonly heard way to stop losing track of time, it’s the most difficult to live by. Multitasking only divides your attention and focus, resulting in lower productivity, efficiency, and quality of work. In fact, research suggests that when your brain is frequently diverting from one focus point to another, you become more prone to errors and oversights.

As a leader in your organization, activities can pile up every minute, making it tempting to multitask as an attempt to “get more things done at the same time”. However, the consequences are detrimentally counterproductive.

In order to avoid multitasking, you will need to practice immense focus on your pre-determined tasks, according to your prepared schedule. This means completely blocking out all potential distractions, non-urgent matters, and least important tasks that can either be delegated or eliminated.

Establish Boundaries To Avoid Distractions

It’s so easy to get caught up in web browsing, social media, and chatting up co-workers. Before you know it, you’ve lost track of your time.

However, completely ignoring these distractions may require a lot more effort as social platforms and messaging apps have become part of work, whatever your role in the company may be. A good strategy is to separate your business and personal accounts, limiting your access to only work-related platforms within business hours.

Take it one day at a time and gently establish boundaries with your teams on how you would like to practice time management tactics. Eventually, you will have developed a habit of focusing only on what’s important to you and your business.

Build A Conducive Work Environment

Whether you’re working remotely or in the office, creating a comfortable yet conducive environment for work is an essential part of productivity.

First things first, it’s important to consider how organized your workspace is. Ensure that you have easy access to equipment, materials, and tools which you need to accomplish your tasks in the most efficient way possible. Secondly, diminish distractions in your work area, sticking only to items that you need or will help motivate you to get things done. The rest is considered as clutter, and best relocated among your personal belongings.

Your environment extends to the people you work with, whether face-to-face or virtually. As a business leader or project manager, it’s your role to cultivate a supportive and disciplined environment that values proper scheduling, time tracking, and project management. These will play a prominent factor in everyone’s productivity and efficiency.

Conclusion

In any role, industry, or business, you will always be faced with overwhelming schedules and to-do lists that run miles long. These unavoidable instances tend to make us lose track of time while working. The key is not letting your tasks overpower you.

Know that with the right time tracking tools, most effective productivity practices, and proven time management strategies, you can take better control of your day and your tasks.

It’s time to get Productive.

Productively is a time tracker app that lets you elevate work efficiency with advanced time tracking, real-time reports, and powerful analytics. We believe that if you can manage your hours, you can handle everything else.

With a streamlined dashboard that lets you visualize time tracked by days, weeks, months, or even by client and project, you will be able to make more informed decisions based on accurate data. Its seamless invoicing feature allows you to automatically generate account statements for a more organized billing and receivables system. Altogether, it provides a comprehensive view of your teams’ efficiency, hours worked, billables, and profit.

Bolster productivity, reduce unnecessary costs, and improve the way you do business with the app that empowers you to visualize your untapped capacity.

Learn more about Productively and how we can help you. Book a demo now!

Social Media

Like our content? Subscribe to our mailing list to get the latest updates, tools, and resources.

Start leveraging powerful time tracking data to boost productivity and improve the way you do business.

All that and more through a time tracking app that will empower you
to understand your business better and identify problem areas.