There is a high need for managers to implement time management tips for project managers. As someone who handles multiple projects and clients, I can understand that time is the most valuable resource.
Thanks to multiple projects, stakeholder groups, and almost infinite deadlines, managing hours is more than a skill these days. It’s a compulsion. So in today’s insightful giveaway, I will provide you with the most useful tips to effectively manage your time and boost efficiency and productivity. Let’s begin.
5 Challenges in Time Management for Project Managers
Project managers like you and me face many challenges, which brought upon the requirement of time management tips for project managers.
1. Multiple Project Timelines
The first Issue I used to face was managing multiple project timelines. It was a complex task. Plus, there was this deadline, which almost felt impossible to meet, but I managed it somehow. Furthermore, to add to the injury, I also had to account for various uncertainties.
2. Stakeholder Expectation Management
During all these complexities, managing stakeholder expectations within the timelines and deadlines used to be another major unignorable problem. However, you have no choice but to meet their requirements, for which I will soon give you the best time management tips for project managers.
3. Multiple Time Zones
Another issue with me was handling multiple time zones. I can tell you that managing teams in an organization with geographically dispersed employees is no fun at all. Unless you can find a common time ground, it will all be overwhelming. For example, 11:52 AM in India is 1:22 AM in the USA. However, what if there is an important meeting scheduled for this time only?
4. Unexpected Issues
Unlike other project managers out there, I understand that uncertainties are a part of work-life. For example, a disease won’t ask an employee, ‘Should I infect you after the completion of this important project?’ unexpected problems such as these can arise at any moment and only the best time management tips for project managers (such as the ones I have) can help you account for them.
5. Team Productivity Maintenance
Amidst all the chaos of maintaining multiple project timelines and deadlines, I also had trouble maintaining the high productivity of my team until I discovered techniques to manage my time. However, before that, it was too complex.
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5 Time Management Techniques for Project Managers in 2025
Here they are. The best time management tips for project managers as promised earlier. However, that’s not all. There are more strategies throughout this blog that will make your life as a manager a lot easier. However, to get started, I compiled the 5 proven techniques I use.
1. Time Blocking
Time blocking is a simple yet effective method for managing work hours. As the name suggests, it helps you divide your focus on the various tasks by assigning specific time slots to them. What I usually do is use my peak productivity hours to make critical decisions and complete complex tasks.
2. Pomodoro
If working continuously in a stretch is not a thing for you, then this time management technique for project managers was made for you. What you have to do is:
- Break your tasks into 25-minute blocks.
- Take short breaks.
- Repeat until all your work for the day is wrapped up.
This technique helps me maintain focus throughout and ensures that I don’t burn out during long project planning sessions.
3. Priority Matrix
I admire the genius behind making this yet another simple and effective time management technique for project managers. Also known as the Eisenhower Matrix by Dwight D. Eisenhower, it says that I should divide my work into these 4 categories.
- Urgent and important: I complete these tasks on the fly.
- Important but not urgent: I reschedule these tasks for later.
- Urgent but not important: I delegate these tasks to the trusted employees working under me.
- Neither urgent nor important: I ignore the existence of this work.
Implementing the priority matrix in my daily work-life has made it much simpler and all my projects run smoothly regardless of how complex they are.
4. The Pareto Principle
The Pareto Principle, also known as the 80/20 rule is one of my favourite techniques for managing work hours. This one simply says that 20% of the tasks on your list will accomplish 80% of the results for you. In short, applying this method will help you determine, which of your tasks will be the most impactful, so you can prioritise those tasks over others.
5. Time Tracking
Tracking your time helps you get a lot done within your limited workday hours. What I do is recommend using software, apps, and tools to record every minute you spend doing tasks. Keeping a tab on my work hours easily lets me spot and fix:
- Time wastage
- Obstructions in work
- Work flaws
- Unproductive work patterns
11 Tools for Better Time Management
One of the most effective time management tips for project managers is to use tools to effectively manage time and tasks without having to put in any forced effort. In short, these tools automate time tracking and task management to boost the focus and efficiency levels of your employees.
- DeskTrack: The best all-in-one real-time work-hour and employee activity tracking software.
- Jira: An integrable tool for agile project management.
- Asana: One of the best tools for task management and team collaboration.
- Microsoft Project: This tool helps you make and manage complex project schedules.
