Further Resources

How to Improve Time Management: Why Your Calendar Is Lying to You (And What Actually Works)

The client was 47 minutes late to our 2 PM meeting, and when she finally showed up, frazzled and clutching a triple-shot flat white, she launched into a breathless explanation about traffic, a last-minute phone call, and how she'd been "absolutely slammed" all week. Sound familiar?

After 18 years of running workplace training sessions across Melbourne, Brisbane, and Perth, I've heard every time management excuse in the book. But here's what really gets me fired up: most people aren't bad at time management because they lack systems or apps or colour-coded calendars. They're terrible at it because they're lying to themselves about what actually matters.

The Calendar Delusion

Let me start with something that'll probably ruffle a few feathers: your meticulously planned calendar is probably making your time management worse, not better. I know, I know – productivity gurus everywhere just had heart palpitations. But stick with me.

The problem with most calendar systems is that they treat every commitment as equally important. A 30-minute "catch-up" with Karen from accounts gets the same visual weight as preparing for your biggest client presentation of the year. This creates what I call "calendar blindness" – where you can't see the forest for the trees.

Real time management isn't about filling every minute. It's about protecting the minutes that actually matter.

What They Don't Teach You in Business School

Here's a confession: for the first five years of my consulting career, I was absolutely shocking at time management. I'd book myself solid, arrive everywhere slightly out of breath, and wonder why I felt like I was constantly playing catch-up despite working 60-hour weeks.

The turning point came when I started working with a mining company in Western Australia. Their operations manager, a no-nonsense bloke named Dave, took one look at my jam-packed schedule and said, "Mate, you're managing your time like you're running a taxi service. Every request gets a yes, every meeting gets scheduled. Where's the strategy in that?"

That conversation changed everything. Dave introduced me to what I now call the "hierarchy of importance" – a system that goes way beyond the typical urgent/important matrix that everyone bangs on about.

The Three Levels of Time Investment

Level One: Revenue-Critical Activities These are the tasks that directly impact your bottom line or career progression. For a sales professional, it might be client calls and proposal writing. For a project manager, it's stakeholder communication and risk assessment. The key is being brutally honest about what actually drives results versus what just feels productive.

Level Two: Relationship Maintenance This includes team meetings, mentoring junior staff, and yes, even some of those "non-essential" social interactions. Here's where most time management advice gets it wrong – they tell you to eliminate these activities. Bad idea. Strong workplace relationships are what get things done when systems fail and deadlines loom.

Level Three: Administrative Necessities Email, reporting, compliance training. Important? Yes. Worthy of your peak energy hours? Absolutely not.

The magic happens when you start protecting your peak performance hours for Level One activities only. Most people do this backwards – they'll spend their sharpest morning hours clearing emails and then wonder why they're mentally exhausted when it's time for strategic thinking.

The Australia-Specific Challenge

Working across this continent presents unique time management challenges that overseas productivity experts completely miss. When your Melbourne team needs to coordinate with Perth colleagues, you're already dealing with a three-hour time difference that can torpedo the best-laid plans.

Then there's the cultural aspect. Australians are generally pretty reasonable people, but we've also got this ingrained habit of being accommodating to a fault. "Sure, I can squeeze in a quick coffee" becomes two hours and three topic changes. "Just a brief update" turns into a full project retrospective.

I've seen this destroy more productivity than any lack of planning ever could.

The Eisenhower Matrix Is Overrated

Everyone loves quoting Stephen Covey and his urgent/important quadrants, but here's my controversial take: it's too simplistic for modern work environments. Real workplace decisions are messier than a 2x2 grid can handle.

What about the important but time-sensitive task that isn't technically urgent? Or the relationship-building activity that seems neither urgent nor important but could unlock major opportunities down the track? The traditional matrix fails here.

Instead, I recommend what I call the "Energy-Impact Assessment." Before committing to any task or meeting, ask yourself:

How much mental energy will this require?
What's the realistic impact if this gets delayed by a week?
Who benefits if this is done exceptionally well?

Technology: Friend or Foe?

Let's talk about the elephant in the room – productivity apps. I've tried them all: Todoist, Notion, Asana, Monday.com, and about fifteen others I can't even remember. Here's what I've learned: the app isn't the solution; your relationship with priorities is.

That said, some tools genuinely help. I'm a big fan of time blocking techniques combined with simple calendar systems. But the tool is only as good as the thinking behind it.

The worst productivity trap I see is people spending more time managing their productivity system than actually being productive. If you're spending 20 minutes each morning updating your task management app, you've missed the point entirely.

The Power Hour Myth

Here's another sacred cow I'm going to challenge: the idea that everyone has one golden "power hour" each day. Complete rubbish for most people.

