time management importance
guide

Why is Time Management Important?

Any small business or freelancer who wants to be successful needs to be able to manage their time well.

Time management is important as it enables you to:

  • Focus on critical tasks to get more done

  • Take advantage of new opportunities

  • Maintain long-term growth

Here you’ll learn why time management is so important.

What is time management?

Time management is the act of maximizing one’s time effectively to increase productivity. One of the best ways to get started is by prioritizing and tracking time for each of your tasks.

Planning the best use of your time is a great way to increase productivity. Effective time management allows you to prioritize tasks and control how you spend your time and energy.

Businesses and freelancers that don’t prioritize effective time management skills will likely miss deadlines. Teams will spend less time on less important tasks and more on important ones.

Without strong time management habits, you can also run the risk of going over budget.

With better time management, you and your team can get more done while experiencing less stress. Let’s take a look at some of the benefits of time management.

Pro tip: find out how to improve your time management skills and make better decisions

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Why is time management important?

Good time management enables you to do more in less time. This way, you can increase the time you spend with loved ones, travel, or take on new hobbies.

Effective time management:

1. Guides your decision-making

Good time management skills help reduce stress in all aspects of your life. Even something as simple as planning your sleep schedule dramatically affects how well you use your time for decision-making.

When you’re less stressed, you tend to sleep better at night. The better you sleep, the less impulsive your decision-making becomes.

Teaching your team how to manage their time can stop people from making bad decisions when they are tired, stressed, or under a lot of pressure.

Effective time management allows you to make decisions quickly and easily because you've already planned for them.

2. Allows for more freedom in the workday

Time management helps you prioritize specific tasks.

Prioritizing saves time and gives you more freedom to dictate how your day progresses.

Time management simply gives you more time for what's important. The focus of your efforts may now shift to where it matters: producing tangible financial outcomes for the business.

To better use everyone's time, you should set daily priorities. When you know your priorities, you can decide if there's enough time to work on them.

3. Brings focus and ease to daily tasks

Time management makes everything easier. You're more effective and confident with excellent time management skills.

Effective time management helps you pay more attention to your daily tasks to help you reach your goals. This planning enables you to prioritize the most critical tasks.

Your team will have more time to focus on crucial projects, goals, and customers. With more focus, you can take advantage of these significant opportunities.

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4. Improves project management with the capacity to set deadlines

You can’t manage projects effectively without healthy time management tools and habits.

Without the pressure of unreasonable deadlines, the team can devote more time and attention to important tasks. When you have enough time to finish before a deadline, the quality of your work improves.

When it comes to project management, give each task a time limit — but make sure to allow for extra time in case something goes wrong.

With more realistic deadlines, the team is less likely to feel rushed. Team members may even finish tasks faster and worry less about deadlines.

Pro tip: use a project management app to better plan and track deadlines.

5. Reduces procrastination across the board

Poor time management can often lead to procrastination. In fact, 89% of employees admit to wasting time on the job daily.

Without a plan, it's easy to get distracted by social media, chatting with coworkers, or staring out the window. Building practical time management skills and keeping track of time will help you prevent putting things off.

6. Eliminates multitasking with complete control of your time

One of the best things about good time management tools is that they provide tangible data on how productive you really are.

While you might feel like you’re a good multitasker, data probably won’t support your claims. In fact, multitasking decreases productivity by up to 40%.

When you're tired, it's far easier to feel overwhelmed and begin multitasking. That’s why good time managers plan out their days and take breaks at regular times.

7. Gives important tasks enough time

We all strive to spend time on our most important tasks. But how often do we actually back this belief up?

Time management helps you reallocate time spent on lower priority activities. Without it, you can fall into an unhealthy pattern of stalling on less valuable tasks.

Next time you embark on low-priority tasks, take a moment to think about your time before you spend it. Ask yourself these questions:

  • Is it vital to the business?

  • Is it one of my highest value activities?

