Proper time management can help us achieve our goals, increase productivity, and reduce stress. Looking at time management statistics can provide us with essential insights into how we behave and help us make our workdays more efficient.
These statistics can also help us identify critical points in time management that we need to remember to organize our time better, increase productivity, and still be satisfied with our work/life balance.
In this article, we will explore the latest time management statistics and trends to help you understand the impact of time management on your personal and professional life and achieve a balance between the two.
We will cover general time management statistics, time management statistics for education and students, time management statistics in the workplace, and time management benefits statistics.
Let’s have a look at these.
Time Management Statistics: General Statistics
- The average person spends nearly half of their waking hours on leisure activities, such as watching TV or browsing the internet.
- The average employee spends about 28% of their workweek on emails alone, which equates to about 11 hours a week.
- The average person checks their phone an average of 47 times a day.
- The average American spends about 5 hours per day watching TV.
- A study found that the average person loses about 28% of their time due to interruptions and multitasking.
- Research shows that people who prioritize and plan their tasks are more likely to be successful in completing them
- A study found that people who set specific and challenging goals for themselves were more successful in achieving them than those who set general or easy goals.
- A survey of more than 3,000 workers found that those who took regular breaks were more productive and had better time management skills compared to those who did not.
- Research suggests that people who prioritize self-care, such as exercise and sleep, have better time management skills and are more productive.
- The average worker is interrupted or distracted every 3 minutes and 5 seconds, and it takes them 23 minutes and 15 seconds to get back to the original task (University of California).
Time Management Statistics
- 60% of the workday is spent teaching, compared to 50% of employees who check their emails at least once every 20 minutes while at work.
- Businesses spend up to 16 days a year on average looking for paper documents.
- The typical business owner spends only 30% of their workweek on planning and strategy and roughly 70% of their time on business-related duties.
- 80% of workers say they squander time at work, and 18.5% say they waste three or more hours a day.
- One-third of business owners claim that responding to emails takes up the most time.
- Employees that don’t always take their lunch break range from 66% to 82%.
- The typical business owner spends only 30% of their workweek on planning and strategy and roughly 70% of their time on business-related duties.
- Small- to medium-sized firms manually input data for 23% of their workdays.
- Over 50 hours a week are worked by 63% of business owners.
- According to the same study, the typical UK adult watches about 1000 hours of live TV annually.
- Small mistakes like being late, eating more at lunch, or leaving early can cost an employee up to an hour per workday.
- A single platform for all workplace communications is preferred by two out of every three employees.
- 67% of employees claim that being in meetings or on calls for too long prevents them from doing their work.
- 58 times a day on average, people pick up their phones.
- According to the same study, the typical UK adult watches about 1000 hours of live TV annually.
- Compared to the average US internet user, who spends 32 hours online each month, 52% of Twitter users use the service daily, with sessions lasting an average of fewer than five minutes.
- Every day, more than one billion hours of video are watched on YouTube, with mobile devices accounting for 40.9% of those hours.
- A typical person tries 13 different time management techniques.
- More people prefer their mobile calendar to a desktop calendar than 70% of individuals who use digital calendars.
- One study found that the typical CEO attends 37 meetings every week.
- 82% of individuals lack a time management strategy.
- Email sending and reading is the most common online activity, reported by 92% of users, followed by using search engines (89%).
- The typical employee spends 51% of each workday doing tasks with little to no value.
- The average workweek for a leader includes 72% of meetings.
- You can save two hours of time by arranging your day for 10 to 12 minutes.
- The workload is to blame for 39% of stress among American workers.
- Only 20% of people say they always feel in control of their work.
Time Management Statistics At Work
- According to studies, on average, unstructured workspaces squander 45 minutes each day or 4.3 hours per week.
- In order to assist you to stay focused on that goal, 3% of individuals use the Rapid Planning Method, which involves defining the outcome you want to attain, why you want to do it, and what you need to do to get there.
- 2% of people employ the Eisenhower Matrix, which divides tasks into one of four categories: important and urgent chores you complete right away and important but not urgent tasks you plan to complete later. The tasks you delegate or eliminate that aren’t important
- 1% of people employ the Pomodoro approach, which involves picking a task that has to be completed, setting a timer for how long it should take, concentrating on it until the timer goes off, taking a brief break, and then reevaluating.
- 56% of individuals claim that they do not always have things under control at work.
- 23% report keeping everything under control four days a week, whereas 23% report doing so only three days each week.
- 10% claim to only be in control up to two days a week.
- 32% of people use their email system exclusively and keep it open and available all day long
- 31% of people utilise notifications to open emails as soon as they arrive.
- 5% of people claim to check their email at least once every ten minutes.
- One in four people (24%) claim to check their email at least once each hour.
- The average American office worker is interrupted up to 11 times an hour, or about every six minutes.
- The typical employee only works for 4 hours, 12 minutes of their 8-hour workweek.
- Senior managers spend at least 23 hours each week in meetings. (DocuSign as a source)
- The typical UK worker procrastinates for 2 hours and 11 minutes per day. (Source: Human Resource)
The following is detailed data on how often people check email daily.
