Time management: how to succeed

Table of contents

You look at your watch and go crazy.

Fuck! The day is almost over.

You’ve been hanging out on TikTok for hours and could cry with frustration … you’ve planned so much for today but haven’t even managed a fraction of it.

Oh my god bruh, oh heeell no! 🙀

How could this happen!

You only know one thing: it’s not the first time you’ve had to run after the day in order to somehow juggle exams, a job and friends.

And that once again it hasn’t worked out.

You ask yourself hopelessly: Will it be the same tomorrow?

Will you feel at the mercy of the day instead of taking the helm yourself?

No.

No more of that.

You want to change something, that’s why you’re reading this article.

All right, let’s get started – with time management that really works.

Self-management: the basis for time management

Managing yourself sounds kind of weird, doesn’t it?

Like you’re sitting in a seminar for snobby young managers.

Source: X / BWL – JUSTUS: https://x.com/Justus_TUM_BWL/status/740074096294252544

However, self-management has little to do with the lifestyle of a business administrator.

Self-management is about getting to know yourself so that you know what is important to you and act accordingly – and the result of this is called time management.

Important: Self-management always comes before time management.

These questions will help you with your self-management:

What is particularly important to me?
What are my personal goals?
What do I not want to do (anymore)?

Answers to these questions create clarity and help you to set priorities.

At the moment, everything seems to have a high priority: You have to study for exams, write an application for an internship and then there’s the next family birthday for which you still haven’t organized a present!

You immediately get the feeling that everything is getting on top of you.

Of course, that’s super stressful.

That’s exactly what you want to get away from.

The aim is to become the boss of your life – in your studies, professionally and privately.

There are time management methods for this, because surprise: many clever people have had this problem before you and they have become super successful and happy with the following methods.

These time management methods work

There are many time management methods, but we offer you some that we have tried and tested over the years and therefore recommend!

Eat the Frog

Do you remember putting off unpleasant homework when you were at school? Well, it feels good in the short term – but the mountain of unpleasant to-dos piles up over time until you have no choice but to work through them in disgruntled agony for hours on end.

In adult life, many people continue with this bad habit. Whether it’s a tax return, re-registering after a move or a doctor’s appointment: inconvenient things become your future-me’s problem!

But that means twice as much work in the future, and you already have a guilty conscience today for free.

This is exactly where Eat the Frog (or Eat that frog) comes in: The strange name goes back to a US-American idiom: “Eating a frog” means starting with the most unpleasant task of the day first.

Why?

Because you have the most energy and resilience early in the morning. Well rested and fit, you will find it much easier to tackle difficult tasks.

With Eat the Frog, you start with the most difficult/unpleasant task and work your way up to the easier ones bit by bit. The result: in the afternoon, you only have pleasant to-dos ahead of you!

Tip: Eat the Frog is an advanced self-management technique. You need a certain amount of self-discipline, which is often lacking. Try this: Imagine how you feel when you have completed the most difficult task of the day. Feel this great feeling, imagine it intensely. And then get started on this task. This motivational boost will make it much easier for you to implement Eat the Frog!

Eisenhower principle

Dwight D. Eisenhower was military governor of the American occupation zone in Germany, NATO supreme commander, the 34th president of the USA and … extremely well organized. He had to be in order to fulfill his demanding duties.

His time management method, which became world-famous under the name of the Eisenhower Principle, is based on the rapid sorting of daily tasks.

This is known as the Eisenhower matrix with four quadrants:

Copyright graphic: Staytoo

Here is the list of the Eisenhower matrix for clarity:

Priority 1 (very high): Important and urgent
Prio 2 (high): Important, but not urgent
Prio 3 (low): Urgent, but not important
Prio 4 (irrelevant): Not urgent and not important

Important and urgent tasks are those that need to be completed immediately.

Important but not urgent tasks must wait until the tasks with priority 1 are completed.

Urgent but not important: This includes everything that appears to be urgent but is not important at all. You can cross these tasks off your list straight away.

Not urgent and not important: Can go! 🙂

The Eisenhower matrix helps you to recognize what is really relevant in your to-do list, sort it and remove unnecessary ballast. It is particularly effective for work, e.g. as a working student, when you need to set the right priorities for your working day. But it is also helpful during your studies, wherever you have to break projects down into individual steps and prioritize them according to importance and urgency.

