Start the New Year Off Right with These 7 Simple Time Management Tips

OK, you've made your new year's resolutions...but now what? Where and how do you start?

As the management guru Peter Drucker famously put it, “Time is the scarcest resource; if it is not managed, nothing else can be.” So how are you going to manage your time . . . while trying to manage to find the time to do all that you want and need to do this year?

There are a million time management and personal productivity tools, tips, and techniques out there. You can spend hours researching all of them (but then you really wouldn’t get anything done), or you can start with any of the following seven simple tips that I’m suggesting below -- all of which I use...at one time or another...to get stuff done.

While many of these techniques may at first glance appear to be just common sense...as the saying goes, “Common sense is not always common practice.” And it is putting these ideas into practice -- to achieve results -- that counts.

So here are seven of my favorite time management methods to help you get the most—and the best—out of your day, week, month, and year:

1. The To-Do List or Master Checklist – So simple and obvious, and yet most people just don’t have one. You may have a collection of scraps of paper scattered about, Post-it Notes stuck to your computer, or random scribbles in a notebook or on your phone, but most people do not have ONE single organized and detailed "Master List" of everything you need to do all in one place. If you do nothing else, do this. Consolidate...so that you have everything all together in one place at a glance and help you to be more organized. As author and surgeon Atul Gawande’s bestselling book The Checklist Manifesto powerfully illustrates, a simple checklist can, literally, save lives. So why not start with your own?

2. Time Management Matrix (aka the Eisenhower Matrix) – Popularized by Stephen Covey in his classic book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, this simple 4-quadrant model can help you to more effectively manage your time (and your to-do list) by thinking in terms of “urgency” and “importance.” The basic premise is that if we spend all our time scrambling around, dealing with the urgent (e.g., crises, interruptions, and distractions), then when and how will we ever find the time to do the big, important ("Quadrant 2") things that really matter?

3. Time-Cost-Quality Triangle – Every decision we make involves these three factors. (In project management terminology, we may talk in terms of Scope, Schedule, and Budget.) And everyone wants everything done "better. faster, and cheaper." But do you want it done right . . . or do you want it done right now? Usually you can’t have it both ways. For example, delivering higher quality tends to take more time, and often costs more. Even when deciding whether to walk, take the subway, or take a cab or Uber, we’re playing these three variables off one other! This simple, triangular model won’t make the decision for you, but it will help you to prioritize and to make better and more confident decisions.

4. SMART Goals – A big part of New Year’s resolutions is setting our goals or objectives for the year. So why do we so often fail to achieve them? Because the goals we set are not always “SMART”! As many already know, a “SMART” goal is:

Specific (as opposed to broad, vague, or general); Measurable (that is, quantifiable—as Drucker said, “If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it”); Achievable (a challenge and a stretch, but realistically doable); Relevant (the goal must be meaningful and significant); and Time-oriented (there needs to be a deadline and milestones).

Saying “I’d like to lose some weight this year” is a good intention; but it’s not a SMART Goal that will increase your odds of achieving this ambitious and challenging objective. Saying (or, better yet, writing it down and even saying out loud to others who will hold you accountable): “I am committed to only eating X number of calories per day, and working out five days a week, with the goal of losing 5 pounds a month over the next 6 months” is more likely to happen than just hoping it just magically happen on its own. Take it from me: Three years ago I lost a little over 10 pounds a month for 3 straight months (yes, 36 pounds total!)...and (other than a few five-pound-fluctuations) I've managed to pretty much keep it off ever since. I could not have accomplished this difficult feat without setting, and tracking, and keeping my SMART goals.

5. The Three B’s: Bookending, Blocking, and Batching:

Bookending: Reserve the first and last half-hour or hour of your day (e.g., 8:00am-9:00am and 5:00pm-6:00pm -- depending on your schedule) for solo, silent, undistracted, "reflection, introspection, and connection" with yourself. You could also “bookend” your week, month, and year. Setting aside this time at both ends enables you to plan and visualize on the front end...and reflect and assess on the back end.

Blocking: If you don’t control your calendar, everyone else will. So set aside a few hours a week of "me time" (even if it’s just a half hour or an hour at lunchtime, for example), so you can recharge and refresh, and/or actually get some real, "deep" work done…rather than just running from one meeting, task, or email to the next.

Batching: Instead of stopping and starting as things pop up, group similar things together (e.g., responding to non-urgent emails or social media posts, doing paperwork, filing, bill paying, etc.) and knock them out all at one time when you can give these low-priority (but highly important) tasks your undivided attention in one shot.

6. The 18 Minutes Method – My friend and "MG 100 Coaches" colleague Peter Bregman, in his thought-provoking and highly engaging book of the same name, recommends something similar to bookending -- with an added twist: He says that you should dedicate five minutes at the start of each day for planning and five minutes at the end of the day for reflection (that’s ten of the eighteen minutes). And he also suggests you spend one minute of every hour in between (set the alarm on your watch or phone to go off each hour) to STOP…pause...and ask yourself: Is what I’m doing right now what I SHOULD be spending my time on right now?

7. The Two-Minute Rule – As productivity guru David Allen recommends in his bestseller, "Getting Things Done," if something will take less than two minutes (or even less than five minutes) to do, just get it done RIGHT NOW. Rather than adding it to your To-Do list, or taking twice as long to delegate and explain it to someone else, just knock it off now and move on to the next thing. You’ll feel good about making progress as you check these things off your list, allowing you more time later on to focus on the big things.

As mentioned previously, there are tons of other related time management and personal productivity tools, tips, and techniques around -- including many apps and calendaring programs, but I’ll stop here with these.

You’re probably thinking: I barely have time to keep up with my email, meetings, etc. -- how am I supposed to find the time to do everything on this list? The answer is, don’t try to do everything. Just pick one or two of these suggestions—the ones you think will have the biggest immediate impact—and focus on making a few small adjustments and improvements -- one day at a time.

Doing so is an investment. And like any long-term investment, you may not see the payoff right away, but you will see the return on investment -- yes -- over time.

The key is to just get started.

And now is as good a time as any.

*For more on how you can "visualize" a better future, check out my book, "VisuaLeadership: Leveraging the Power of Visual Thinking in Leadership and in Life."