I’ve been in the world of start-ups and entrepreneurs for more than three decades, and founders have been trying to figure out how to do more in less time since before we had social media, text messages, and email to distract us.

Some of the distractions are new. The quest for productivity isn’t.

Neither are the basic principles about how to use your time more effectively.

It’s not about being more self-disciplined. People who are aces at self-discipline don’t need time management tips. They’re waking up at 5 am, doing their meditation, going for a run, and writing a chapter of their next book before they get to the office.

For the rest of us, managing your time better (and thus reaching your goals more efficiently) is about developing two things: (1) self-awareness and (2) structures to support you.

Understanding yourself: the first key to time management

You don’t need years of psychotherapy to effectively manage your time. You do need at least a basic sense of what you’re good at, what you like, and what’s hard for you.

In our work with clients, we use an assessment tool called BestWork DATA. It helps us identify whether someone is more inclined to be patient or urgent, whether they handle stress well or perform less effectively under stress. We learn if someone is a planner or not, if they prefer to think outside the box or conform to processes.

All this information helps us build a profile and leverage the strengths our client has to create a time management strategy that works best for them.

For instance, if I’m working with a completely outside the box thinker, I’m not going to encourage them to build a multi-step system of prioritization. They’ll never use it. I might instead suggest the “five things a day,” approach, which I’ll talk about later.

If a client has a high sense of urgency and is a planner, then we might work together to develop a more structured approach to help reduce that urgency.

What if you don’t have such a multi-faceted assessment at your fingertips?

Most of us have some general sense of the things that are easier for us and harder for us, and follow careers that align with our strengths. If you can’t sit still for two hours, you probably didn’t decide to become a research scientist. If you like predictability and order, you probably don’t choose to take on a customer service role.

Think about the skills and tasks that come naturally to you. Do you love using spreadsheets? Are you always the one with a multi-step plan at the ready? Or are you a pro at just winging it?

And then think about the situations where you struggle. Do you quickly rise to panic level if something goes wrong? Are you always trying to break out of someone else’s constraints? Are you lost without a detailed plan? Or do you get stuck in analysis paralysis?

Understanding your strengths and gaps can help you identify the types of time management structures that could help you succeed.

Often what looks from the outside like self-discipline is actually just someone successfully leveraging their strengths.

See: 5 Strategies for Overcoming Imposter Syndrome as an Entrepreneur

Time management structures

Wouldn’t it be nice if we just said, “I’d like to use my time more effectively,” and then we did it?

We might be successful for a day or two, but without a structure, most of us fall back to old habits like procrastination, distraction, and avoidance.

Getting better at time management requires the same tactic you’d use for any other goal: a system.

If you want to go to the gym more, you get a trainer. Or you join a fitness center that has classes and creates accountability. You pay someone to hold you accountable. As a coach, I do that for my clients. Ralph, my business coordinator, does that for me.

At one of my startups, Real Food Works, we interviewed colleagues at Weight Watchers and Nutrisystem. These people have spent a lot of time and money studying how to get people to change their food behaviors. In their companies, they’ve created constructs that provide structure and support for their users.

So which one is for you? These are several of the strategies and tools I’ve found most effective for myself and for my clients.

Eat the frog

“If it’s your job to eat a frog, it’s best to do it first thing in the morning. And if it’s your job to eat two frogs, it’s best to eat the biggest one first.” - Mark Twain

Brian Tracy took this famous Mark Twain quote and turned it into a bestselling book and time management strategy. The basic concept is simple: do the hardest thing first. Otherwise, you spend your entire day dreading it.

If you take only one tip from this list, this should be the one.

How to eat the frog:

1 - Identify ONE task, the hardest one of the day.

2 - Do it first thing in the morning. Don’t give yourself the chance to put it off until later.

3 - Repeat. You’ll be amazed how quickly consistent small steps add up to big accomplishments.

The Pareto principle

Often referred to as the 80/20 rule, the Pareto principle says that 20% of the causes create 80% of the outcomes.

How does that relate to time management?

