Time Management Isn't What You Think It Is: Why Most Advice Gets It Wrong

Connect with us: SB Nation | Doodle or Die | Medium | Pexels | Elephant Journal

Three months ago, I watched a Melbourne executive miss his daughter's school concert because he was "optimising his calendar workflow." That's when I realised we've got time management completely backwards in this country.

After seventeen years of training Australian businesses—from Brisbane startups to Perth mining companies—I've seen every time management trend come and go. The Pomodoro Technique. Time blocking. Getting Things Done. Digital detoxes. Most of it's rubbish, frankly.

Here's what actually works.

Stop Managing Time, Start Managing Energy

Time management is a myth. You can't manage time—it just keeps ticking regardless of your colour-coded calendar. What you can manage is your energy, and most Australians are doing it wrong.

I learned this the hard way in 2018 when I was juggling three major training contracts across Sydney and Adelaide. I had my schedule planned to the minute. Every client call was optimised. Every travel connection was perfect on paper.

Then I got sick. Not hospital sick, just that lingering exhaustion that comes from treating yourself like a machine instead of a human being.

The breakthrough came during a time management training session I was running for a Gold Coast tech company. One of their developers asked me a simple question: "When do you do your best thinking?"

I didn't have an answer.

Most people don't. We've been so busy cramming productivity into every available moment that we've forgotten to notice when we're actually productive.

The Australian Work Culture Problem

Here's an uncomfortable truth: Australian work culture actively works against effective time management. We've inherited the worst aspects of both British formality and American hustle culture, creating this bizarre expectation that being busy equals being valuable.

I see it in workshops constantly. Managers who brag about working weekends. Team leaders who respond to emails at 10 PM like it's a badge of honour. Office workers who take lunch at their desks because leaving seems somehow unprofessional.

This isn't productivity. It's performance art.

The most effective people I know—and I've trained executives at some impressive Australian companies—do less stuff, not more. They've figured out the difference between motion and progress.

Energy Mapping: The Method That Actually Works

Forget time blocking. Start energy mapping.

For one week, track your energy levels every two hours. Not your schedule, not your tasks—your actual mental and physical energy. Use a simple 1-10 scale.

Here's what you'll probably discover:

Most people hit peak mental energy between 9-11 AM. Then there's usually a dip around 2-3 PM (hello, afternoon slump). Evening energy varies wildly depending on your chronotype, but almost everyone has predictable patterns.

Once you know your energy map, everything changes.

Schedule your most important work during peak energy times. Use low-energy periods for administrative tasks, email, or routine activities. Protect your high-energy windows like they're made of gold.

This sounds obvious, but watch how most people actually work. They'll tackle complex strategic planning right after lunch when their brain is running on fumes, then waste their sharp morning energy on email.

Backwards.

The Three-Priority Rule

Here's where I'm going to upset some productivity gurus: you can't have twelve priorities. The word "priority" literally comes from the Latin "prior," meaning first. You can't have twelve firsts.

Every day, pick three things that must happen. Not ten. Not seven. Three.

If you can't narrow it down to three, you don't understand your job well enough. This might sound harsh, but I've seen too many capable people drown in their own task lists because they couldn't say no to anything.

Write these three priorities on paper. Physical paper. Not your phone, not your computer—paper. There's something about the physical act of writing that makes priorities real in a way that digital notes don't.

Everything else is secondary. If you finish your three priorities and have energy left over, great. Pick something from your secondary list. But those three priorities are non-negotiable.

Why Digital Tools Are Making Things Worse

Controversial opinion: most productivity apps are making you less productive.

I know this goes against current thinking, but hear me out. The average smartphone user checks their device 96 times per day. Every productivity app notification is another interruption, another small decision to make, another moment where your focus fractures.

I've watched training participants become more stressed after implementing elaborate digital systems than they were with simple paper planners.

The problem isn't the tools themselves—some are genuinely helpful. The problem is tool obsession. People spend more time managing their productivity system than actually being productive.

Simple works better than complex. Always.

The Monday Morning Reset

Every Monday morning, I do the same thing. Coffee, no phone, and fifteen minutes of what I call "intention setting."

Not goal setting—intention setting. Goals are outcome-focused. Intentions are process-focused.

Instead of "I want to close three new training contracts this month," try "I intend to have meaningful conversations with potential clients every Tuesday and Thursday."

See the difference? One puts pressure on outcomes you can't fully control. The other focuses on actions you can control.

This weekly reset has probably saved my sanity more than any other single practice. It's where I decide what actually matters for the next seven days, not just what feels urgent.

The Australian Context: Distance and Flexibility

Working in Australia comes with unique time management challenges that most international productivity advice ignores completely.

Distance, for starters. A business meeting in Sydney and another in Perth isn't like hopping between London and Manchester. We're talking about a five-hour flight across three time zones. This changes how you think about scheduling completely.

Then there's our increasingly flexible work culture. Remote work was growing here even before COVID, and now it's everywhere. This is mostly positive, but it's created new time management problems.