Your energy levels fluctuate based on dozens of factors – sleep quality, meal timing, meeting intensity, even the weather. I've tracked my productivity patterns for three years, and while there are trends, they're nowhere near as predictable as the productivity crowd would have you believe.

Instead of chasing the mythical power hour, focus on recognising your energy patterns in real-time. Some days you'll crush strategic work at 2 PM. Other days, your brain is fried by lunch, but you've got the patience for detailed administrative tasks.

Meetings: The Productivity Vampire

If I had to identify the single biggest time management destroyer in Australian workplaces, it would be meetings. Not all meetings – but the endless parade of status updates, brainstorming sessions that could've been emails, and "alignment discussions" that somehow align nothing.

Research from the University of Sydney suggests that middle managers spend 67% of their working week in meetings. Sixty-seven percent! When exactly are they supposed to do the actual work they're managing?

Here's my radical suggestion: start saying no to meetings where you're not essential. I know this sounds career-limiting, but in my experience, the opposite is true. People respect colleagues who protect their time because it signals that their time is valuable.

The Perfectionism Time Trap

Australians have this interesting relationship with perfectionism. We'll mock the "tall poppy" who's too polished, but we'll also spend hours perfecting reports that three people will skim-read.

I learned this lesson the hard way during a project with a major retailer. I spent two weeks crafting the perfect training manual – beautiful formatting, comprehensive appendices, detailed cross-references. The client feedback? "This is great, but we really just needed the key points so we could get started."

Sometimes good enough is actually perfect.

Building Buffer Time (The Right Way)

Every time management expert tells you to build buffer time into your schedule. What they don't tell you is how to do it strategically.

Most people add 15 minutes to every appointment and call it buffer time. This is amateur hour. Real buffer time is about anticipating where delays are most likely and where they'll cause the most damage.

If you're presenting to a difficult stakeholder, build buffer time before AND after that meeting. If you're traveling across town during peak hour, don't just add 20 minutes – add 45 and bring work you can do if you arrive early.

The Energy Management Revolution

Here's where I'm going to sound like a wellness blogger for a moment, but bear with me. Time management is actually energy management in disguise.

You can have all the time in the world, but if you're mentally drained, you'll accomplish nothing meaningful. Conversely, when you're sharp and focused, you can achieve in two hours what normally takes you all day.

This means paying attention to:

What types of work energise you versus drain you
How different environments affect your focus
Which colleagues leave you feeling motivated versus exhausted

Delegation: Not Just for Managers

One of the biggest misconceptions about delegation is that it's only for people with direct reports. Wrong. Everyone can delegate – it just might not be to subordinates.

You can delegate upwards (asking your manager to handle a stakeholder relationship that's beyond your authority level). You can delegate sideways (trading tasks with colleagues who have complementary strengths). You can even delegate to systems and processes.

The key is getting comfortable with the idea that you don't have to personally handle every task that lands on your desk.

The Monday Morning Reality Check

Every Sunday night, I do something that my friends think is slightly obsessive: I look at the coming week and identify the three things that absolutely must happen for it to be considered successful. Not 10 things, not even five. Three.

This forces brutal prioritisation. It also means that even if the week goes completely sideways – which happens more often than we'd like to admit – I can still salvage a win.

Why Most Time Management Training Fails

After delivering hundreds of workplace training sessions, I've noticed that most time management courses focus on tactics, not mindset. They'll teach you the Pomodoro Technique and show you how to set up Getting Things Done, but they won't address the psychological reasons you're saying yes to everything in the first place.

The real breakthrough happens when you understand that time management is really about value management. Every yes is a no to something else. Every meeting you attend is focus time you're not protecting. Every urgent task you tackle immediately is an important project you're putting off.

The Compound Effect of Small Improvements

Here's something that took me embarrassingly long to figure out: tiny improvements in time management create massive long-term benefits. Shaving 10 minutes off your morning routine doesn't sound revolutionary, but it adds up to nearly 40 hours per year. Forty hours! That's a full work week you've just created out of thin air.

The same principle applies to decision-making speed. If you can make routine decisions 30 seconds faster, and you make 50 routine decisions per day, you've just saved yourself 25 minutes. Do that for a year, and you've gained more than 150 hours.

These aren't life-changing individual moments, but they compound into significant advantages over time.

Final Thoughts

Time management isn't about becoming a robot who optimises every minute. It's about being intentional with your choices and honest about your limitations.

The clients I work with who genuinely improve their time management aren't the ones who adopt the most sophisticated systems – they're the ones who get clear about what matters and get comfortable disappointing people whose priorities don't align with theirs.

That might sound harsh, but it's actually liberating. When you stop trying to be everything to everyone, you can finally start being exceptional at the things that actually matter.

And if you're still chronically running 47 minutes late to meetings, maybe start there.