How can I manage my time better?

This is an excellent question.

A lot of people benefit by making lists. First, you simply list all the tasks you have to accomplish. Don’t think of them in any certain order. Just list them. Next, you look at the list and decide what’s most important to least, and you put some type of mark by them to indicate that. You can number them, or put letters of the alphabet. You get to decide.

That’s one way to manage time.

Another way is to buy an organizer, a kind of daily calendar that has the day broken up by hours. You write in the day the tasks you have to accomplish and the amount of time you will devote to them. It works for many people. That’s another idea.

I’m sure more jellies will give you ideas.

Good luck.

I still have a hard time doing everything I want to do in a day. Not sure if this will help but your question is very similar to mine, maybe there’s something here that will help.
https://www.fluther.com/235045/how-do-you-find-enough-time-in-the-day-to-get/

Get up earlier.

I make lists. I don’t always accomplish what I want to do but the list helps me remember what needs to get done.

I will allow myself time to fuck off, like spend time on social media, have coffee, etc. but I will usually make a specific time when I’m going to stop that and start doing what needs to get done. For example, I’ll tell myself “ok, at noon, you’re going to get off the computer and change the cat litter and do laundry”, or the “goal will be to be out of the house by a certain time.”

A friend gave me a good suggestion once – when you are prioritizing what you need to get done, do the unpleasant things first so that you get them over with and get them off your mind.

Try making a schedule and sticking to it. Don’t be too precise, though, and leave a little room for delays like traffic, being on hold longer than expected, busier than usual grocery store, etc.

One core list to go to. Make sure it is in a visible place.
Take the time to organize your daily activity so you can make time slots to do certain things. Follow this as habit. Do this in the big picture sense.
Also try to determine what your distractions are. Try to avoid these distractions.

A good read on this that helped me many years ago is Getting Things Done by David Allen

You can do this!

I have an aversion to lists. I make a list, do one thing on it (maybe), and then stick the list in a drawer. What I find is some of the things on the list naturally get done over the course of a few months.

Getting Things Done, Zen to Done (e-book), Time Management from the Inside Out, and Unwinding the Clock are a few books that have stuck with me. I also use Omnifocus software (Mac only), which is total overkill for my situation but helps me with the Getting Things Done method.

The really hard part about any of it is that it’s about building a habit (and even knowing this I still resist it).

One thing I’ve learned is that putting a deadline on a calendar dramatically increases the chances of something getting done.

I tend to procrastinate, so I wait till the last minute, or give myself the minimum amount of time needed to get something done, and then I start. If I’m going out, I may clean the house prior to that, so I will back out my time (leaving at 3, need to be in the shower by 2:30, need an hour to clean the house so need to start by 1:30, for example). I’ve been a procrastinator my whole life, and it seems to work ok for me.

A motivational speaker once said, “If you have a lot of frogs to swallow, swallow the biggest one first”; meaning if you have a number of tasks, do the hardest one first and the rest will come more easily.

I don’t have time to answer this question properly.

Structure and consistency. Perhaps an Apple watch alarm? Different tools work for different people.
As a manager, I say ‘do everything with a sense of urgency, as tomorrow will have it’s own challenges.’

Use a time management system like DayTimer or Franklin Covey.

One thing that motivates me is the satisfaction of getting something done. To that end, I make a to-do list, and at the end of the day I make a got-done list. Sometimes I do things that weren’t on my to-do list, but they either needed to be done or I forgot to put them on the original list. Simply drawing a line through a job I’ve accomplished isn’t as satisfying as actually writing down and seeing a list of things I finished that day.

That doesn’t actually answer your question, but it might help motivate you.

I generally don’t make lists (unless I’m bored at work, LOL!) Or sometimes if I want a way to organize my thoughts, I’ll make one. Generally, on work days, I don’t ask too much of myself (talking about personal tasks, of course, not things I have to do at work.) I will sometimes have 2–3 things that I need to get done when I get off from work, but I try not to overload what I need to do too much, as sometimes I am really tired.

Weekends are different of course, but even then I don’t usually make lists. I have a general mental list of what I would like to get done (laundry, etc.), but other than that, I find that doing one task will often lead to the next logical one. For example, I want to turn my matress around (I don’t have one you can flip). Okay, so if I am going to do that, I will wash the sheets, blanket and quilt, (I do all that more often than I turn the mattress, of course, but I would definitely knock those things out at the time because it just makes sense.)

One last thing…one of the few times I do make lists is when I’m moving. But then it’s as much to help me not feel overwhelmed as anything else. It really helps your stress level when you have a huge job to finish and you can cross off bigger steps.