Today, I want to talk about how to improve your time management and productivity as a key way to increase your chances for promotion.  If you’re like many people, you may role your eyes at the term “time management.” If you’re structured and organized, you may think you’ve already mastered time management. If you are unstructured and disorganized, you may think it’s hopeless…a skill beyond your ability to master.  Here’s a definition of time management I really like: “Time management means organizing your time intelligently – so that you use it more effectively. The benefits of good time management include greater productivity, less stress, and more opportunities to do the things that matter.” Here’s a benefit to time management I want to add: It creates boundaries around the things you need to do, should do, and want to do in your life.  Think of it like this: You create a container for your work, a container for your play, a container for sleep, a container for your exercise time…you get the idea.  The alternative is working until midnight, forgoing exercise, time with friends, and time for basic hygiene. Or conversely, neglecting your work because you haven’t given it a container – and your personal life is encroaching on your work time. Yet another scenario is you, doing whichever thing you’re doing at the moment, but feeling guilty because you aren’t doing something else. Here are my top 12 strategies to improve your time management. In each instance, I’m giving you some of my tips as to how I implement that strategy. 1.    Set clear goals – both long-term and short-term. This will help you prioritize your tasks. And make sure those goals are SMART: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Bound. Otherwise, you won’t be able to evaluate your success.  I have a quarterly planning retreat, where I review my progress on my goals from the previous quarter and set goals for the upcoming quarter. From that planning and goal setting, I create an Action Items list that ties directly into those goals. I estimate how much time each action item will take, and rank them in priority, e.g. A-1, A-2, B-1, B-2.  I’ve figured out through trial and error that I can handle about 15 hours of Action Items each quarter – my tendency is to overcommit myself, and then I feel frustrated when I seemingly haven’t made much progress.   2.    Use the quadrants. There are four: Urgent and Important, Urgent and Not Important, Not Urgent and Important, and Not Urgent and Not Important.  As you set out your daily tasks, you want to focus on the Important sections of the quadrant: Urgent and Important, and Not Urgent and Important.  The idea here is to minimize the time you spend on Not Important activities so you can focus on what’s really important.  Some of the tools I use here include limiting the time I check emails, minimizing distractions such as phone notifications, and using blocks to calendar in my activities each day – more about that one in a moment.  3.    Block your time. Allocate time blocks for the various activities you need to complete – this helps you avoid multitasking and allows you to really focus.  My entire workday, each day, is completely time blocked. In each block, I can include notes as to what, specifically, I need to do during that time block.  I found this particularly helpful when I started spending 15 minutes a day on LinkedIn – my brain kept yelling at me that I needed to be doing something more important/urgent. But I set the timer on my phone for 15 minutes, and I have developed a cadence of the things I do each time I’m in LinkedIn.  Another way I use time blocking is for my writing projects. Once I have had the two resume strategy sessions with a client, I go into my calendar (I use Outlook) and write in which day I will work on each aspect of the client’s writing project. I also indicate which day is the deadline to get that client’s first drafts to them.   4.    Create a To-Do List. Whether daily or week