Effective time management is critical for reducing stress and improving mental health. By adopting time management strategies like the Pomodoro Technique, practicing mindfulness, automating repetitive tasks, taking care of your health, using the Eisenhower Matrix, tracking your time, and creating a routine, you can manage your workload more effectively and reduce stress levels.

This program can help you become an expert in corporate wellness and make a positive impact on your organization. About Editorial Guidelines. Take the 5-min.

quiz and find out! Business of Well-being Time Management Strategies for Reducing Stress and Improving Mental Health By. Here are some additional time management strategies that can help you reduce stress and improve your mental health: Use the Pomodoro Technique: The Pomodoro Technique is a time management method that involves working in focused minute intervals, followed by short breaks.

This technique can help you stay focused and productive while avoiding burnout. Practice Mindfulness: Mindfulness is the practice of being present and fully engaged in the current moment. Practicing mindfulness can help you reduce stress, improve focus, and enhance your overall well-being. Automate Repetitive Tasks: Repetitive tasks, such as responding to emails or scheduling appointments, can be time-consuming and stressful.

Automating these tasks using tools like email filters and scheduling software can help you save time and reduce stress levels. Take Care of Your Health: Your physical health can impact your mental health and ability to manage your workload.

Prioritizing exercise, getting enough sleep, and eating a healthy diet can help you feel more energized, focused, and less stressed. Use the Eisenhower Matrix: The Eisenhower Matrix is a time management tool that helps you prioritize tasks based on their urgency and importance. This matrix can help you identify which tasks to focus on first, reducing the feeling of overwhelm and stress.

Track Your Time: Tracking your time can help you identify areas where you may be wasting time or where you can improve efficiency. Time tracking software or a simple spreadsheet can help you get started.

Create a Routine: Creating a routine can help you establish healthy habits and reduce stress. A routine can help you prioritize tasks, create structure in your day, and avoid procrastination. Interested in Receiving Thousands of B2B Leads? related articles. Changing the Narrative in Corporate Wellness, an Interview with CCWS Graduate, Renee Fortuna.

Stress can also lead to anxiety, depression, and unhealthy habits like excessive drinking. The ability to manage time effectively gives someone a sense of control over their lives. Their free time can be spent as they wish, giving them more opportunities to engage in self-care activities.

In order to prevent burnout, relaxing hobbies reduce cortisol levels and release stress. Making the most of your free time is one of the best time management tips for mental health since it reduces your stress levels even further.

The term burnout is thrown around quite a bit nowadays. But it has been explored since the s when Herbert Freudenberger published his book Burnout: The High Cost of High Achievement.

At some point or another, many of us experience workplace stress, which can lead to burnout. There are times when we all feel stressed at work, particularly if we are working longer hours than usual, deadlines are looming, or we have personal problems. Stress at work can lead to burnout, a form of extreme exhaustion caused by mental and emotional exhaustion.

Burnout is classified by the World Health Organization WHO into three categories:. Work-related stress may make it difficult for us to concentrate on tasks, and we may feel anxious and overwhelmed.

Burnout occurs when we can no longer care for or engage with our work because of workplace stress. Are you going to be able to solve all your problems with time management? Obviously not.

For example, thanks to time management, you know your limitations, but are you managing your limitations and finding other ways to conquer your work pile? As such, time management can help you determine how much you can realistically get done in a day, week, or even month.

It also makes it easier to turn down time requests when you already have a full plate. And it encourages you to prioritize your downtime. The most common mental health issues today are anxiety disorders and depression. These disorders have skyrocketed as a result of the pandemic.

Globally, depression affects 3. adults will experience an anxiety disorder during their lifetime, according to another study.

Time management and anxiety are cyclical, where poor time management can cause anxiety, and high anxiety can result in unmet deadlines. In the long run, the individual may experience depression symptoms such as low energy, mood swings, and dissatisfaction.

Likewise, depression can numb your senses, making you miss a deadline because of the dulling effect. To receive adequate treatment for anxiety, depression, or both, speak with your mental health provider. Further, you might be able to get extensions at work if you suffer from these disorders, which are classified as disabilities.

As an employer, you can team up with a mental health provider to provide free or discounted counseling sessions to your employees. This can also help offset the costs of absenteeism, healthcare, and lost productivity.

Moreover, time management skills can reduce anxiety and distress. With time management skills, you can set boundaries. When someone attempts something new and succeeds, their self-confidence instantly increases.

