The Art of Time Management. How to Stay Focused When Everything Feels Urgent
By Miles Goldstein, empowering global support teams to deliver smarter, faster solutions through scalable processes and customer-focused innovation.
Many people post about time management woes at work. Either they are working at multiple jobs, more tasks have been added to their existing job, or extracurricular demands are taking away from time previously spent working. Or sometimes life and work just get a little crazy.
Here are some of my thoughts and practices for time management. Note that these can also be applied to time management in your personal life.
“When you are up to your knees in alligators, it’s hard to remember the original goal was to drain the swamp”
General rule
There are three categories that most things fit into, be they email, projects, interruptions, or commitments:
Urgent/Now – a crisis or high-priority situation that requires your attention regardless of what's on your plate, or an event that you have prioritized.
Soon/Later - something that you personally need to do, but nobody is going to die if you wait from an hour to a day.
FYI/Noise - things that can (and should) be looked at only once, if at all, and then move on.
When I first log in or return to email, I do a quick scan of senders and subjects looking for any Urgent/Now items; sometimes I will create a rule/filter to highlight or notify me of these. Then I read oldest-to-newest.
Whenever I look at a piece of email I scan for all mail with that subject; that way I can knock out the entire thread without repeatedly coming back to it. If it is FYI/Noise, I then either delete it (Noise) or save only the most recent incarnation (FYI), marking it as “Read” and putting it in a folder (“labeling” it in Google-speak).
I also create rules/filters to automatically move known repetitive FYI/Noise issues into a non-Inbox folder upon arrival. The objective is to get them out of the Inbox, thus improving the “signal-to-noise ratio” of Inbox items. I will also set a flag on anything that I want to explicitly follow up on to ensure it doesn't get lost, usually leaving it in the Inbox for visibility.
Once I am done acting on it, all mail gets either put into a folder (usually just keeping the most recent thread) or deleted if it has no more value.
Noise and Interruptions
When I first became a manager, I learned an important lesson about interruptions.
If you and I were in my office having a discussion and somebody else came to my door, I would tell them that I was obviously busy and I would check with them when I was done. So why would I interrupt our discussion to answer an incoming phone call? I learned to ignore a ringing phone - if it is important, they will leave a message, try again, or use another method to notify me.
The same goes for the barrage of email and various message methods and tools.
I don't enable generic Slack or Email notifications on my screen - I will see them when I return to those tools.
I do allow Slack and SMS notifications on my phone, though, and sometimes enable desk-top notifications for certain high-priority conditions, as I do with the email filters mentioned earlier.
Daily priorities
I keep a short list of things I know I need to do on a given day.
Let's face it, it is easy to forget to do something like, “Call the bank.” I also like to start my day clearing out overnight email, and I block my calendar for lunch time and an afternoon walk.
There was one day, long ago, where I was booked solid except for a small break near lunchtime. Somebody sent me a meeting invite for that slot. I asked why and they said, “It was the only spot open on your calendar.” I have blocked off lunch ever since.
I will move it to accommodate meetings, but I won't let others take it away from me. The same works for projects; I will put an entry on my calendar labeled, “Write weekly report” (or whatever). Again, I can/will move it, but it stays on the calendar to block off time and remind me.
Various methods
Long ago my boss told me his time management method: “12/31”.
He kept 12 file folders (actual paper folders) for the upcoming 12 months and put documents or reminders in them that needed to be done during said months. And he had 31 daily folders for the current month.
That worked for him but was totally useless for me.
I carry a spiral-bound notebook and take notes during calls or meetings. If there is a to-do, I flag the page with a paperclip and put a big O next to the item on the page. When done, I remove the paperclip and put a checkmark in the O.
If I carry it forward to a later date, I do the same markings on the new entry and put an arrow through the original O indicating what date I carried it forward to. I will write “WIP” next to an item to indicate work in progress and leave the paperclip. Cancelled items get an X in the O. All silly, and all per my own OCD.
The lesson is to learn what works for you. Remember when “Daily Planner” books were all the rage?
Now, of course, we have a plethora of digital tools from which to choose.
The Volunteer mentality
One contributor to the growing tide of work is a person’s inability to say No.
“Hey, can you start sending me a daily report of X?”
“Sure!”
“We need somebody to set an agenda and solicit presenters for our next All-Hands.”
“Yeah, I’ll do it!”
It is admirable to want to help.
