Beat the Clock: Time Management Hacks

The story goes that waiters remember unpaid orders perfectly and forget them once the bill is settled. The Zeigarnik effect says we remember which tasks best?

• Ones done with others
• Ones we enjoyed
• Unfinished or interrupted ones
• Ones done in the morning

Answer: Unfinished or interrupted ones. Open loops nag at us. Jotting down the next step before you stop helps the brain let go.

Francesco Cirillo timed his study blocks with a kitchen timer shaped like what?

• A lemon
• An egg
• An apple
• A tomato

Answer: A tomato. Pomodoro is Italian for tomato, which is how the technique got its name.

A training course due next quarter is important but not urgent. Where does the Eisenhower Matrix say it belongs?

• Schedule it
• Delete it
• Delegate it
• Do it immediately

Answer: Schedule it. Urgent and important: do now. Important only: schedule. Urgent only: delegate. Neither: drop it.

You give the report exactly 45 minutes and stop when time's up. Name the technique.

• Task batching
• Timeboxing
• Pareto principle
• Time tracking

Answer: Timeboxing. A fixed slot forces decisions and stops the task from sprawling. Parkinson's Law in reverse.

Replying "Yes, Thursday works" takes 30 seconds. David Allen's two-minute rule says you should…?

• Skip it
• Do it now
• Add it to a list
• Delegate it

Answer: Do it now. Writing a tiny task down and tracking it takes longer than just doing it.

Given a week for a two-hour report, it somehow takes the whole week. Whose law is that?

• Murphy's Law
• Goodhart's Law
• Parkinson's Law
• Pareto's Law

Answer: Parkinson's Law. C. Northcote Parkinson, 1955: work expands to fill the time available for it.

This author's law: it always takes longer than you expect, even when you…?

• Work in a bigger team
• Start a day early
• Keep a to-do list
• Take Hofstadter's Law into account

Answer: Take Hofstadter's Law into account. Douglas Hofstadter's joke law nails the planning fallacy: we underestimate even after adding a buffer.

You answer emails during a video call to save time. What does research on task-switching suggest?

• Both get done faster
• Each switch costs time, so you're often slower overall
• It only works for short emails
• It improves your memory of the call

Answer: Each switch costs time, so you're often slower overall. Psychologist David Meyer estimates switching can eat up to 40% of productive time, and mistakes rise too.

In Brian Tracy's book Eat That Frog!, what is the "frog" you should tackle first thing in the morning?

• Your hardest, most important task
• A short coffee break
• Your email inbox
• Your quickest, easiest task

Answer: Your hardest, most important task. It is the task you're most likely to put off. Get it done early and the rest of the day feels lighter.

"Put first things first" is Habit 3 in which Stephen Covey book?

• The Power of Habit
• The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
• Getting Things Done
• Atomic Habits

Answer: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. The 7 Habits, where Covey drew the urgent/important quadrant from Eisenhower's thinking.

The 80/20 rule, that roughly 20% of efforts bring 80% of results, is named after which Italian economist?

• Vilfredo Pareto
• Henry Gantt
• Frederick Taylor
• Peter Drucker

Answer: Vilfredo Pareto. Pareto noticed about 80% of Italy's land was owned by 20% of the people. Quality guru Joseph Juran later named the principle after him.

In 1918 a consultant told steel boss Charles Schwab: each evening, list the six most important tasks for tomorrow and do them in order. Who was he?

• Peter Drucker
• Frederick Taylor
• Dale Carnegie
• Ivy Lee

Answer: Ivy Lee. Schwab reportedly paid him $25,000 after three months of trying the Ivy Lee method.

You answer all your emails in two fixed slots a day instead of as each one arrives. What is this technique called?

• Multitasking
• Delegating
• Task batching
• Inbox zero

Answer: Task batching. Grouping similar small jobs cuts the number of switches. Turn off notifications between slots to make it work.

So absorbed in a task that hours vanish: what did psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi call this state?

• Hyperfocus
• Deep sleep
• Burnout
• Flow

Answer: Flow. Flow happens when a task is challenging enough to stretch your skills but not so hard that you give up.

A board with To do, Doing and Done columns borrows its name from a Toyota production system. What is it called?

• Kanban
• Kaizen
• Scrum
• Gantt

Answer: Kanban. Kanban is Japanese for signboard. Toyota engineer Taiichi Ohno used cards to track work through the factory.