Does time management work? What 158 studies say

What we know

There is no shortage of time management books and apps. But do people who manage their time actually do better at work? Brad Aeon and colleagues in Canada pulled together the existing research to find out (2021, PLOS ONE).

Their analysis covered 158 studies and 53,957 people from many countries. They looked at how time management relates to job performance, academic results, well-being and more. The main findings:

• Time management had a moderate positive relationship with job performance (a correlation of about 0.25).
• Its link with well-being was slightly stronger than its link with performance, especially for life satisfaction. It was negatively related to psychological distress (a correlation of −0.358).
• The personality trait most strongly tied to time management was conscientiousness (a correlation of 0.451).

The authors suggest that time management may be first of all something that supports how satisfied you feel with life, rather than mainly a performance tool. They describe this as a result they did not expect.

A second line of research looks at implementation intentions: deciding in advance when, where and how you will act. A meta-analysis of 94 tests (Gollwitzer and Sheeran, 2006) found that people who formed implementation intentions reached their goals more often than people who only set the goal (average effect size d = 0.65).

How to read it

Most studies in the time management meta-analysis were correlational, comparing people at one point in time. The authors themselves say causation cannot be established across all the studies. We cannot fully separate “managing time led to better results” from “conscientious people who already perform well also manage their time”. Given the strong link with conscientiousness, the second explanation is plausible.

Results also varied a lot between studies, and the content of time management training differed from study to study. The review cannot tell us which specific method is best.

The implementation intention research is mostly experimental, so it does test cause and effect. But studies with positive results are more likely to be published, so the real effect may be smaller than 0.65.

The review does not report results for workers in Japan on their own.

A small step for today

What the research supports is this: time management is somewhat linked to performance and a bit more to satisfaction, and deciding when and where makes action more likely. A small daily plan is easier to start than an elaborate planner system.

• Each morning, write down just three things to do today. Log it as the habit “planned my day in the morning”. Three items is much lighter than listing everything.
• Give the most important one a time and place. For example: “10 a.m., meeting room, draft the headings for the proposal.”
• Or decide the night before. The habit “decided when and where to do tomorrow’s most important task” cuts down on morning hesitation.
• At the end of the day, check how you feel too. In the research, time management was linked more strongly to well-being. Look back on your mood, not only on whether things went to plan.

Sources

• [B11] Aeon, Faber & Panaccio (2021) Does time management work? A meta-analysis. PLOS ONE.
• [E3] Gollwitzer & Sheeran (2006) Implementation intentions and goal achievement: A meta-analysis of effects and processes. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology.