Time management is often sold as a tool for productivity, well-being, and better performance reviews.
While that narrative isn’t completely wrong, it’s a narrow, naive view of how mastering your time can truly serve your career.
Moreover, it’s misleading…
Time Management, But Our Way
In the mainstream world, time management is sold as being more productive or effective at work: The faster you get things done and the more productive you are, the better you’ll do and the further you’ll get ahead.
But in the real world, things don’t work that way. Things are never so simple.
Working harder, or even working more effectively, will rarely get you ahead.
Which is why, the type of time management we teach is not about doing more in less time for your employer – unless, of course, that gets contractually reflected and you get compensated for your superior productivity.
Instead, we think of time management as using your time strategically to get ahead. And in that context, we’ll show how you can use time management as a weapon to build leverage and outmaneuver the competition in your first professional role.
Of course, as with everything we teach, we’ve based this view through extensive professional experience as well as the consensus among scientific literature…
What Studies Say: More About Well-Being than Performance
The common mis-perception is that time management enhances job performance first and foremost.
However, research shows that the primary benefit of time management is improved well-being, with job performance improvements being a secondary outcome. In fact, time management is only moderately related to job performance, but much more strongly linked to life satisfaction and reduced distress.
In other words, neither does time management get you ahead and recognized, nor does it significantly improve your work output (which could in turn get you ahead if you are in a meritocracy.)
Given that the main benefit is personal well-being, it raises some important questions – especially if your organization doesn’t reward you based on your material, measurable, tangible work output.
Does time management help? Is it worth doing?
The answer is, it depends. While being more productive and efficient is useful, how you use it depends on your environment.
Especially in non-meritocracies, we believe that time management should be used to rescue time for personal development rather than greater work productivity.
Or to put it colloquially: Manage your time in order to work less for your employer and more for your own benefit.
Rescue Your Time From Your Employer
Time management isn’t about squeezing in more tasks for your employer. It’s about reclaiming your time to advance your own agenda.
If you can complete an 8-hour task in 4 hours, don’t waste the extra time. This is when you can focus on career-advancing actions that can set you apart from the crowd.
For example, if you have more time, use it to:
- Build alliances: Strengthen your network internally or externally. Relationships are often more valuable than raw skills in many organizations.
- Learn new skills: Every minute spent expanding your expertise increases your leverage.
- Get involved in high-profile projects: Don’t be afraid to take on visible, strategic assignments that make you indispensable.
- Work on your personal projects: If you’re being paid based on outcomes and not hours, you can work fewer hours and use the extra time for side ventures that benefit your long-term goals. (Of course, never work on personal projects during your officially employed hours, as your personal work would legally belong to your employer. Moreover, check your employment contract for limitations – this is not legal advice, just some encouragement to think for yourself.)
- Preemptively Solve Problems: Identify recurring issues or inefficiencies in your workflow and automate or streamline them. By setting up systems that solve problems before they occur (whether through automation tools or delegating effectively), you can save significant time and position yourself as the person who “makes things run smoothly”.
- Create Future Leverage: Use the reclaimed time to research and pitch new, high-value initiatives or projects that align with the company’s immediate goals. Being proactive and delivering ideas that can be of value.
Ultimately, mastering time management gives you a buffer to progress your own interests without sacrificing performance at work. That’s the target.
Appearances Matter More Than You Think
One of the core truths about many workplaces is that being perceived as busy can be more important than being efficient.
If you’re in an environment where your every move is monitored, you need to appear hardworking and occupied. This means staying alert to how you’re being evaluated and optimizing for optics. If you are efficient beyond expectations, it’s crucial that you are never seen as someone who has “nothing to do”. Either ask for more work right away, or learn how to be busy when your employer expects you to be busy.
However, if you have more autonomy and aren’t being watched, time management can become your best friend to free up your time… When your output isn’t micromanaged, focus on how to get things done as quickly and efficiently as possible so you can allocate the remaining time to your own priorities.
Therefore, before you can figure out what time management strategy to adopt (busy optics vs maximum efficiency), you need to identify what environment you are operating in.
Know Your Environment: Meritocracy vs. Political Game
Mastering time management depends heavily on recognizing the type of organization you’re in.
