Time Management Strategies Flashcards

A client consistently underestimates how long tasks take. Which cognitive bias best explains this pattern?

Answer: Planning fallacy

The planning fallacy is the tendency to underestimate task duration and overestimate efficiency, first described by Kahneman and Tversky.

Which time management approach recommends grouping similar tasks together to minimize context-switching costs?

Answer: Task batching

Task batching groups similar activities so the brain stays in one mode, reducing the cognitive overhead of switching between different types of work.

A client works 10-hour days but feels unproductive. A productivity coach would FIRST examine which factor?

Answer: Alignment between tasks and high-value goals

Long hours without goal alignment indicate busyness rather than productivity; coaches first assess whether effort maps to meaningful outcomes.

The 'MIT' strategy in time management stands for:

Answer: Most Important Tasks

MITs (Most Important Tasks) are the one to three tasks a person commits to completing each day as their top priorities.

Which scheduling principle suggests placing your highest-priority work during your personal peak energy hours?

Answer: Chronobiology-based scheduling

Chronobiology-based scheduling aligns demanding cognitive work with an individual's natural peak alertness window, maximizing output quality.

A client procrastinates on a large report. Which technique would a productivity coach recommend to overcome initiation resistance?

Answer: Identify the smallest possible first action

Breaking a daunting task into the smallest actionable next step lowers psychological resistance and makes starting feel manageable.

Timeboxing differs from a standard to-do list primarily because it:

Answer: Assigns a fixed time slot to each task in the calendar

Timeboxing places tasks inside specific calendar blocks, creating a time boundary that prevents tasks from expanding indefinitely.