From Chaos to Control: How to Manage Your Time at Work

I’d be swimming in money if I had a nickel for every time I said, “only if I had more time,” when I looked at my to-do list. Time management controls everything — how you spend your time in the office dictates the entire trajectory of your career.

How? What you spend your precious hours doing today might not feel all that impactful. But that’s the thing about time: It adds up. If you don’t find the time to finish all your jobs (and then some!), upskill, and network consistently, you risk stagnation. Sooner or later, you’ll start worrying about getting left behind.

It’s not just you: Most of us feel like we’re constantly racing against time.

• How will I get everything done in time?

• How will I find the time to rest, recharge, and reflect?

• How can I prioritize when everything seems urgent and important?

This is what this guide is here for — a complete playbook for managing your time effectively in the workplace. It’s specifically designed for leaders with a lot on their plate (and minds) — but anyone can benefit from learning about these principles.

The missing link in most time management advice

Before I get into the nitty-gritty, I have a bone to pick with most time management advice out there. Almost 99% of the content about time management focuses on the number of hours in the day without taking energy into account.

We’re tackling the issue all wrong. Instead of thinking: ❌ “There are a limited number of hours in the day to do everything,”

The equation should have a new component (energy): ✅ “I don’t have enough energy to accomplish all the tasks I want to.”

Effective time management requires energy management.

In 2006, Tony Schwartz and Catherine McCarthy ran an experiment with 106 employees at 12 regional banks in southern New Jersey. They focused on strengthening the four dimensions of energy:

• 💪 body

• 🧘 emotion

• 🧠 mind

• 👻 spirit

Compared to the control group, the energy-driven participants showed a 13% year-over-year increase in productivity (measured by revenue brought in) compared to non-participants. And they achieved this result in just three months. This outperformance in the energy-aware group lasted for an entire year.

I’m so passionate about this missing link from time management advice that I wrote a whole YouTube script for Matt D’Avella around it.

I know you might not have the time ( 😉) to watch the video, so here’s the crux: Time is a fixed resource. Energy isn’t. Even if you have enough hours in the day to do everything, you don’t have enough energy. Remember this when you’re following any time management advice or planning your day.

So what’s an ambitious, hard worker to do?

A step-by-step guide to regain control of your time

Most time management advice on Planet Internet is generic and filled with the same old techniques. Do they work? Yes. But will they work for you?

Before you get deep into the time management techniques, you need to figure out your problem areas. This way, you’ll better grasp your problems and understand which solutions might cater to your specific situation.

Step 1: Conduct a time audit for a week

We think we have a rough idea of where our time is going, but the reality only materializes once you conduct a time audit. When I did this for myself, I was shocked at how much time I was spending (ahem, wasting) on Twit — sorry, X.

Print this time tracking sheet and jot down where you spent every hour of your day. If you’re not old school, a time-tracking tool works just fine, too. Here are some tools to help you track every area of your life.

Be honest in this time audit — shed that productivity shame. Most of us spend more time on social media than we’d like.

After a week, you’ll have a lot of data to work with. You’ll know exactly where your time is going.

Step 2: Spot patterns and insights from your time audit data

The next step is to make sense of the time audit data you collected. Spot patterns and try to identify your problem areas in time management.

• Are you being plagued by perfectionism?

• Are you struggling to say no to colleagues?

• Are you overestimating how much you can accomplish in a day?

• Are you struggling to prioritize all the gazillion tasks on your to-do list?

• Are you afraid of delegating because you’re worried about losing control?

• Are you drowning in distractions like social media or endless meetings — unable to create blocks of deep work?

These are just some prompts to help you steer in the right direction, but your problem might differ entirely. For example, when I conducted a time audit for myself, I found I was spending way too much time organizing my work rather than actually doing the work.

I’ll repeat: You don’t need to feel any negative emotions toward your time management problems. No one’s immune to them! Our brains even have cognitive biases that make us poor time managers. Recognition and awareness of your problem areas is half the resolution.

Step 3: Search for personalized advice based on your specific weaknesses

The best thing about a time audit is the clarity. You now know exactly what you need to work on to manage your time better. Maybe you need to delegate more or say no more often. Perhaps you need better tactics to get more deep work in your day.

