5 Time Management Strategies for 20255 Time Management Strategies for 2025

If you can't manage your time, you can't manage yourself. If you can't manage yourself, you can't manage and lead other people. Between calls, texts and emails, construction leaders’ phones alert them dozens of times per day. How many of those notifications rise to the level of either urgent or important? Better time management simply means that you will waste far less of the most precious commodity you have—time.

Many contractors are poor time managers. They don’t allocate their most precious resource with the care it deserves. You work very hard, juggle lots of balls, and then wonder at the end of the work week, “Where did my time go?” If you managed your time better, you would have more of it. If you have more time, you have more life. That means you can go home early and have a glass of wine with your wife or see your kids before bedtime.

Here are five time management strategies that can make a difference in your professional and personal life.

1 | Practice time blocking.

For example, you don't need to keep your email open all day so every time one pops up you jump on it immediately. You could batch them from 10 to 10:30 and then again from 4:30 to 5:15. You needn’t stay plugged in 24/7 with your phone or laptop. Time blocking also works for tasks. If there is a project which demands your focus, allocate a specific amount of time. When your time is up, move on to the next thing and block additional time later to return to the open task.

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2 | Utilize the “four Ds.”

The Four Ds are:  do it, ditch it, delay it or delegate it. They were intended to help executives handle “paper” efficiently but still largely apply in today’s paperless world. Do it means it’s a meeting, task, email, text message or something else that you act on right now. It’s both urgent and important. Ditch it means you discard it and don’t look back. It’s neither urgent nor important. Delay it means that it may be important, but it’s not urgent. Therefore, you can address this item later. Delegate it means it may be both urgent and important, but someone else can handle the matter.

3 | Limit phone calls to four minutes.

You can cover a lot in a short amount of time. If a phone or video call is likely to take longer than four minutes, schedule it. Important, complicated or controversial matters may take more time and therefore deserve dedicated space on your calendar.

4 | Remove clutter.

Clean up your office! You've got piles of plans, magazines, knickknacks, souvenirs and other unnecessary and unimportant items cluttering up your workspace. Trash anything untouched or unused after 90 days in your workspace.

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5 | Block off white space.

Don’t overcommit your time and energy.  If you've got meetings scheduled all day every day, when will you have time to help your customers, staff or trade partners? Set aside an hour or two of space on your calendar to allow for the unplanned, informal things that inevitably pop up.