How time management skills and organizational skills are related

When setting out to complete a task for work, school, or your personal life, there are various skills and abilities that may help you increase efficiency, decrease stress, and bring you closer to achieving your goals. Such skills are worth pursuing because these are valuable potential outcomes—not least because consistent overwhelm and a sense of powerlessness over one’s tasks can lead to burnout, a type of stress-related exhaustion with some similar symptoms to depression. 

Arguably two of the most important abilities for healthy, sustainable productivity are time management skills and organizational skills. Understanding the components of each of these as well as how they’re related may help you be more efficient and effective in your work, and they may also reduce the risk of negative mental health outcomes related to stress or overwhelm.

The core skills of time management

Time management is one of several self-discipline skills strongly associated with academic, career, and personal success. However, managing time is a more complex skill than most people assume—beyond just using a planner or sticking to a schedule. Research from 2017 suggests that it’s actually made up of a broader subset of three core skills:

• Awareness, or a person's ability to see time as a limited resource, conceptualize how they use it, and understand how much of it they need to set aside for each task
• Arrangement, which includes setting goals, organizing, planning, and creating the structure needed to get work done efficiently
• Adaptation, which involves monitoring one’s time usage, identifying potential strengths and weaknesses of a given approach, and making proactive changes to utilize time more efficiently

Arrangement skills tend to be what people think of when the topic of time management comes up. Most advice for time management usually falls into this category, from keeping calendars and to-do lists to scheduling and tracking time. Evidence suggests, however, that all three skills matter equally when it comes to maximizing sustainable productivity. This may explain why it’s common for people to try and adopt skills for managing time and become discouraged when their new techniques are ineffective; they may have only been focusing on one-third of the necessary tactics.

The 2017 study cited above also indicates that most people have trouble with skills related to awareness and adaptation rather than arrangement. Part of the reason may be that awareness skills are primarily associated with avoiding procrastination and adaptation skills are the primary driver of task prioritization. Without these two, a person may struggle to plan and initiate important tasks—no matter how strong their arrangement skills may be.

The core skills of organization

The overall skill of personal organization relates most closely to the arrangement component of time management, but it can also be helpful for awareness and adaptation. Conversely, good time management skills rely on goal-setting and strategic thinking, both of which can be improved through adequate organization. 

There are many types of organizational skills that may allow a person to manage their time more effectively, including those listed below.

Organizing your space

Developing skills and habits related to physical organization can be a fundamental step toward getting better at organization in general. Physical or environmental organization means maintaining a clean work or study area, removing clutter, and ensuring that the resources you need to do your tasks are within reach. Research suggests that a cluttered workspace can actually increase cognitive overload and decrease working memory, which can have significant negative effects on focus and productivity.

Planning

Productive planning is often an essential skill to have for work or school. Planning skills are a form of mental organization that can help you set goals, outline the steps you’ll need to take to achieve them, and handle any unforeseen problems that may arise. In other words, it can help you define a clear path to completion when working on complicated tasks to help you stay on track.

Tracking tasks

Keeping track of tasks and their many elements may help you take care of them without getting overwhelmed. It could be useful to think of yourself as a project manager: You need to keep all the details organized to ensure the completion of the broader task. Good project management is rarely possible if you keep all the details in your head, however. That’s why using project-management tools or other aids like calendars, task trackers, and planners can be a key part of this element of organization.

Maintaining a schedule

As many people are already aware, maintaining a dedicated schedule can be an important component of staying organized. A clear, up-to-date calendar can help you stay on track and meet deadlines. Parts of this skill people may be less aware of include knowing your limits, learning to estimate how much time certain tasks will take to complete, and strategically leaving parts of your calendar open to accommodate rest and any unforeseen events or setbacks.

Allocating resources

Resource allocation is the process of figuring out which of the resources you have available may be most useful as you complete different tasks and then arranging the use of them as needed. For example, if you’re a college student with an assignment that requires using a computer with specialized software in your school’s library, noting when the library will be open and reserving the computer ahead of time could be examples of resource allocation.

Prioritizing

Prioritization is one of the most important skills to develop when trying to manage your time effectively. Prioritizing tasks requires making deliberate and rational decisions about which need your attention the most. Four steps of effective prioritization can include:

• Think through the tasks. Think logically about the relative weight of each task on your list, how long it will take to accomplish each one, and what outside resources you’ll need. For example, if you need to consult with a coworker to complete a certain task, you’ll need to prioritize that one for a time when the person is available
• Prioritize the tasks. Organize your task list from highest priority to lowest based on deadline, importance, resources, and your energy levels. Make sure you have wiggle room for tasks that may take longer than expected.
• Monitor and evaluate. Along the way, you can also step back and ask yourself how well you’re sticking to your goals, what about your original plan may need to be updated or adapted, and what opportunities you may have for increased efficiency.
• Reward yourself. Checking tasks off your to-do list can release dopamine, a feel-good brain chemical. While this satisfaction might be enough to keep you going through smaller tasks or components, rewarding yourself with a snack or an enjoyable activity after completing larger tasks could help you keep your momentum up and stay motivated to keep completing larger tasks in the future.

How organization and time management are related

The core skills of managing time—adaptation, awareness, and arrangement—all have corresponding skills related to organization. First, the time management skill of prioritization is an essential part of adaptation, because planning and logically reviewing your tasks can allow you to make changes to your routine that may increase your efficiency. Similarly, planning and setting goals are significant parts of awareness skills, and organizing your workspace, tracking tasks, maintaining schedules, and allocating resources are all examples of arrangement skills. In other words, all of the skills discussed here are interrelated, and learning to engage and sharpen each of them may significantly improve your productivity.

Productivity and mental health: How therapy can help

There are various reasons a person might have trouble with time management, organization, or productivity, many of which could be related to mental health. For example, someone might procrastinate because they have low self-esteem and don’t believe in their ability to do tasks well, or they might have an unaddressed form of neurodivergence like attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. A person who experiences the effects of perfectionism and anxiety might burn out easily without tactics for managing such tendencies, and a person who doesn’t have healthy strategies for managing stress might become easily overwhelmed by their deadlines and to-do lists. A therapist can provide support in each of these cases, whether it’s equipping the individual with tips and coping mechanisms or teaching them to recognize, shift, and manage distorted thoughts. 

While many people can benefit from meeting with a therapist, calling local offices to find a provider with availability and then commuting to and from appointments regularly can represent a barrier to care—especially for people who have busy schedules or trouble with time management. In cases like these, online therapy can represent a more convenient option, and research suggests it can offer similar benefits to in-person care. With a platform like BetterHelp, you can answer a few questions about your needs and preferences online and automatically get matched with a licensed therapist. You can then meet with them from the comfort of home via phone, video call, or in-app messaging to address the challenges you may be facing.

Takeaway

Time management capabilities and organizational skills are closely related, and both are generally required in order to be productive and reach your goals at work or in school. There are lots of different methods you can try to build your skills in this area, as outlined above. Meeting with a therapist can also help you address any mental health challenges that may be holding you back from achieving what you want to.