Whatever it is, you now know which time management advice to absorb and apply, and which to discard and delete. For example, if you’re struggling with prioritizing your tasks, you don’t need to learn about the various delegation methods.

The next section offers several time management tactics that can be useful for a variety of problems. Pick the ones that match your problem areas and keep the rest in your back pocket…. just in case.

5 time management tactics that every manager should know

Here are five time management techniques — specifically useful for anyone in a leadership role.

1: Find your ideal productivity method

We have a quiz to help you determine which productivity method is right for you. Your time audit will help you while answering the questions because the results will be based on your problem areas. Here’s a quick table to help you understand which productivity method might be the best for you to solve your time management problems:

💡 Note: You can find detailed guides for every productivity method here.

After finding your ideal productivity method, what do you do? Commit to the system and stick to it, especially when it’s hard and workdays are blurring together.

But remember that the productivity method you choose today might not be relevant tomorrow. As your struggles evolve, your productivity methods need to keep up. Be flexible in experimenting with various ways of working depending on your situation and responsibilities. Twist and bend the rules if you need it.

For example, let’s say your struggle today is achieving long-term goals as a team. But as the number of people you have to manage increases over the years, you also start battling with an overwhelming number of tasks. You need to switch productivity methods to suit this new leadership responsibility.

Remember: The goal is to make these productivity methods work for you, not to get rigidly tied to them.

2: Always assume it’s going to take longer than you think (even for your team)

My biggest time management hack is building buffers for every deadline I provide. The reality is every task will take longer than you think it will. We have a tendency to underestimate how quickly we can finish a task. It’s called Hofstader’s law.

“It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law.”

The Hofstader’s law happens because it’s impossible to predict the complexities of the future. In the planning stage, we assume the best-case scenario. We don’t account for things to go wrong, our energy to be depleted, or our child to unexpectedly get sick.

So whenever you’re predicting how long something will take or how long a team member will take to finish a task, add some more buffer. If you need to edit/approve a customer report from your team member by Friday, offer a Wednesday or Thursday deadline to have a cushion (for them and for you) in case there's a delay. This way, even if your teammate is a little late in submitting their work, your customer relationship is not impacted. Or if you need to make any major edits to the report, you can do so without rushing or handing over subpar work.

Conducting your time audit regularly will also help you have accurate data on how long a recurring task truly takes. Rely on data instead of feeling.

3: Protect your peak energy hours

There’s a time of the day when everything just clicks. You’re able to fly through your to-do list, and daunting jobs don’t seem so terrifying. Maybe it’s the morning before your kids get out of bed. Or late at night when the world is asleep.

Use these focus hours to complete the most important tasks. Protect them from interruptions, meetings, and any busy work as much as possible — this is the time to do deep work.

How do you find these hours? For me, I started keeping a short productivity journal, noting down when I felt the most comfortable tackling my to-do list — late at night or early morning. If I have three to four hours of focused time in those windows, my workday is (usually) destined to be productive.

Spot similar patterns in your work life and block these peak energy hours to get your most important tasks done.

You can also do a similar exercise for your low-energy hours: Schedule any menial tasks or jobs requiring low brainpower when your concentration is dwindling. For example, there might be a time of the day when you’re good at meetings but not at tasks requiring intense focus.

The ultimate aim is to ride the wave of your energy patterns. This might change with age, experience, life situations, etc., so listen to and monitor your energy levels.

4: Accept that some areas of your life will take a backseat during demanding periods at work

Time management tips are all fine and dandy when everything’s smooth sailing and predictable. But what about the times when you’re under pressure? When the work gets demanding, and your work-life balance is all lopsided?

It’s easy to advise “set clear boundaries!” and “say no more often!” but it’s not always practical. Sometimes, your team needs you. Sometimes, it's your own business. Sometimes, you know temporary demanding periods can help you create more impact.

(This isn’t to say being under a lot of pressure in the workplace should be the norm. That’s a recipe for burnout.)