Focusing on communication skills can help boost self-confidence. Sending frequent emails or utilizing a messaging system will allow anyone to communicate more clearly with co-workers or clients. When people do not have to repeat directions or conversations, they gain more time and are less anxious and stressed.

By clarifying and streamlining interpersonal communication, anyone can experience immediate positive effects of time management on mental health. In general, it is recommended that adults sleep between hours each night. The reality is that one-third of people sleep fewer than six hours a night.

In addition, insomnia is a common complaint among those suffering from mental illnesses such as depression or Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder PTSD. Sleep deprivation can also exacerbate existing symptoms , making it difficult to function properly.

We may be able to accomplish more tasks by reducing our sleep. But we will perform worse the following day if we sleep less. Rather than losing more sleep, we should learn to manage our time better.

Our ability to manage our time leads to a healthy balance between work, family, and friends. Overall, your day will be more productive if you sleep enough. Research has shown that sleep is an essential part of learning and a critical factor for completing tasks and achieving goals. As you sleep, your brain stores memories from the previous day as well as makes room for new information.

The lack of sleep can lead to forgetfulness and inefficiency. Creating a daily schedule and sticking to it will help you manage your time. Being able to function at your best comes from prioritizing what needs to be done first. As a result, you may achieve more. Keeping a bedtime routine is also important.

Fisher, Ph. Furthermore, maintaining healthy relationships reduces stress and encourages healthier behaviors. Additionally, relationships provide a sense of purpose and increase longevity. Professionally, this can open up more career opportunities.

Depending on your living situation, there may be numerous household chores, cooking, lawn care, taking care of kids or pets, paying bills, and getting groceries, all of which require proper time management.

However, effective time management can help you take control of your home life, increasing productivity and reducing stress levels. While it may seem overwhelming, it's important to know how to manage your time so that you can get things done efficiently while still having time for rest, self-care, and some fun.

Prioritizing tasks, creating a routine, and avoiding procrastination can all help improve time management skills. It can also be helpful to break down large tasks into smaller, more manageable ones to make them less daunting.

Some ways to manage your time can include:. In addition to managing your time and workload to improve your mental health, seeking psychological services help can also be beneficial. CHE Behavioral Health Services offers mental health services online to individuals struggling with mental health concerns, providing a safe and confidential space to address issues such as stress, depression, anxiety disorders, grief, and more.

With a network of over physicians , we provide convenient, evidence-based mental health services online to help improve your mental health and overall well-being.

For more information about mental illness and behavioral health services offered by CHE, please call We are ready to talk and ready to listen.

Makenzie is a clinical social worker who has worked in the mental health field for over a decade and now works in clinical quality assurance with CHE Behavioral Health Services.

Makenzie lives in Kansas City, Missouri with her partner, Justin, and their three pets. Makenzie likes art, singing, exercising, reading, getting outdoors, and trying new restaurants.

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Did you break your New Year Resolutions? Mobile Menu CHE Services mobile menu navigation links. Schedule Appointment Toll-Free Part of knowing how to focus is making the most of the resources you have available.

Stop multitasking and instead give your full attention to one thing at a time. It's tough to stay mentally focused when you are ruminating about the past, worrying about the future, or tuned out of the present moment for some other reason.

You have probably heard people talk about the importance of " being present. This notion of being present is also essential for recapturing your mental focus.

Staying engaged in the here and now keeps your attention sharp and your mental resources honed in on the details that really matter at a specific point in time. It may take some time but work on learning to truly live in the moment.

You cannot change the past and the future has not happened yet, but what you do today can help you avoid repeating past mistakes and pave a path for a more successful future.

Mindfulness is a hot topic right now, and for good reason. Despite the fact that people have practiced forms of mindfulness meditation for thousands of years, its many health benefits are only recently starting to be understood. In one study, researchers had human resources professionals engage in simulations of the sort of complex multitasking they engaged in each day at work.

These tasks had to be completed in 20 minutes and included answering phones, scheduling meetings, and writing memos with sources of information pouring in from multiple sources including by phone calls, emails, and text messages.

Some of the participants received 8 weeks of training in the use of mindfulness meditation , and the results found that only those who had received this training showed improvement in concentration and focus. Members of the meditation group were able to stay on task longer, switched between tasks less frequently, and performed the work more efficiently than the other groups of participants.

