7 Minimalist Habits for Better Time Management

Every millennial guy goes through their “productivity hacks” phase of life, and it turns out I’m no exception. Just out of college I realized I wasn’t very good at managing my own time, and set out to rectify that situation as best I could.

I was in my very first real job, trying to impress my boss, and trying to unlearn some of the sloppy habits I had picked up in school. My approach was to read everything book or blog I could find that had anything to do with time management. Let’s just say I wasted a lot of time.

The biggest time waster was all the time I spent reading (read: procrastinating) when I should have been working. But it turns out many of those time management “hacks” were themselves a waste of time. Instead of developing the habit of getting to work, I became too focused on my system. When I failed to get work done, I blamed the system, instead of addressing the real causes.

With much more experience under my belt, I can now say that the best approach to time management is a minimalist one. All you need is a light touch and a few simple rules. The best rules-of-thumb are the ones that subtract rather than add. And the best systems are incredibly simple.

Here are 7 minimalist habits for time management that I recommend to anyone, especially those struggling in this distracting age. With the hundreds of ideas I’ve tried, these are the few that have stuck with me over the years.

Work on one thing at a time. Thankfully I came to an early realization that I was one of the worst multitaskers I knew and abandoned the practice completely. But I think this logic applies to pretty much everyone. There are 2 major constraints to being productive: time and focus. You can’t control how much time you have in your day, but you can multiply your efforts by concentrating your focus on the few things that matter.

Default to the simplest tools that do the job. I’ve wasted so much time comparing and then switching between tools, only to come back to the one I started with. The fact is that most of the benefit comes from using any tool consistently, and you’re most likely to stick with one that is simple. For years now, I’ve used nothing more than a google calendar and apple notes to keep track of what I have to do.

Pick your priorities before your day begins. A common theme in my productivity advice these days is that focus trumps everything else. If you don’t know what you should be doing, and you aren’t primarily doing that, then anything else is secondary. Of course, this advice applies at many levels, but for most people I think the question should be: what should I be working on today? 

Remove distractions both physical and digital. When it comes to time management, what you take away matters much more than what you add. There’s no app or system or mindset that will help if you’re mostly distracted by physical clutter or the apps on your phone. Re-designing your environment for simplicity is one of the highest ROI investments you can make.

Schedule work on your calendar. Putting things down on a to-do list signals that you want to do a task someday, but putting it right on your calendar means business. By committing to a specific day and time, you’re tackling what is typically one of the hardest parts of managing your schedule— choosing what to work on next.

Create a “straight to work” ritual. I’ve learned that how I start my morning really matters, and has an outsized impact on how the rest of my day goes. Checking a few of my favorite websites is the worst thing I can do, as it pushes back the start of my day and keeps me from one of the most reliable forms of motivation: making progress. My advice is to create a ritual that involves getting to work as quickly as possible from the moment you’re ready to begin your day.

When in doubt, just get started. My mind is impressively good at coming up with reasons not to start working right now. There’s always a little uncertainty about whether I’m working on the “right” thing or whether it will work out how I hope. None of this is cured by more thinking, and in fact, only feels relief when I just get started. Once you create a plan for the day, just switch from deciding-mode to doing-mode, and enjoy the simplicity that brings.