If you’re in a true meritocracy, you’ll be rewarded for results. But in many environments, politics and appearances drive career success and future opportunities, not pure productivity. Your time management strategy must be picked accordingly.
Here are key signs you’re in a meritocratic workplace:
- Results-Only Work Environment (ROWE): You’re given autonomy to achieve your goals, and no one is watching when you clock in or out. The only thing that matters is whether you deliver.
- Paid for output, not hours: If you’re compensated based on outcomes, your time belongs to you. You should focus on being efficient and saving time for career-advancing activities.
- Objective performance metrics: Your employer measures your output and rewards exceptional performance with real incentives – like financial rewards or shares.
- Boundaries and privacy: A meritocratic employer usually respects your privacy and boundaries.
- Skin in the game: If you have skin in the game as an investor or a top executive, you are effectively operating in a meritocratic environment, even if the rest of the company is a political clownshow. You are being judged on your results a lot more than appearances, and time management can help.
If these are not present, you can assume that you are in a political game environment – which is the norm for the VAST majority of employers.
Make no mistake: regardless of what they say in public, most employers value appearances more than outcomes. Focus on managing the optics. Make it look like you’re putting in the hours, even if you’ve streamlined your tasks to get ahead.
Now that you have a good understanding of the nuances.. Let’s talk about:
Actual Time Management Techniques
Time management is about maximizing your output and ensuring you dedicate time to actions that will matter.
Here are the top time management techniques we recommend:
1. Time Blocking for High-Value Work
Time blocking involves scheduling dedicated chunks of your day for specific tasks. Prioritize high-value activities that will directly advance your career, such as completing critical projects, learning new skills, or networking. By blocking off time for these tasks, you ensure they get done without distractions.
Focus on deep work sessions – typically 90-minute blocks where you give undivided attention to key tasks.
2. Pareto Principle (80/20 Rule)
The Pareto Principle suggests that 80% of results come from 20% of the effort.
Identify the 20% of tasks that generate the highest impact in your role and focus your energy on these. Your goal is to achieve significant outcomes with less wasted effort.
Prioritize tasks that directly contribute to key goals or that are highly visible to decision-makers.
3. Task Batching
Task batching involves grouping similar tasks and completing them in one session. This reduces the time lost to context switching.
For example: Instead of responding to emails throughout the day, designate a specific time for email. This frees up mental energy for more important work and ensures your focus remains on tasks that matter most. (Note: since task batching takes care of avoiding interrupts, we won’t talk about it separately.)
4. Eisenhower Matrix
This technique helps you prioritize tasks based on urgency and importance. Triage your tasks using this method:
- Urgent and Important: These are critical tasks that need immediate attention (e.g., delivering a key project that has a near deadline.) Focus on these first.
- Not Urgent but Important: These tasks, such as assignments that have visibility or career development, should be scheduled. Make sure you have dedicated time for these tasks.
- Urgent but Not Important: Delegate or minimize these tasks. They often distract you from high-value work. These should not be scheduled, and only tackled by someone else, or worse case scenario, when you have some spare cycles and are bored with nothing better to do.
- Not Urgent and Not Important: Eliminate these tasks altogether; they’re simply wasting your time.
5. Outcome-Based Scheduling
Outcome-based scheduling shifts your focus from hours worked to outcomes achieved. Set clear, measurable goals for each week, and schedule your time based on achieving those objectives.
Once you’ve hit your outcomes for the day, use any extra time to work on career-advancing actions.
6. The Pomodoro Technique
The Pomodoro Technique uses short, focused bursts of work followed by brief breaks (typically 25 minutes of work, followed by a 5-minute break).
Using this technique can help maintain high productivity without burning out. It’s particularly useful for tasks that require sustained focus, allowing you to chip away at complex, long work efficiently while keeping your energy levels high throughout the day.
Conclusion: Time Management is a Tool for Career Leverage
Time management is about far more than just productivity.
It’s about using your time strategically to get ahead, whether by advancing your own projects, building key relationships, or learning new skills.
If you’re in a meritocratic environment, time management will help you maximize your output and carve out time for your long-term career goals.
If you’re not, it’s a tool to protect yourself from burnout and focus on building leverage in the corporate game.
In either case, understanding how to manage your time strategically will make you more valuable – not just to your employer, but to yourself.
Remember: time management is not about time management.
Time management is about career management.