- Trello: Trello provides you with features including multiple project views for easily organizing them visually.
- Toggl Track: Toggl Track is a simple yet effective time tracking software.
- Harvest: Harvest helps your teams easily keep track of their work hours.
- RescueTime: RescueTime provides features and functionalities for easy productivity evaluation.
- Slack: Slack is one of the best tools for instant communication.
- Google Workspace: Google Workspace provides you with the cloud versions of Microsoft Word, Excel, Slides, and more to help you collaboratively work on and share important documents.
- Monday.com: Monday.com is one of the best online tools for team task management.
Read Also: How To Improve Employee Productivity in 2025?
8 Effective Time Management Tips for Meetings in 2025
Meeting management is another crucial aspect of managing your time. That’s where most managers fail. So I am going to share 8 tips to help you make the most out of your meetings.
1. Share Clear Agendas
The first time management tip for project managers for improving meeting results is to have clarity on the problems and agendas your meetings will try to solve. What I believe is that this will not cause any confusion and ensure that not much time is taken to explain the meeting plan.
2. Standing Meetings are Better
Standing meetings are not the ones you take while not sitting. Rather, they are the ones scheduled regularly such as weekly, quarterly, or monthly. These are the ones I hold to get quick updates on the project’s progress including any changes that need to be applied to the work process.
3. Apply the Two-Pizza Rule
Another one of the time management tips for project managers is the two-pizza rule. It’s quite interesting because it emphasizes having smaller teams as they are more efficient (due to fewer communication channels), scalable, innovative, and share more ideas during meetings.
4. Record Action Items & Follow-Ups
Okay. so the meeting is done. However, what’s next? If the action items and follow-ups from the meeting are not properly recorded, then it is always chaos, when you need them urgently. Thus more time will be wasted recalling the outcome of the meeting. A better alternative I would suggest is to keep the action items and meeting follow-ups stored somewhere for later use.
5. Schedule In-Between Meeting Times
Also known as buffer time, it is one of the most important time management tips for project managers. Buffer time or extra time scheduled between meetings is great for allowing delays, transitions, or giving yourself a breather.
6. Communicate Asynchronously
An important part of meeting management is communication. Here too, I prefer the asynchronous one where people receive messages at different times including emails. I recommend asynchronous communication because it lets my teams work as flexibly as possible. Especially those that are geographically dispersed.
7. Specify Meeting Goals
The next time management tip for project managers for meetings is to specify the meeting’s end objective. Similar to specifying agendas, specifying the objective also helps you ensure that a meeting doesn’t consume most of your workday.
8. Store Recorded Meetings
There might be some employees absent during meetings due to sick leaves, time off, or being geographically dispersed. For those employees and teams, what I recommend you do is store the meeting videos for sharing and/or later use.
9 Time Management Tips for Multiple Projects in 2025
Another issue most project managers face is simultaneously handling multiple projects and tasks. However, after knowing these 9 time management tips for project managers for multi-project management, this won’t feel overwhelming.
1. Utilize Standard Processes
Uncertainties and other sudden issues are common things during project management. However, it’s always better to start every project with a standard process, which your teams are used to. Another thing is that using standard processes also lets you easily adjust to uncertainties.
2. Project Dependency Maps Help
The next time management tip for project managers for handling multiple projects is to use project dependency maps. These maps visually represent how tasks are related to each other, ensuring that you easily identify where project-stalling obstructions can occur and prepare for them in advance.
3. Level Resources Whenever Required
Another complexity of project management is that you always have limited resources for each project. What I usually do is keep leveling my resources, whenever required. Ie. Reassigning and adjusting the resources, tasks, projects, and teams according to the need.
4. Apply Critical Chain Project Management
Another great time management tip for project managers, which I utilize a lot is critical chain project management. What CCPM does is help you plan and manage projects by focusing on task dependencies and resources. The idea is to complete the project on time and within budget, which is the result of this technique if applied properly.
5. Central Project Dashboard Compulsion
What I follow and recommend is using a central project dashboard to manage all your projects. What this does is keep all your project data in one place for easy access whenever required. In my case, I don’t need a tool for it as my project management tools provides a central project dashboard and a lot more including unlimited task creation and management.
