How to Master Time Management (when you’ve got a lot of shit to do)

I’m not trying to brag, but I’m pretty damn good at time management (really exciting stuff). Between my job in public relations, freelance work and this blog, it requires a lot of time management–and I’ve learned a thing or two about how to make the most of my time in the last 10 years in the workforce and almost nine years with the blog.

Set Deadlines + Map Out Tasks

I spend a lot of time reviewing projects and tasks, assigning myself internal deadlines on my calendar and adding the actual deadline or event to my calendar.

If you have a lot to coordinate, I find that using one calendar system to track events, meetings and all of your reminders and deadlines works perfectly. I use my personal Gmail calendar even if it’s my day job work to set reminders.

Learn How to Say No

This is harder for some personalities than others, but personally, this comes naturally to me. I’ve realized with age that everyone wants your time. If I said yes to everything, I’d never have a minute to myself and I require more alone time than some people to feel re-energized. You don’t need a million excuses, just simply say I can’t, but thank you for the invite or something else nice and to the point.

When you’re saying no to something you don’t want to do or have time to do, you’re saying yes to other priorities whether it’s cleaning your house, taking a much-needed nap or getting work done.

Don’t Try to Multitask, Just Get One Thing Done at a Time

This one is a struggle for me–I love to keep my emails open, get started on a project and wander my house to tidy up–and guess what gets done? NOTHING. Close out your email, write a quick to do list and sit down, focus and get the tasks done in order of priority.

Set Top Priorities

If you have 80 things to get done and you’re feeling strapped for time and stressed–try to break down the work into timelines and prioritize tasks by importance and due date.

I like to write my to-do lists and priorities in a cute notebook, but note-taking apps like Evernote or Simplenote are easy to use on the go. I personally love Evernote! I also love to use spreadsheets or a simple word doc for writing out timelines–it really helps me focus on the tasks to do without feeling overwhelmed.

Photography by Brooke Cummings