In today’s fast-paced work environments, you are expected to wear multiple hats and juggle a variety of priorities. In fact, the ability to manage time effectively can make or break your success.
Time management has become an in-demand transferable skill. The ability to stay organized and consistently meet deadlines makes you stand out as a reliable and efficient professional from entry-level positions to the C-suite.
But how do you demonstrate time management skills on a resume in a way that’s compelling and impactful? Below, we will examine the following points:
- What time management skills are
- How you can develop these skills,
- How to strategically highlight them on your resume
We will also share an example of a resume that demonstrates time management skills effectively.
Let’s begin!
Time Management Skills – What Are They?
Time management skills have been defined as “the ability to use one’s time effectively or productively, especially at work.” Put another way, these skills are “the process of organizing and planning your activities (time) in a way that maximizes performance, efficiency, and productivity.”
Good time management strategies are demonstrated by the results they produce and their impact on others.
For example, if you can manage your time well, you will be able to meet deadlines, stay organized, prioritize tasks, and get your work done on time and with less stress. This will remain true even if your schedule or workload abruptly changes.
💡Top Insight
Joseph Ferrari, a prominent professor of psychology, suggests that 20% of adults in the United States are habitual procrastinators.
Interestingly, time management is important in one’s personal life as well. In order to maintain a healthy work/life balance, an employee should be able to finish workplace tasks without excessive overtime or “taking work home” so that work does not encroach on personal time.
This also helps keep stress to a minimum. On the flip side of this, time must be well managed in one’s personal life so that necessary tasks can be completed while not at work. Time management also plays a role in getting adequate sleep.
Are you wondering how to list time management skills on a resume? Keep reading to discover our best tips.
How To Describe Time Management Skills on a Resume
There are a variety of ways to present your effectiveness in time management on your resume.
In your skills, summary, and experience section, you can list traits that demonstrate your ability to manage your time effectively at work.
To take your resume up a notch (and make a strong impression), you want to demonstrate how you’ve used time management in your career.
In fact, the best approach is to use quantifiable achievements and specific examples to demonstrate how you’ve managed time efficiently in the past.
We’ll show you how to include these, but remember that our AI resume builder can also provide you with personalized suggestions when you create yours.
How you describe your time management abilities will depend on your line of work and the duties involved. For example, if you are a manager, your time management strategies might involve scheduling others—actually creating their work schedules.
Other jobs may not include this task, but you may have to meet your own deadlines, delegate tasks, manage projects, etc.
Below, we’ll consider some keywords and phrases that can indicate you know how to manage your time well – without ever using the phrase “time management.”
1. Scheduling
Scheduling is the foundation of time management. It’s about organizing tasks, people, and resources to meet deadlines and goals.
This skill is indispensable whether you have a number of daily tasks to perform or long-term projects to complete.
You may find it helpful to make lists of necessary tasks, putting the most important or most urgent at the top. You might decide to delegate certain tasks to others. Find what style works best for you and work on refining and improving it over time.
As mentioned earlier, scheduling can also involve managing others’ time. This is especially the case if you are a manager or supervisor charged with creating rotating weekly schedules for employees.
You must be a good communicator, listener, and delegator striving to understand the unique needs and situations of each employee. You must juggle employee considerations and the demands of the project or workload.
Use the following keywords related to scheduling:
- Remained on schedule
- Scheduling
- Scheduled
- Created weekly employee schedules
- Prioritized tasks
- Delegated
- Managing appointments
- Record keeping
For example:
- Designed and maintained weekly project schedules ensuring all milestones were met ahead of deadlines.
- Created efficient employee schedules, reducing staffing conflicts and improved operational efficiency 30%.
- Prioritized and delegated tasks to ensure timely completion of high-priority initiatives.
💡Tip
When possible, include metrics in your achievements for a bigger impact!
2. Setting goals
Whether they are personal goals like receiving a raise or a promotion or task-oriented goals like finishing your report on time, achieving goals requires good time management. After all, time must be set aside for the steps needed to reach any given goal.
Goals also aid you in finding a sense of direction. When you work toward a goal, you are less likely to be distracted by less important tasks.
