Mastering Your Minutes: 4 Practical Tips for Intentional Time Management

If time management is something you struggle with, you’re not alone! The idea of time management doesn’t necessarily mean that you need to plan out your day in the best possible way. Instead, focus on not just letting your time pass you by, and spending it in an intentional way. Today, I want to go into how I manage my own time, and share the things that really work for me.

Let’s get started!

1. Being intentional with your time

First, I highly recommend going through the “24 Hour Clock” exercise to figure out where your time is spent. Draw a circle, map out the hours in a day, and hash out where your activities lie on an average day. When are you sleeping, at work, eating lunch, working out, etc.? You may find that more time than you realized is being wasted on mindless activities like watching TV. Once you’re aware of it, you can make a more conscious effort to make better use of that time.

Utilize the time you spend doing things like driving to/from work, waiting for the bathtub to fill up, cleaning the house, etc. I call this my NET time (NET = no extra time). For example, instead of listening to the radio on your work commute, put on an audiobook or podcast that will help you grow or move forward toward your goals. Your car is a university on wheels! You can learn so much in the time you’re spending in traffic going to and from work.

2. Setting a timer

When I need to focus on something, I’ll set a timer, put my phone on “do not disturb,” and mash it out. This way, I’m not multitasking and trying to do a bunch of stuff at once. Instead, I’m concentrating on one thing at a time. I have a timer cube that I love, or you can just use a regular kitchen timer. It’s a game changer!

3. Time chunking

Assign different parts of the day to your tasks to make sure you’re managing your schedule. This is something I figured out when I first started my business. For example, I’ll make the first chunk of my day “Angie” time, when I’ll workout, meditate, do my skincare, etc. The next chunk will be dedicated to filming, and so on. With so much going on, it’s important to make sure you’re touching on everything you want to accomplish that day.

4. Focusing on your top three needle movers

Stop writing out a to-do list that’s a mile long! You should have one to-do task from each of your big goals that actually matter to you. From those to-dos, pick three you’re going to get done today, no matter what. That’s it! This way, you don’t overwhelm yourself. Psssst… if you need a system to help you determine your needle movers, check out the Daily Grind Planner.

With that, those are my time hacks! I’m very passionate about this, and I hope these tips give you some inspo on how to manage your schedule. If you have any tips of your own, I’d love to hear them in the comments!