Sometimes time management isn’t about fitting more things into your available time. Sometimes it’s about figuring out what to keep doing and what to stop doing. Trying to do it all and do it perfectly may be sabotaging your results.

The fix is to do some analysis.

I just did this with a client who’s working on a strategy to grow a particular revenue stream. They’re offering several options to their clients. I did an analysis, and it showed that one particular type of client and one particular option are generating 80% of the results.

So I suggested they focus on replicating that one use case rather than what they were trying to do — build a big strategy and technology with lots of partnerships. They were doing about one million in revenue a year, and we presented a plan that showed how it could triple with only 20% of the effort!

When you spend your time on the right things, you automatically increase your efficiency.

Parkinson’s law

We’ve all heard — and experienced — it before. Work expands to fill the time available.

You say, I’m going to do these three things today. The day ends and you’ve done just those three things. Congratulations?

Well, that depends. Are you trying to become more efficient? Get more done in less time?

It’s possible that you didn’t need a whole day to do those three things. It’s possible you could’ve completed them in two hours, but because you set a deadline for the end of the day, that’s how long they took. And it’s not just because you dawdled the time away. Parkinson’s law suggests that we actually see the task as more complex the further away the deadline is.

One way to address the issue is to use a timer. If you think it’ll take you three hours to create the slides for a presentation, give yourself a hard deadline of two hours. Do your absolute best to meet it with a good quality product. If you can’t meet the deadline, then your three-hour guess might’ve been more accurate.

If, on the other hand, you create a great presentation in two hours, you gain a better understanding of how long a task like that takes you to complete. You can use that information to manage your time in the future.

Time blocking and the pomodoro method

Time blocking is exactly what it sounds like — blocking off chunks of time to complete a particular task. In his book Deep Work, Cal Newport talks about how splitting our focus among many different tasks makes it difficult to do deep work. Not surprisingly, his newest book is on time blocking because that’s ultimately how you keep your focus on one thing and get that deep work done.

In my business, I color code my calendar to provide a clear visual of how well I’m blocking (or not blocking) my time. I try to do my sales calls in one block, my client meetings in another block, etc.

I sometimes ask clients to color code their calendars and share them with me. There are always aha moments during that process. When we look at our own schedules or calendars, we’re looking through the lens of our internal messages and struggles. Someone else looking at our calendar can be more objective and provide accountability.

What if you know you don’t have the mental stamina to sit down and work for a big chunk of time?

That’s where the pomodoro method comes in. You set a timer for 25 minutes, and you work diligently on a single task until the timer goes off. Then you set a 5 minute timer to take a break, whether that’s walking around the room, grabbing a snack, or checking your phone. When the break timer goes off, you’re back to work for 25 minutes.

This technique helps you avoid distractions and beat back mental fatigue.

Five things a day

What if all productivity strategies turn you into a paralyzed statue of indecision?

Which one is the best? Which thing should I work on now? Will this one make me more efficient? Or should I choose this one???

The simplest tip is completely non-strategic. Pick the five things that are most important to you at this moment and do them today. No analysis required.

Because progress is better than lack of progress. You will eventually get where you want to go if you just keep inching your way forward.

When you’ve finished your five things, you can move onto another five things or you can stop for the day and do something fun. You won’t be the most efficient person out there, that’s true.

For some people, this is more effective than trying different strategies. Otherwise, they start perseverating on the details and can’t make decisions. They don’t know what to prioritize, or they revisit the prioritization every time they finish or start something. So they actually make less progress.

Moving forward is always better than not moving forward.

Final thoughts

Time management can only get us so far. None of us can do everything. At some point we have to recognize if we’re trying to fit too much in, and then we might need to delegate.

I encourage all my clients to keep a “don’t do” list — the things you shouldn’t be doing within your company. It’s also a good idea to keep a “nobody does” list. Those are things no one in your organization does. They’re outside your mission, and you shouldn’t get pulled in by them or overcommit.

If you’re constantly battling with poor time management, you probably need support and accountability.

I work with clients to help them be more effective, to reflect back where they may not be effective and help them come up with ways they could be. Then I hold them accountable to those strategies. Contact Trajectify to learn how we can help you.