  • Is it the most valuable use of my time right now?

People who are good at time management set aside chunks of time to do their most important work. That said, they also give themselves strict time limits for the work they don’t want to do.

For instance, consider the time-blocking method. When you set aside time for your high and low-priority tasks, your tedious work won’t cut into the important stuff. You'll have a much clearer picture of what you can complete and how long it should take.

With better time management, you'll have more time to finish tasks and won't have to rush from one to the next as often.

When you have a plan, everyone will spend less time figuring out what to do or putting off important work and more time doing it.

Keeping track of time can help the team stay focused on the most critical tasks and avoid things that waste time.

8. Requires less effort to reach goals reducing stress levels

reduce stress levels with time management

Achieving your goals with less effort is the real essence of time management. While it’s a helpful exercise to uncover how you actually use time, the real purpose of time management is to reduce the time spent on each task.

Setting goals is a big part of time management. When you make it a habit to set and reach small goals, you can shorten the time it takes to achieve meaningful progress.

Achieving business goals reduces stress and boosts confidence for the whole team.

With reduced stress levels, your team will perform better too. Keeping energy levels up helps employees stay more engaged and productive.

9. Creates extra time to improve workflows for growth

Better time management will also allow you to produce higher-quality work. With better outputs, you’ll likely see a positive impact on your business' growth and profitability.

Organizing your time more efficiently can help a team get more done in less time. Do your best work in the shortest possible time by focusing on efficiency rather than extra effort.

As efficient time management becomes second nature, you'll have more time to devote to improving the quality of your work.

This technique can also allow you to think through the task and ensure its proper completion. Taking care of a job or a project correctly the first time around will save you time and effort in the long run.

Finding ways to enhance your work and processes can add short- and long-term value, even if you already have outstanding employees.

10. Increases your professional reputation and customer satisfaction

Time management skills in the office are crucial for providing excellent service to clients.

Customer service is at its best when it’s timely, effective, and comprehensive. If you aren't meeting your clients' needs promptly, you risk losing them permanently.

Many businesses will try to automate internal processes. This way, their employees can spend less time on paperwork and more time making the customer experience personal.

Personalization and human touch are often a big part of what makes customer experiences stand out. Time management helps your team prioritize and meet customer needs.

11. Develops a better work-life balance for everyone

A healthy work-life balance makes it possible to juggle your professional and personal life. Without it, people on your team who work long hours might get burned out and feel tired.

All the money in the world means nothing if you don’t have time to spend it. Without our families, hobbies, and vacations to look forward to, it’s hard to stay motivated.

Time management may help your team reach a better work-life balance. This is mutually beneficial since it helps your employees stay productive while giving them time for the things and relationships that matter most to them.

12. Empowers your team members and keeps them longer

When your employees know they are making a difference, you’ll likely see them start to take more pride in their work.

With this new mindset, employees can reach broader performance goals and even move up in the company.

In fact, the opportunity for growth is one of the best ways to maintain employees. Companies with growth opportunities have 34 percent higher retention rates.

If you're struggling to maintain employees, teaching them time management techniques will help them unlock their potential. It will also help you identify their passions, strengths, and ways they can make a difference.

Compliment your time management strategy with a management tool

It's easy to see why time management is essential to succeed. With more information and technology available, time management in the workplace has never been easier.

If you’re not sure how to get started, you could use a tool like Hubstaff to help you keep track of your schedules and better manage your time when at the office and when you work from home.

Here are a few of Hubstaff’s primary features that will help you improve your time management:

  • With a single click, team members may begin tracking their time spent on tasks

  • Online timesheets that you can refer to in the future

  • Set time estimates for jobs so you know how long each one will take

  • Allow your team to set work breaks to prevent burnout

  • Look at detailed time reports that can help you improve operations

  • Proof of work ensures that your team is working on the right things.

Shift your mood and mindset, and start your time management plan today

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