My Three Realities of Time Management
Getting sh*t done (as a designer) part 3
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We all have the same 24 hours in a day.
That’s a reality.
I’ve worked with designers for over a dozen years now, and it seems that many of them, myself included, sometimes refuse to accept this reality or just conveniently choose to forget it. They act as if they have twice or three times as many working hours available to them.
Designers, maybe because of the creative, sometimes open-ended nature of the job, seem to be reliably bad at time management.
Again, lumping myself in that category.
I’ve been self-aware about this for some time. Over the years I’ve learned a few things about time management from observing my own habits and leading teams of designers. I’ve found 3 things to be consistently true, and I’ll share them with you today.
If I can remind myself of these 3 realities and confront them on a regular basis, I prevent myself from floating off into fantasy productivity land, where I think I have limitless time and energy to devote to every creative endeavor I can dream of and end up disappointing myself.
Note: this is part 3 of a multi-part post series about how I get things done effectively as a designer. You can read part 1 about getting the right things done here and part 2 about deep work and energy management here.
Part 3: Confronting the realities of time management
Reality 1: Most people overestimate what they can do in a day
When I make to-do lists for things I want to get done in a day, they inevitably end up optimistically and often comically long. I don’t think I’m alone in this, because a common saying (often misattributed to Bill Gates or some other business guru) is, “Most people overestimate what they can do in a day”.
This reality is one I am often reminded of, because there is so much I want to get done. But there’s a second part to that quote. The full saying is, “Most people overestimate what they can do in a day and underestimate what they can do in a year”. That’s very encouraging because it means although you might not get as much done as you’d like day-to-day, when you look at it on the scale of a year you might find you’ve made significant progress.
The trick then is to accept that you’re only going to get a few things done today, and make those things really count towards the progress you’re trying to make. These days, my daily to-dos look something like this:
There’s usually a few quick random tasks I need to get done and I’ll tackle those between meetings or when I’m feeling low energy.
Then there are my 1-2 big items that I definitely want to get done today. These are my highest priority tasks and tend to be things that will really move projects forward. These are usually what my deep work blocks will be dedicated to. If there’s any more than 2 of these a day, the time that I can afford to dedicate to them wouldn’t be enough to make meaningful progress.
I sometimes have a 3rd or 4th priority, but I’m very cognizant of the fact that it’s unlikely these will get done. They’re more there in case I find myself done early with priorities 1 and 2, and have some time to dedicate to something else. More often than not, these become priorities 1-2 for the next day.
Reality 2: Work expands to fill the time allotted
Parkinson’s Law states that work expands to fill the time allotted for its completion. The more time you have to do something, the less intense effort you will naturally put in.
It’s why we always seem to be working right up until a deadline. If you give yourself two weeks to complete something, you will find a way for it to take those two weeks, whether its through procrastination, excessive perfectionism in areas that may or may not matter, or other.
I’ve found that if I set vague, open-ended goals and timelines for myself or others, things will end up taking a lot longer than expected and most often end in a crunch towards the deadline.
For me, the way around this is to break large projects into smaller chunks, ideally ones that can get done in a few deep work blocks and set smaller, specific deadlines for myself that encourage me to work at a deliberate (but not frantic) pace to make sure I’m progressing towards the larger goal.
For example, to prepare for a recent client presentation, I broke it down like this:
1x 1 hour block to come up with the presentation outline
2x 2 hour blocks to produce the presentation assets (the images that would go into the presentation)
1x 2 hour block to assemble the presentation
I could have just just assigned myself an 8 hour day to do the presentation, but I doubt I would have gotten it done in those 8 hours.
When I block out time to work on those things, I try really hard to stick to the self-assigned mini-deadlines. While I’m not always successful, I find that it does force me to consider what I’m doing more intentionally and reduce time faffing around or procrastinating.
Reality 3: Your calendar rules your day
For most knowledge workers (designers being a part of that group), their calendars rule their days.
This can either mean that you are at the mercy of your calendar, being bounced from meeting to meeting and trying to sneak in some productive work time in the margins, or if you can get a handle on it, your calendar can become your friend and most powerful tool.
For me, if its not on my calendar, it’s probably not going to happen.
I’ve come to believe this is true of not just meetings, but pretty much everything, including blocks of focused working time, and even personal and social activities.
From seeing many people’s calendars over the years, it’s surprising to me how little people do this. They’ll let their calendar fill with the meetings they “have” to be at, and then assume they’ll use the in-between time to get all their work and life stuff done.
This is the cart driving the horse.
Sometime in the last year, I was introduced to the idea of planning out my ideal day/week. You can watch a video about this from one of my favorite productivity YouTubers, Ali Abdaal, here. He does it on the scale of a week, but I’ve found that a day works better for me, at least for now.
I’ve blocked out an ideal day on my calendar that I drag from one day to the next. Note that this is an ideal. It almost never actually works out this way. But having this ideal day mapped out as a “default” allows me to adjust it around meetings and other things that come up.
It means I’ve decided more or less what’s important to me on a daily basis, and then I work other commitments into it. I’m not letting other people’s demands of me first fill up my day and then fitting my stuff into the remaining time.
When I look at my to-do list for the day, I try to map the big priorities to the blocks of deep work time I have available. It helps me assess whether I can realistically get those things done today, or if I need to push certain things off to the next day. If I REALLY need to get those things done and there just isn’t enough deep work time, then it means something else has to give, like postponing a non-critical meeting or social activity.
I’ll be the first to admit I’m not perfect at adhering to these ideas. Anyone who shows you their perfect calendar and tells you they are moving through their day as they’ve mapped it out perfectly is lying to you.
But confronting these three realities of time management on a regular basis has helped me get a better handle on my time. It means I’m less stressed and less frantic in getting things done, which ultimately means better design work.
Have you struggled with time management in your career? What tools and techniques have you used that helped you?
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