6. Regularly Evaluate Risks
Another time management tip for project managers is to have ample hours to regularly analyse risks. As I mentioned before, remember that every project no matter how simple it is comes with risks and uncertainties. So you need to be prepared for that in advance.
7. Plan Contingently
Contingency planning is another one of my preferred project planning techniques. What it does is prepare you to respond to project-related emergencies. So here’s how you effectively do it:
- Identify risks
- Analyze risks
- Make a plan
- Test and maintain the plan
8. Allocate Buffer Times
Just like you allocate it in meetings, assigning buffer times in projects and general is also beneficial. As I mentioned before, this time management tip for project managers ensures that you are prepared for delays, transitions, or giving yourself a much-needed break.
9. Effective Stakeholder Communication
Another important thing to remember is to keep your stakeholders in the loop with the project’s progress. Having an effective communication channel ensures that your investors know every crucial detail and can easily cooperate with your uncertainties.
Read Also: Top 10 Time Tracking Software for Mac Users in 2025
7 Work-Life Balance Tips for Project Managers in 2025
Finally, now it’s time to wrap it all up with time management tips for project managers for better work-life balance. Well, here are 7 of the best of them.
1. Set Clear Boundaries
The first thing to remember is that if you call your employees after work hours, it not only disturbs their work-life balance but yours too. So setting this boundary is important for more employee retention. Another boundary to set is that neither you nor your employees will intrude on each other’s personal space.
2. Use Time Boxing
Time boxing is a time management tip for project managers that involves putting a time limit on all tasks. Although it may sound similar to time blocking, the latter involves scheduling your workday and not just tasks.
3. Implement Automation Tools
Another thing you can do is implement automation tools to reduce up to 70% burden of all the professionals working for you. For example, workflow automation software is great for creating effective and visually easy-to-understand workflows within minutes. That too without any coding or technical skills.
4. Allow Regular Breaks
If you just keep working tirelessly, managing projects, scolding employees, etc, you will get frustrated and then take out this frustration on your family members and friends. So here’s an essential time management tip for project managers. Take and allow regular breaks to your teams, even if it’s only for 5 minutes.
5. Maintain Healthy Routines
What I usually do is meditate, and practice yoga, and mindfulness before having a healthy breakfast. Then I leave happily to attend the office for a positive start to my and my team’s day. As I mentioned before, all’s well that ends well.
6. Develop Yourself
Another time management tip for project managers is to continuously update yourself with the latest trends, market patterns, new technologies, etc. That way, you won’t have much of an issue adjusting to the sudden changes and will also be able to prepare your teams for the same.
7. Make a Project Manager Network
Another thing I recommend you do is make a network with other project managers you know of. This network will not only help you stay updated but also develop yourself to be better and better as you learn from your fellow managers.
Conclusion
So now I hope you have a clear idea about all the effective time management tips for project managers. To summarize, all I can say is that effectively managing your time is essential for the success of all your projects. Not only that, work-hour management strategies and tools also help you maintain a work-life balance and simultaneously manage multiple projects. However, what if you need more than just software for effectively managing your time? DeskTrack is your best all-things time tracking software and employee monitoring software solution.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Q.1 What are the Challenges Project Managers Face?
Ans. Project managers face many challenges daily in their work-life, which can be overcome by using methods and tips to effectively manage hours and include.
- Multiple Project Timelines
- Stakeholder Expectation Management
- Multiple Time Zones
- Unexpected Issues
- Team Productivity Maintenance
Q.2 Which are the Best Time Management Techniques for Project Managers?
Ans. These are the top 5 techniques for effectively managing your time.
- Time Blocking
- Pomodoro
- Priority Matrix
- The Pareto Principle
- Time Tracking
Q.3 Which are the Best Tools for Managing Time for Project Managers?
Ans. These tools help you manage your time effectively.
- DeskTrack
- Jira
- Asana
- Microsoft Project
- Trello
- Toggl Track
- Harvest
- RescueTime
- Slack
- Google Workspace
- Monday.com
Q.4 How Can Project Managers Maintain a Healthy Work-Life Balance?
Ans. Here are some tips for project managers to maintain a healthy work-life balance.
- Set Clear Boundaries
- Use Time Boxing
- Implement Automation Tools
- Allow Regular Breaks
- Maintain Healthy Routines
- Develop Yourself
- Make a Project Manager Network