Many practical strategies can help you manage the heavy workload phases, like:

• Batch similar tasks together to work more efficiently

• Find tiny pockets in your day to spend time on activities besides work that fuel you

• Prioritize ruthlessly and do only what’s essential — postpone the less urgent tasks

• Take a hard look at your to-do list, and instead of hating it, find tasks you can automate or delegate

All these tactics are 100% useful and can help you handle stressful work periods with grace and competence. But it’s also helpful to remember that you’re one person, and you can’t do it all. Not at the same time, anyway.

If possible, predict which times in a year might be high-pressure. Maybe it’s during a new product release. Or while the company is on a hiring sprint. This will help you stay mentally prepared.

You can also use this information to make other areas of your life more comfortable in advance. Perhaps this means purchasing a meal service during peak work times. Or maybe it’s arranging for extra childcare.

Time management won’t always be a straight graph. You need to adapt to various time management tactics depending on your current situation.

5: Work with your personality (thrives in structure vs. constrained in structure)

Most people fall into one of two buckets: those who thrive in structure and those who thrive in fluidity.

Understanding aspects of your personality will help you determine which productivity and time management techniques are most effective for you.

For example, let’s say your personality shines when your day is flexible. If your daily schedule involves a ton of strict time blocks, your creativity loses its color, and your productivity & energy follow suit. This can help you understand that there might be better fits for your personality than time management methods like calendar blocking.

And you don’t have to stay limited to the routine vs. flexibility battle. Personality encompasses little habits and psychological tricks, too. For example, this Reddit user shared they find it incredibly useful to cross items off their to-do list before finishing them. Since they hate lying to themselves, it works as a trickery to complete the job that’s already marked done.

If you’re neurodivergent, for instance, it might also help to seek unique time management tactics. Your sense of time might not be the same as someone who’s neurotypical.

I found this video by Jessica McCabe — who has ADHD — sharing that she’s worried about not having any spontaneity in her life. For her, schedules equal prison. So she started keeping a calendar where she blocks time for due dates, appointments, and the “important but not urgent” tasks. But she also keeps some space between them to add buffer time and a dose of spontaneity.

Top 3 time management features in Todoist

There are many tools you can use to help you manage your time better. But using Todoist is one of the simplest and easiest ways because you can do so much without ever needing another app. Here are just three features:

1: Assign due dates to tasks

Deadlines often get a bad rep, but they’re one of my favorite time management hacks. Having a set date to finish your task(s) helps you get things done in the best of ways. In Todoist, you can simply type your task and follow it up in natural language either by a specific date or day (if your deadline is in the same week).

I love how simple it is to set due dates on Todoist. No more remembering to mark calendars. You can get even more specific and add a particular date and time if that’s your jam.

What about tasks you have to do regularly? Recurring tasks have recurring due dates. If you type your task and the frequency (like “every Monday”), Todoist will automatically add that job to your to-do list at the frequency you set.

2: Add task durations for your tasks

If you’re a fan of time blocking, you need to assign each task a set duration. Like with due dates, it’s as simple as typing the time in Todoist. Let’s say you want to do a job between 3 – 4 PM — just type “[task] at 3pm for 1h” and Todoist will pick that up automatically.

Similar to due dates, you can also set up recurring tasks with fixed durations. The command there would be “[task] every [frequency] at [time] for [duration].”

3: See your tasks and your time

Todoist has a ‘calendar layout’ that helps you visualize all your tasks in a day. You can see where each job fits, avoid any scheduling conflicts, and avoid overcommitting. Nothing helps you manage your time better than actually putting every task you think you can do in a day on the calendar.

The best part? You can also integrate your Google Calendar so you can sync the meetings and tasks already on your calendar to Todoist.

My recommendation: Jot down all the tasks you plan to do in a day and put them on a calendar while taking into account Hofstader’s law (so add some buffer! It’s going to take longer than you think). This will help you understand if you’re overestimating how many tasks you can get done in a day and if yes, schedule them for a later time.

Time management is simple, but not easy

Managing your time sounds simple in theory:

• Track your time and figure out how long each task takes

• Choose an ideal productivity method based on your situation & personality

• Optimize for energy

Stick to the core principles and methods that work for you. And don’t be afraid to switch up strategies when they aren’t working anymore.

In real life…life happens. Some days, you’re in control of the clock, and other days, not so much. The best thing to do is get back up the next day and start over. Every day can’t be the best day, but most days can have effective time management.