So, if you want to demonstrate your time management by setting goals, you might include the following phrases on your resume:
- Goal-oriented
- Setting and achieving goals
- Meeting deadlines
- Long-term project
For instance:
- Set and surpassed quarterly sales goals by 20%.
- Established project goals and timelines to ensure completion of all deliverables to 10+ clients.
- Improved project completion rates 30% by implementing a task-tracking system.
3. Prioritizing tasks
Prioritization is key when time is limited. Why? You may not have time to complete every task on your to-do list.
By focusing on what’s most important, you can work more efficiently and produce high-quality results.
Related to this is the ability to break down tasks into their constituent parts. This will allow you to allocate your time more effectively – you will be able to do each task in the order needed rather than wasting time.
Breaking down tasks into smaller parts also helps you to determine how much time each task will take.
You can use the following terms to demonstrate these skills on your resume:
- Analyzed priorities
- Prioritized/prioritizing
- Delegated assignments
- Order of completion
- Objective hierarchy
- Importance
- Time-sensitive
- Decision-making
- Break down tasks
For example:
- Reduced project turnaround 20% by analyzing and prioritizing tasks based on business needs.
- Improved team productivity 25% by implementing internal prioritization system.
4. Meeting deadlines
Deadlines are a crucial aspect of good time management. Your ability to meet them consistently demonstrates excellent time management skills, even under pressure.
Accountability is an important quality related to meeting your deadlines. If you are good at scheduling but don’t hold yourself (or your employees) to that deadline, your time management plan falls apart.
When we discussed prioritization, we mentioned breaking tasks down into smaller parts. This plays a role in meeting deadlines as well. You can set “mini-deadlines” commonly called benchmarks.
These benchmarks note that certain parts of a larger project have been completed. You can use the following terms to describe these skills:
- Setting deadlines
- Meeting deadlines
- Coming in under deadline
- Benchmarks
For instance:
- Increased client satisfaction rate to 98% by consistently delivering projects on or ahead of deadlines.
- Managed multiple projects simultaneously.
- Awarded Premier Agent of the Year award for holding long-standing record for zero missed deadlines.
5. Delegation
There is a maxim that says “no man is an island.” This is true of time management – in most business situations, you cannot complete all the necessary tasks on your own. You need to delegate or assign some tasks to other competent workers.
Good delegation involves several parts. First, you must know your employees or coworkers well enough to understand who has the skills needed to complete the task. This requires good communication and interpersonal skills.
Next, you must be able to communicate the details of the task, including the deadlines, to the individual.
Another aspect of delegation is knowing your own limitations. For example, you might be really good at computer coding but not so good at graphic design. So, if the project involves creating a website for a client, you should delegate the graphic design tasks to someone with the needed skills.
This can rely on a personal quality – humility. You might need to cultivate modesty and a humble attitude in order to admit that you are not the best at everything.
Sometimes, delegation means outsourcing a task to a business-to-business service provider or a freelancer. Again, you will need to communicate clearly the parameters of the assignment as well as the deadline and benchmarks along the way.
You can use the following terms to describe these skills:
- Delegating
- Delegation
- Outsourcing
- Assigning tasks
For example:
- Saved company 2.5K manpower hours annually by outsourcing administrative tasks to external vendors.
- Improved productivity by 35% by assigning tasks based on team member’s specialties and areas of expertise.
6. Focus
Work environments are filled with distractions. Focusing is an important part of time management. You may think that multitasking would be the best way to get things done and stay on schedule, but this is not always the case.
If you can focus your energy and attention on one project at a time, efficiency increases.
Good time-managers also master the ability to shift their focus rapidly. Sometimes, something unexpected comes up and must be handled immediately.
If you can give it 100 percent of your attention and get it done, you can get back to your prioritized projects that much faster.
Having focus also reduces stress, especially in hectic work environments. Rather than wasting time by worrying over many what-ifs, you can look for and implement solutions to one problem at a time.
