Hey 2020—what the heck! We’d love it if you held your own beer and stopped one-upping your crazy. We already see that partying like it’s 1999 has got nothing on you. It’s just getting a bit hard to navigate one mess after another when we only have 24 precious hours to complete all our daily tasks. Honestly, it’s a lot to ask of us when our days have become an aimless swirl of activity, catching our professional and personal lives in it. …No? And can we get you another beer? Sigh. Well, we didn’t expect you to change your wild ways, at least until January 1, so it looks like we’ll have to use our time-management skills to reinvent what’s left of the calendar. Better get started.

Find your time wastes

…because you are wasting time, even if it isn’t a 3-hour TikTok binge. There’s no shame—we all take little breaks during the day, but you may not realize how quickly these breaks add up. To prevent small distractions from turning into big ones, keep an activity log. Log all (ALL!) your activities for a week and how long you spend doing each one. Once your activity log shows how you’re actually spending your time, you can work on setting a daily time budget.

Identify your priorities

Now you have your activity log, and you can see where your time is going, it’s time to prioritize your daily needs into a time budget. If you don’t already keep a to-do list, start! At the end of each workday, make a list of all the tasks you need to get done. When you start work the next day, review the list and prioritize each item for that day only. What must get done today? How long will it take? What would you like to get done today? What can absolutely wait until tomorrow? What could you get off your plate by delegating it to someone else? Set completion goals within your time budget and stick to them.

Reorganize

Your time budget has no room for clutter. Your activity log will show how much time you spend trying to find things, like that email your client sent you last month, or that project folder hiding somewhere in your desk. If disorganization is draining your time budget, take a moment to reorganize or completely redo your filing systems. A small investment now will reap long-term rewards.

Repurpose your downtime

Remember that 3-hour TikTok binge? Your downtime could be so much more than happy dog videos. Whether you’re waiting for a meeting to start or for your lunch to beep in the microwave, part of your daily budget will be spent waiting. But waiting doesn’t have to mean wasting! Always have something ready to work on, such as replying to email, reading expense reports, or planning the next day’s to-do list. Of course, this does not apply to the meal and rest breaks planned into your schedule, which are best used to refresh yourself.

Set task and time limits

Perfectionists: this one is for you. When you’re on a time budget, only so much time can go into making any project “just right.” Try assigning a specific time limit to each task, and don’t exceed that limit. (Remember that trusty 80/20 rule?) Your schedule may not allow you to rework anything but the most important projects. Creating job flyers for your latest postings? Give yourself an hour to do the best job you can, and then move on. Also set times and time limits to check and answer email; checking messages all day can easily eat into time allotted to more critical tasks.

In conclusion

Oh, 2020, you’ll be over soon, and we hope you will take your insane antics with you. We can’t change the time left on your calendar—a year that has felt overwhelming and underwhelming, flown by at lightspeed and slithered at a snail’s pace—but we can change how we tackle it. And while improving our time management can help us stay focused on what’s to come, it’s important to exercise grace and to remember that even the most organized people have less-than-organized days.