Practicing mindfulness can involve learning how to meditate, but it can also be as simple as trying a quick and easy deep breathing exercise. Start by taking several deep breaths while really focusing on each and every breath.

When you feel your mind naturally begin to wander, gently and uncritically guide your focus back to your deep breathing.

While this might seem like a deceptively simple task, you may find that it is actually much more difficult than it appears. Fortunately, this breathing activity is something you can do anywhere and anytime.

Eventually, you will probably find that it becomes easier to disengage from intrusive thoughts and return your focus to where it belongs. Have you ever tried to stay mentally focused on the same thing for a long period of time? After a while, your focus starts to break down and it becomes more and more difficult to devote your mental resources to the task.

Not only that, but your performance ultimately suffers as a result. Traditional explanations in psychology have suggested that this is due to attentional resources being depleted, but some researchers believe that it has more to do with the brain's tendency to ignore sources of constant stimulation.

Researchers have found that even taking very brief breaks by shifting your attention elsewhere can dramatically improve mental focus. So the next time you are working on a prolonged task, such as preparing your taxes or studying for an exam, be sure to give yourself an occasional mental break.

Shift your attention to something unrelated to the task at hand, even if it is only for a few moments. These short moments of respite might mean that you are able to keep your mental focus sharp and your performance high when you really need it.

Building your mental focus is not something that will happen overnight. Even professional athletes require plenty of time and practice in order to strengthen their concentration skills.

One of the first steps is to recognize the impact that being distracted is having on your life. If you are struggling to accomplish your goals and find yourself getting sidetracked by unimportant details, it is time to start placing a higher value on your time.

By building your mental focus, you will find that you are able to accomplish more and concentrate on the things in life that truly bring you success, joy, and satisfaction.

Mental focus refers to your ability to concentrate on relevant information in your environment. This ability allows you to attend to things that require attention, complete tasks that you need to accomplish, and acquire new information.

In order to focus, the brain needs to filter out irrelevant information to concentrate on what really matters.

Different types of attention can affect your ability to focus. Selective attention , for example, acts like a spotlight to highlight specific stimuli in your environment. Sustained attention, on the other hand, allows you to stay mentally focused on something for an extended period of time.

Levy D, Wobbrock J, Kaszniak A, Ostergren M. The effects of mindfulness meditation training on multitasking in a high-stress information environment. Proceedings - Graphics Interface. Brief and rare mental breaks keep you focused: Deactivation and reactivation of task goals preempt vigilance decrements.

doi: By Kendra Cherry, MSEd Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book.

Use limited data to select advertising. Tony explains the power of chunking and how it helps direct your focus toward what matters. How do you know where to direct your energy in order to see the results you want?

Conduct a core values audit: Track your activities for two weeks, taking note of which core values your actions connect with, and audit yourself with a keen eye as you evaluate how to move closer to your goals. Replace these activities, like checking social media too frequently, with something that serves your ultimate plan, like cooking healthy meals or regularly exercising.

The best goals are SMART goals : secific, measurable, achievable, realistic and anchored within a time frame. Be clear with the outcome you plan to achieve and designate the time needed to reach your goal. Rather than telling yourself you want to lose weight this year, set a clear goal: one pound per week or five pounds per month.

Now create your massive action plan. Ask yourself: What actions produce the most value? By being specific with your outcomes, and having clarity on what they are and why you want them, you can have the laser-guided focus you need to achieve them.

Saying no in the first place saves you time to focus on what matters to you. You can also practice assertiveness by eliminating distractions.

Block websites if you have to. Your time is yours , so take control of your workspace and time so you can get more done. Learning how to be more assertive is one of the best time management skills examples. Think about it: Too often people ask us to do something and we instantly say yes.

Instead, take time and ensure that you commit only to tasks or activities that support your core values and goals. At the end of the month, assess: How much time did you save? How much more fulfilled do you feel with what you did accomplish? Suppose that you want to strengthen your relationship with your partner, and you decide to use an hour of your day to give that person the attention they deserve.

What do you do? Instead of checking your phone, stay committed to your targeted outcome — a healthier, more passionate relationship with the person you love — and give your partner the attention they deserve.

What if you could get in the zone whenever you wanted? The minute increment block is one of the most powerful time management skills because it allows you to do just that. Prepare to tackle the task and set an alarm for 20 minutes.

Take a small break, then get back to that task.