Pareto principle

The Pareto principle states that 80 % of the results can be achieved with 20 % of the effort:

With 20% learning effort, you will achieve 80% of your learning progress
With 20% training in the gym, you ensure 80% of your fitness
With 20% of your relationships, you ensure 80% of your social happiness

However, the Pareto principle only works if you are focused and effective, i.e. if you are not distracted by e-mails, phone calls or surfing the Internet during the 20% performance.

Pareto also has a downside: to achieve the remaining 20 % for a 100 % result, you would have to put in 80 % effort.

A huge imbalance!

How does this happen? The answer can be given by perfectionists who get bogged down in little things and details because they want the “perfect result”. But there is no such thing, and the time and energy required to get there is extremely high and therefore wasteful.

The Pareto principle is a fascinating reminder of another important saying that we have to thank the Americans for: “Done is better than perfect.“

This credo, which is expressed in the Pareto principle, is incredibly relaxing and is a good antidote to perfectionism.

Does this mean that you should never give 100%? No, but Pareto helps you to make great progress on a project without permanently overburdening yourself with excessive demands.

Pomodoro technique

The traditional technique works with a short-time alarm clock, but there are now also free apps such as Pomofocus or focus booster.

This is how Pomodoro works:

Set the task
Set the Pomodoro alarm clock
Work for 25 minutes with focus
Take a 5-minute break
Repeat the whole process (up to 4 times)
Complete the task or take a longer break

With Pomodoro, you can work in intervals without neglecting breaks. This is ideal for studying and for projects of all kinds!

Which time management method is right for you?

You’re probably asking yourself this question, but it’s misleading. It’s not about finding the perfect time management method. Because there is no such thing. 😊

A much smarter and more realistic approach is to cleverly combine the various time management methods.

But no more theory, we’ll show you how this can be done using a specific day.

This is what your successful day looks like

The following example day should help you as a guide. It is our very personal recommendation on how to master the ideal day. And it starts the evening before!

Day 1

18:00: For a structured day, you need a clear head. That’s why you write down all the tasks you can think of the day before. Use a simple and clear self-management tool such as Notion or Todoist.

Day 2

Before we go any further: not every student is an early riser. If you’re more of a night owl who doesn’t get going until later in the day and you can organize your time freely, then simply adapt the following example day to suit your rhythm.

07:00: After getting up, you eat a healthy breakfast (brain food tips can be found here).

07:20: You sit down at your laptop and sort your to-do list for the current day according to the Eisenhower principle. What is urgent and important, what is not important but urgent, etc.

07:30: Time for the most unpleasant task of the day (Eat the Frog). In your case, it’s the task of finally getting started on that annoying chore you’ve been putting off for weeks. Take the bull – er – the frog by the thighs! You use the Pomodoro technique to make effective and targeted progress with enough breaks, without overexerting yourself.

09:30: You look at your screen with pride. It’s unbelievable how much you’ve managed to do in a few hours! That’s when your guilty conscience kicks in, whispering to you: What you’ve written isn’t perfect yet! You smile and say to your inner critic: “So what? It doesn’t have to be. Done is better than perfect.”

You are pleased that you have come up with the Pareto principle: achieve 80% of the result in 20% of the time. That’s how to work effectively! Tomorrow you’ll be focused on your housework again and improve it. But now it’s time for a walk before you go to the seminar at the university.

11:30 a.m.: You come out of the seminar room and look forward to the upcoming lunch break. You feel light and free because you know that the most difficult task of the day is already behind you. The guilty conscience that used to torment you in the afternoons and evenings because of procrastinated housework doesn’t even arise.

12:30 p.m.: After a delicious meal in the canteen, you have two more lectures to go. Luckily you’ve eaten something light so that you can continue to concentrate. On you go with plenty of energy!

05:00: After a long and exhausting day, you arrive at your apartment. You’ve set aside an hour to file the day’s notes and catch up on your emails, WhatsApps and so on. You finally manage to reply to messages from your family, friends and fellow students promptly, instead of taking days as usual. You can now also respond to mail from your health insurance company, the student union, etc. in a timely manner.

06:00: You take a look at your self-management tool: What have you successfully completed today and can cross off the list, what still needs to be done? You also write down all the other tasks you can think of and sort them according to urgency and importance using the Eisenhower matrix.

06:15: Free time! Thanks to your good self-management, you can now switch off with the good feeling of having successfully completed the day. Great!