Ten Tips for Time Management

Leadership Resource Office • Erb Memorial Union • 346-1146 • leadership.uoregon.edu

1. Make a master schedule. Include your weekly meetings, classes, or activities that do
not vary. Try to consolidate or group activities to preserve unscheduled chunks of
usable time. If you have trouble making this schedule, you are probably trying to do
too much. Once you make it, consult it and use it to structure your daily activities. Do
not schedule every moment.

2. Be selective about what you commit to. Better to say “no” right away than to fail to
follow through.

3. Keep promises. Once you say you will do something or be somewhere, make sure
you do it unless you get hit by a truck.

4. Fail serially. Everyone runs out of time. Rotate the problem of under-preparation
among all your tasks, so that you do not slight the same thing over and over, and
generally you operate at a high level.

5. Eat well, sleep well, exercise, and goof off. Apply rule #4 if you can’t do all four
every day, but keeping your body in shape and your spirits up makes possible the
concentration and energy you need to accomplish things.

6. Enjoy what you do. Choose activities you like. If you are stuck doing something you
don’t like, find the thing about it you can enjoy (co-workers, friends, the weather,
beating the clock, etc.) See #2 for the future.

7. Plan ahead. Begin working to meet a deadline at a reasonable moment (Don’t start
writing the paper or presentation at 10:00 pm for an 8:00 am class or meeting). By
visualizing an activity in advance you can note what will be necessary to make it
happen and take appropriate steps.

8. Recognize excellence. Delegate to the able, if you are in a position to. Help others
often. Ask for help seldom. But know who are the people “in the know” in every
situation. That way when you are really in a pinch, you know who to turn to, and you
can solve a problem quickly.

9. Collaborate with those who disagree with you. We learn from criticism. By dealing
positively with critics we also avoid drawing passive aggressive behavior that creates
obstacles to slow us down.

10. Forgive yourself. We all fail at some point or get derailed by the unexpected. Learn
from it. Fix what you can. Apologize when you need to, then move on.

Reference:
Dr. Sharon Schumann
University of Oregon