When your home is your office, the boundaries blur. I've trained people who were more stressed working from home than they ever were in traditional offices because they couldn't switch off.

The solution isn't stricter boundaries—it's clearer ones. Physical cues help. Change clothes when you finish work. Close the laptop. Have a specific shutdown ritual that signals the end of the workday.

Real Talk: Most Time Management Fails Because of Perfectionism

The biggest obstacle to better time management isn't poor systems or lack of discipline. It's perfectionism disguised as professionalism.

People create elaborate plans they can't possibly stick to, then feel guilty when reality intervenes. A sick child, a delayed flight, an urgent client request—life happens, and rigid systems break.

Build slack into your schedule. Not because you're lazy, but because you're realistic.

I schedule meetings with 15-minute buffers. I plan to finish projects a day before they're due. I keep Friday afternoons relatively clear whenever possible.

This isn't inefficiency—it's sustainability.

The Energy Investment Principle

Here's something most time management advice gets wrong: not all tasks require the same energy investment, even if they take the same amount of time.

A thirty-minute phone call with an angry client will drain you differently than thirty minutes of filing. A creative brainstorming session hits different energy reserves than data entry.

Start thinking about tasks in terms of energy cost, not just time cost. High-energy tasks need high-energy windows. Low-energy tasks can happen anytime.

This changes how you plan everything.

Why "Work-Life Balance" is the Wrong Goal

Work-life balance assumes work and life are separate things that need to be balanced like weights on a scale. That's not how most people actually live, especially in Australia's increasingly connected economy.

Instead of balance, aim for integration. Find ways to make work and personal life complement each other rather than compete.

I've seen people stress themselves into knots trying to maintain perfect separation between work and personal time. Sometimes it makes more sense to take a personal call during work hours and stay an extra thirty minutes to compensate. Sometimes it makes sense to check emails on Sunday afternoon so Monday morning isn't overwhelming.

Flexibility beats rigidity almost every time.

The Delegation Breakthrough

Most Australian managers are terrible at delegation. We've got this cultural thing about "pulling your weight" that makes asking for help feel like admitting weakness.

But here's the thing about time management: your time becomes more valuable as you get better at your job. Eventually, doing everything yourself becomes the biggest waste of time possible.

Start small. Delegate tasks that someone else can do 80% as well as you can. That remaining 20% isn't worth your time if it means you can't focus on things only you can do.

This applies to personal life too. Cleaning services, meal delivery, grocery pickup—these aren't luxuries if they free up time for things that actually matter to you.

The Afternoon Energy Crisis

Let's talk about that 2 PM energy crash that hits most office workers like a freight train.

This isn't just about lunch choices, though what you eat matters. It's about working against your natural circadian rhythms instead of with them.

Your energy naturally dips in the early afternoon. Fighting this with caffeine and willpower is like swimming against a rip current—exhausting and ultimately futile.

Instead, plan for it. Schedule low-energy tasks during this window. Take a walk. Have a brief conversation with a colleague. Review notes from the morning. Do administrative work that doesn't require peak mental performance.

Some progressive Australian companies are starting to embrace this reality with flexible lunch breaks and walking meetings. It's a positive trend that acknowledges biology over arbitrary scheduling.

Technology Boundaries That Actually Work

Technology is a tool, not a master. But most people use it backwards.

Turn off non-essential notifications. Seriously. You don't need to know immediately when someone likes your LinkedIn post or when a newsletter arrives. Batch process these interruptions during designated times.

Use airplane mode strategically. Two hours of airplane mode during peak focus time is worth more than eight hours of constantly interrupted work.

Set phone boundaries that make sense for your life, not someone else's ideal. Maybe you check emails three times a day instead of constantly. Maybe you have a no-phone zone in your bedroom. Maybe you delete social media apps during the work week.

The key is making conscious choices instead of letting technology make choices for you.

The Weekly Review That Changes Everything

Every Friday afternoon, spend twenty minutes reviewing the week. Not in a self-flagellating way, but with genuine curiosity.

What worked well? What didn't? Where did you waste time? Where did you invest it wisely? What patterns are emerging?

This isn't about perfection—it's about awareness. Small adjustments compound over time into significant improvements.

I've been doing weekly reviews for eight years now, and the insights still surprise me. Patterns become visible that you can't see when you're in the middle of everything.

Most people skip this step because it feels like extra work. It's actually the most important work you can do.

The Real Secret: Systems That Survive Contact with Reality

Military strategists say no plan survives contact with the enemy. The same is true for time management systems—they need to survive contact with real life.

The best system is the one you'll actually use consistently, not the perfect system you'll abandon after two weeks.

Start simple. Pick one or two changes from this article and implement them for a month before adding anything else. Build habits gradually instead of trying to revolutionise everything at once.

Time management isn't about finding the perfect system. It's about finding your system—the one that fits your personality, your work style, your life circumstances, and your goals.

Everything else is just noise.

But you probably already knew that, didn't you?