You can use the following terms to describe these skills:
- Focus
- Attention
- Attentive
- Detail-oriented
- Problem-solver
- Strategic thinking
For instance:
- Reduced project completion times 40% by minimizing distractions and optimizing workflows.
- Maintained 100% client satisfaction rate by shifting focus quickly to address urgent client needs with minimal downtime.
Other time management skills
There are a number of other skills related to how you manage time at work, which help you and your colleagues improve overall efficiency.
Other miscellaneous time management skills examples include:
- Assessment and evaluation
- Documentation
- Effective teamwork
- Office management and maintenance
- Organization and filing
- Resource management
- Self-awareness
- Stock inventory
- Strategic planning
- Stress management and coping
Think about it – if you use a good paperwork filing system or inventory your stock, you won’t waste time trying to find these items later.
If you manage your resources well, you won’t run out of supplies in the middle of a project, causing a delay. And if you work effectively as a team, you won’t encounter problems like duplicating effort.
Really, it is quite amazing how pervasive this necessary skill proves to be!
Time Management Skills Resume Example
Are you still seeking inspiration on how to show time management skills on a resume? Consider the following examples.
Pay attention to how the applicant provides concrete examples of time management skills rather than simply listing them. Our applicant is applying for a managerial position at a grocery store, and time management skills were specifically listed in the job description.
Corey Smith
555.555.5555
coreysmith@gmail.com
123 Anywhere Street, Anywhere, NY
Skills
- Time management
- Organization
- Scheduling
- Supervisory Skills
Work Experience
Shift manager
Captain D’s Restaurant
Anywhere, NY
2020 – 2024
- Improved operational efficiency 20% by creating rotating weekly employee schedules while balancing personal requests and business needs.
- Reorganized kitchen workflows, reducing meal prep times 15%, resulting in faster customer service.
- Increased Google review rating from 3.5 to 4.5 stars within 6 months by implementing customer satisfaction strategies and time management techniques.
Cashier
Olde Time Grocery Store
Somewhere, NY
2015 – 2020
- Managed over 200 daily customer transactions accurately and efficiently while delivering high levels of customer service.
- Improved team productivity 15% by training new hires on best practices in time management.
- Received commendation for punctuality and reliability over 5 years
Education
High School Diploma
Anywhere High School
Anywhere, NY
Did you notice the time management-related skills that Corey highlighted? He used terms like “productivity,” “best practices,” and “efficiency.”
He also cited specific examples of these skills in action. For instance, his efforts helped decrease the time it took to complete orders and deliver them to the customer.
How To Develop Time Management Skills
Before you highlight this skill when writing your resume, you need to make sure that it’s a skill you possess. If you’re ready to begin strengthening your time management skills, try a few of the following exercises:
- Keep a calendar of important events and deadlines.
- Get plenty of sleep, strive to go to bed, and wake up at the same time each day.
- Prioritize your tasks based on your immediate, short-term, and long-term goals. These tasks can be prioritized for the day, week, and month. Concentrate on getting the most important tasks done first.
💡Tip
If you have trouble prioritizing, have your supervisor or a trusted colleague provide input on current priorities and goals.
- Make it a habit to be punctual and meet all deadlines. This habit will help build a positive reputation in and outside of the workplace.
- Identify and eliminate time wasters. You can do this in both your work life and personal life.
-
💡 Our expert’s advice
Conduct a time audit! Spend a week journaling your daily activities to get a better idea of where you are spending most of your time.
- Try the Pomodoro technique – set a timer for 25 minutes, and don’t allow yourself to be distracted from your task. Then, take a 5-minute break. Repeat.
- Evaluate your schedule to determine whether it is realistic. If you find you are trying to cram too much into a period of time, make adjustments.
Key Takeaways
- Time management isn’t just a skill- it’s your competitive advantage.
- You can improve your time management skills by keeping a calendar and setting (and sticking to!) a schedule of activities.
- Time management involves a varied subset of skills, including scheduling, setting goals, prioritizing tasks, meeting deadlines, delegation, and focus.
- On your resume, you should show examples of time management in action rather than just listing it as a skill. Our resume builder has built-in AI, which can help you draft this information to impress recruiters.
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