It is smart to learn and exhibit new skills to grow professionally. It is great to be community-minded and do things “for the greater good”. But at some point, you may have over-extended yourself and taken on work far beyond your job description.
If you no longer have time for your core tasks, perhaps the alligators are keeping you from draining that swamp.
I have read some good suggestions on how to say “No” while making it sound like “Yes”.
“Sure, I can take on that extra assignment. Which of these other things that I do should I stop or deprioritize for it?”
It is important to know your limits, set boundaries, come up for air, and be aware of signs of burnout.
Make sure to take time for lunch away from your desk, take that afternoon walk, or whatever else you do to reclaim some time for yourself. As I said in my article on Burnout (Ref 1), you need to “sharpen the axe” to stay productive.
Spending time wisely
It is important to spend your time working on things that matter.
A common expression is to understand the difference between “motion” and “action” (Ref 2).
Motion may include busy work which might accomplish nothing.
Action indicates actual progress on something.
It’s the difference between arranging deck chairs on the Titanic (motion) and designing a better ship (action).
I was recently in a Slack discussion with somebody trying to improve how they handle critical cases, as 25% of their cases are “critical”. My response was that he was solving the wrong problem; instead of getting better at handling that many critical cases, he should be looking at why his product is so unstable.
Fix what matters.
Yes, deal with the alligators, but don’t forget to drain that swamp.
Similarly, “context-switching” is an expensive use of time. It is like reading one page each from multiple books before rotating back to the first one.
Each time you change, you must get your head back into that space, and that takes up time.
You are often more efficient when you stay focused on a specific thing, though admittedly you should take a break if you’ve been staring at it without making progress.
That’s why with my email discussion above I try to process all mail from a specific thread at once. Think of it as the equivalent of “binge-watching” a TV series.
There are many articles about meetings.
Are they necessary? Who should attend? Should there be tight time limits?
I’m not going to dive too deep into this one, other than to say:
You should be aware of whether a meeting is the right tool for the topic, regardless of whether you are the host or an attendee.
If it is to share some basic information, it might be better to post something on a web page or send an email.
If it is an interactive presentation or class, then it may make more sense to call a meeting, but be sensitive as to who really needs to attend, and try to use everybody’s time efficiently.
A good mantra is to not waste other people’s time and try not to let them waste yours.
A specific kind of meeting which has attracted some controversial discussion lately is the one-on-one (1:1) meeting between a supervisor and a subordinate.
Some high-visibility leaders have asserted that 1:1s are a waste of time and they no longer do them (e.g. Ref 3).
I personally disagree and find great value in 1:1s. For me, they are not just about exchanging status reports or feedback; they are about establishing trust and growing an interpersonal relationship.
But if your management style is that black-and-white, then don’t waste people’s time; either you care about the relationship or you just want dry information.
Priorities
For all things, you should know your priorities.
Don’t spend your time reading SPAM mail when you need to prepare for a meeting in an hour.
I’m not sure who originally wrote it, but there is a story about a professor who fills a jar with various objects (Ref 4). He first fills the jar with golf balls, a metaphor for the important things. He then shows that there is still room for pebbles, a metaphor for other things that matter.
But the jar is not full yet - there is still room for sand, a metaphor for everything else, the small stuff. The intended lesson, before a silly punchline, is to make sure you start by making room for the big things.
If you start with the small things, the sand, you will not have room for the important things.
This aligns with my “Urgent, Soon, FYI” general rule at the start of this article.
Musical Finale
Along with Priorities, it is important to recognize what problems you can solve, and which ones are beyond your control. Wasting time and effort on something over which you have no control is, well, wasteful. Creedance Clearwater Revival may wonder “Who’ll Stop the Rain”, but I’m more of a “Sailor’s Hornpipe” (traditional, Ref 5) kind of guy:
“And I never never ever do a thing about the weather, for the weather never ever does a thing for me.”
You can’t stop the rain (sorry, Fogerty), but you can prepare for it by wearing a raincoat, carrying an umbrella, and protecting your property from water damage. Focus on the things which matter; the rest is just Noise.
About the author
Hi, I’m Miles, a Global Product & Technical Support Executive specializing in building and scaling world-class support teams for enterprise software companies.
With experience leading global support organizations at Marketo, Amobee, and Okta, I focus on driving efficiency, customer satisfaction, and business growth through smarter processes, stronger collaboration, and innovative service design.
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