Why is time management an important skill for novice teachers to practice and master?

Table of Contents Show

What is time management?
Why are time management skills important?
How to improve time management skills
Time management strategies
Top 6 time management tips

Wondering how you can manage your time more effectively? Check out our selection of tips, strategies and online courses.

Effective time management skills are more important than ever in our modern world. With increasing demands on both our professional and personal lives, improving how we manage our time can help us achieve our goals, increase productivity and create a better work-life balance.

What is time management?

Have you ever wondered how some people seem to have all the time in the world? They move seamlessly from one task to the next, ticking off professional and personal projects with ease. Others, however, struggle with never-ending to-do lists and looming deadlines.

It’s not magic – just good time management techniques. These skills come naturally to some people, but they are also traits that can be learned and developed.

Time management is essentially the ability to prioritise your time effectively through the process of planning how you spend your time. It sounds simple, but as Alex Cowen from the Darden School of Business explains, in their course on Digital Product Management, “people have time but they also have a finite amount of energy”. Time management techniques are effective when they harness available energy and deploy it most productively.

Skills to Succeed at University

Essential Skills for Your Career Development

Why are time management skills important?

Time management skills help individuals work more productively, lower stress and improve overall results in academic situations, work, business and even leisure time. By building better time management habits, it’s possible to be more intentional about how you spend your time and learn to prioritise and work more effectively. You can learn how to be more productive in our last article, which might also come in handy for time management.

During the pandemic and the subsequent rise in home working, managing time effectively has never been more important for people. As the line between work and home life blurred, it became even more essential for workers, students and families to be able to plan their days effectively. Working smarter, not necessarily harder became the goal for many.

Students, especially those with other commitments such as family or work, benefit from embracing time management techniques to keep their studies on track. Improving these techniques helps to build confidence in their studies and allows them to develop lifelong skills in learning to prioritise tasks that are urgent from those that can wait.

This is beneficial not only to their immediate studies but also later in working life. The University of Leeds highlights the benefits of time management skills at university in their course Skills to Succeed at University.

How to improve time management skills

Many people struggle to know how to manage their time. If you’re looking to learn how to improve your time management skills, here are our top strategies, tips and courses designed to help boost your productivity.

Time management strategies

Looking for some tried and tested time management strategies? Below we discuss four strategies that have been proven to help people manage their time more effectively and feel better in the process.

1. Pomodoro Technique

Developed in the 1980s by author Francesco Cirillo, this time management system encourages users to identify actionable tasks and then set a timer (usually 25 minutes) to dedicate time to working on these tasks without any interruptions or breaks. This system encourages people to work with the time they have and highlights how modern-day distractions such as phones, social media and our 24/7 culture drain our time. Without these distractions, we can complete tasks quickly and efficiently.

2. Eat That Frog

This technique was developed by motivational speaker Brian Tracy, taking inspiration from the famous Mark Twain quote, “Eat a live frog first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day.” The frog represents the worst task of your day – the one that you are most likely to put off, but by doing so, you will impede the rest of your tasks, too. By tackling this task first – eating the frog – everything else will seem more manageable in comparison.

3. Getting Things Done (GTD)

David Allen, a management consultant, created the GTD method to help users manage their work and time better. The concept involves listing all the outstanding tasks from small to large. The individual then completes the small, simple tasks first, leaving only the larger, more complex tasks. These are then broken down into small, easy to manage sections and completed.

The central principle of this strategy is that by writing the tasks down, attention is focused on the task itself, rather than trying to remember what needs doing. This reduces feelings of overwhelm and anxiety, which are all too familiar when dealing with multiple tasks. For more information about managing stress using time management techniques, see Lulea University of Technology’s course Workplace Wellbeing: How to Build Confidence and Manage Stress.

4. The 80/20 Rule

Known as the Pareto Principle, the 80/20 rule asserts that 20% of your output will result in 80% of your results. Therefore, by concentrating on that 20% of activity, you can achieve the most in the least time. Working smarter – not harder. The 80/20 rule can be applied in almost all areas of life, including diet, exercise, work, and study.

This is an excellent strategy in terms of time management. You can analyse where you currently spend your time, monitor the results and then adjust your activity to maximise your outcomes by giving high-value activity greater attention.

Top 6 time management tips

If you’re still feeling distracted and unproductive, try some of our time management tips to get you back on track. These can help you get started to complete your tasks productively.

1. Create a plan

Start the day with a clear plan of the tasks you need to complete. You can do this by creating a written list, setting reminders on your phone or using scheduling software. Tick off your tasks as you complete them so you can monitor your progress.

2. Limit distractions

By switching your phone to aeroplane mode, or simply turning off notifications for email and social media, you can limit your distractions. There are also apps available to help you. Set a timer to check your email or messages at set intervals of 30 minutes, instead of being constantly connected and distracted.

3. Establish a personalised routine

Establishing a routine that suits your productivity style will help you use your day effectively. If you are more productive in the morning, schedule high priority tasks earlier in the day. Other people may not hit their most efficient period until after lunch. Working with your natural rhythms and setting a routine you can stick to is central to effective time management.

Digital Skills: Digital Skills for Work and Life

If you are a teacher, you know that you need to have really good time management skills in order to finish that daily to-do list. So, time management is a very important skill to have. Teacher can use this in the classroom to optimize learning opportunities for students.

Time management is important because it helps you prioritize your work. After you have your list of daily tasks down, you need to figure out what you should do first. Those that are important should be the first ones you should tackle. Should the students learn this lesson first or do this activity first?

With time management, it helps you get more things done in less time. Once you map out your tasks and time, you can figure out how much time you can put into the task. Also, it can help you map out other fun activities in class!

Teachers, if you need some time management tips from Voki, check out our other blog post here!

Until next time,

Eva D.

The Voki Team

Bio: Eva is the Community Manager for Voki and is part of the Marketing Team at Oddcast. She enjoys playing the piano and knitting on her free time. (She’s also a Rubik’s cube master!) She loves to hear your feedback and comments for Voki!