Time is a resource that cannot be bought. Regardless of what you do throughout the day, you will always have only 24 hours.

Managing time is therefore a challenge if you have a full agenda and deal with many projects and activities in a single day. While some manage their time expertly, others are at their wit’s end.

Indisputably, you need to know how to manage your time well to account for your day-to-day activities.

Here are three time management methods for organising projects.

1. Pomodoro Method: eliminates anxiety and saves time

Neuroscience explains many things about human behavior, motivation and productive potential. One of them, already proven, is that anxiety makes you clumsy.

When you have a day with many commitments, it is normal to be anxious and with that alone you are wasting precious time, since you are reducing your efficiency.

The same is true for long tasks that require many hours to complete. The longer you are trapped, the more anxious you become and, therefore, the less efficient you are.

The Pomodoro Method works precisely on anxiety. It was created by Italian Francesco Cirillo in 1980 and is based on the use of frequent breaks to increase brain productivity and spend less time on each task.

Here’s how it works:

• List your tasks from the most urgent to the least urgent;
• Start with the task with a shorter timeframe and set a timer for 25 minutes;
• Follow the normal flow until the alarm sounds;
• Did it sound? Then, take a short pause, about three to five minutes;
• Go back to the task and set the timer for 25 minutes again;
• After four 25-minute cycles, that is, every hour of focused activity, take a longer break of at least 15 minutes.

According to Francesco, these pauses help reduce anxiety and 25 minutes is the time the brain needs to maintain its concentration without dispersing. After that, it needs to stop, get distracted and come back.

Francesco believes it’s possible to maintain focus and be more productive in the 25 minutes of activity than if you spend an hour doing homework non-stop.

2. Kanban Method: categorise to do more and better

In addition to helping save time, the Kanban Method works to manage each stage of the project. It is widely used in large companies and is based on the division of the task into tables that define your status.

This control can be done manually with the use of tables and post-its, for example, or by management software, such as Evernote and Wunderlist.

The methodology was created by the Japanese from Toyota, following the technique of Just In Time (JIT), which is based on increasing the efficiency of production, through the optimisation of the demands control system, gaining more ability to solve tasks.

An action only begins when another action necessarily linked to it ends. It is a chain reaction.

Here’s how it works:

• Create an online or physical table with at least three divisions: to do, ongoing and finished. You can have other categorisations like “for approval” or “for adjustment”, it will depend on the dynamics of the project;
• Get post-its or create virtual cards with different marks to identify each task;
• Write the task on these cards or posts. Give a brief description of the activity, as well as your deadline and people involved in it (in case it’s not just your responsibility);
• Now organise tasks according to status.

It is important to keep in mind that projects with many tasks and people involved must have an exclusive Kanban for them, following the same logic of division by charts or tables. The methodology can be applied to teams or individually.

In software, for example, you can create tables for different teams, invite each member to register on the platform and make the division of tasks and indicate deadlines and responsibilities.

3. GTD Method: do not cumulate what can be done at that moment

Your tasks seem endless. When you’re getting one done, another crops up.

The GTD methodology comes precisely from the Getting Things Done assumption, that is, to make it happen. In other words, don’t go accumulating and building up tasks.

Solve them and you’re done. Its creator is the American consultant David Allen and his techniques can be applied to domestic or professional activities.

Here’s how it works:

• Specify the tasks you have in mind, transferring them to paper or to an organisational system, such as Trello or Google Notes;
• Analyse activities and immediately do those that take less than two minutes, such as replying to an email, message, or sending a file;
• Define when and how you’re going to do each pending task and start doing them;
• Has a new request arrived? Place it in the row and review the list daily;
• Whenever a pending task of less than two minutes arrives, do it immediately;
• Try to record the time it takes for each task so you can organise your day better.

When you manage your time this way, you are reducing the feeling of burden and reducing the number of pending activities.

In this way, stress is reduced, focus is easier to keep, and you work with more clarity and control. The technique improves self-esteem, quality of life and increases productivity and performance.

Wanting to hire an entire team of professionals? Workana can help! Click here to find out how they can help your company grow with remote experts.