(Source: Timewatch)
Constantly | 33.5% |
Whenever they see a notification | 31.2% |
Every 5 minutes | 3% |
Every 19 minutes | 3.9% |
Every 30 minutes | 7.5% |
Once an hour | 11.8% |
Twice a day | 3.4% |
Once a day | 4.8% |
Less than once a day | 2% |
Time Management Statistics By Worker Methods:
(Source: Zippa.com)
- The typical person experiments with 13 different time-management techniques.
- 12% of employees plan out every task in advance.
- A to-do list is used by 33% of people to organize their tasks and free time.
- In a similar vein, 24% of people primarily manage their time by checking their email.
Below are research data on how Americans manage their time.
(Source:Zippa.com)
To-Do List | 33% |
Whatever seems most important | 25% |
Email inbox | 24% |
Diary scheduling | 12% |
Time boxing | 3% |
Pomodoro technique | 2% |
Eisenhower matrix | 2% |
Eat that Frog | 1% |
- In comparison to males, women are more likely to order their list according to what is most crucial (85% vs 78%) or least pleasurable (56% vs 46%). (Microsoft)
- 20% of males think they can better manage their time mentally than with a to-do list. In contrast, only 9% of women concur with this. (Microsoft)
- The Eisenhower Matrix is the most effective time management method since 50% of those who utilise it report feeling in control of their work on a daily basis. (Academy for Development)
- The Pomodoro Technique is the second most effective time management method since 60% of its users feel in control of their task 4-5 days each week. (Academy for Development)
Time Management Statistics For Students
- 87% of college students claimed that practicing time management skills will help them do better academically.
- When it comes to time management, middle school ladies perform better than their male counterparts.
- Only 48% of college students use a calendar to organize their time, tasks, and obligations.
- 13.6% of college students indicated they need to attend class more frequently, and 74% reported that they spend less than 20% of their time partying.
- Average test scores increased between 25% and 82% in research that taught time management skills to adolescent students with impairments.
- The typical student devotes 3.13 hours per day to homework or research.
- Summertime vacation requests are typically the longest of the year, lasting 2.34 days on average.
- In a survey, 52% of respondents claimed that their workloads increased in the summer.
- Three out of four parents who transport their kids a short distance to school said they did it out of convenience and necessity.
- Many people choose to prioritize spending time with family during the holidays over working excessively. Compared to other months, US workers request time off twice as frequently in December.
- Teachers can instruct students for about 60% of the working day. (Reference to Scholastic)
- According to 47% of college students, high school did not adequately prepare them for the organizational level required in the classroom. (Alison Academy, Reliable Plant)
- 48% of students still have a handwritten notepad where they record their assignments and due dates.
- 50% of students report using no time management tools at all.
Poor Time Management Statistics
- In 2020, Americans used social media for 1,320 hours on average, according to research from Zippa.com.
- According to the above study, the typical UK adult watches about 1000 hours of live TV every year.
- The typical Internet user in the world logs on for 16 hours a month, compared to 32 hours for those in the US.
- Twitter is used every day by 52% of users, and sessions last an average of under five minutes.
- On YouTube, more than one billion hours of video are seen every day, with mobile devices accounting for 40.9% of those hours.
- Email sending and reading is the most common online activity, reported by 92% of users, followed by using search engines (89%).
- Each employee loses three hours per day on average due to workplace distractions.
- Unnecessary commutes (13%), meetings (16%), and emails (23%) are the most frequent low-to-no-value activities that people squander their time on.
- In 2020, staff members will use social media for more than 44 minutes daily on average. (Referring to Finances Online)
- An individual picks up their phone 58 times on average each day.
- Within three minutes following a previous pickup, 50% of phone calls will be picked up.
- More people prefer their mobile calendar to a desktop calendar, which is used by 70% of individuals.
- The survey found that the typical leader attends 37 meetings per week.
- Every day, Americans check their phones 96 times.
- Office noise and sociable coworkers are cited as the two main workplace distractions by employees (80% and 70%, respectively). (Udemy)
- The typical employee spends 51% of each workday on things that have little to no value.
- 39% of participants said they multitask in online meetings to accomplish things that aren’t finished. (Microsoft)
- Around 10 hours each week are reportedly spent moving data, according to 76% of employees. (Zapier)
Following is the detailed stats on time spent in irrelevant meetings:
Number Of Employees | Hours Per Day | Hours Per Month | Hours Per Year |
5 | 14 | 300 | 3600 |
10 | 29 | 600 | 7200 |
20 | 57 | 1200 | 14,400 |
50 | 143 | 3000 | 36,000 |
100 | 285 | 6000 | 72,000 |
250 | 713 | 15,000 | 180,000 |
500 | 1,425 | 30,000 | 360,000 |
1000 | 2,850 | 60,000 | 720,000 |
- The typical employee uses social media ineffectively for 12% of their daily working hours.
- It’s not surprising that so many individuals find it difficult to disconnect from social media during the workplace, given that the average internet user spends 145 minutes per day on it.
- An employee’s daily procrastination time is 2 hours and 11 minutes on average.
- If an employee works a five-day schedule, they lose more than ten hours each week. A 40-hour workweek means that an employee will procrastinate for one-fourth of the time that they are supposed to be working. (based on the investigation conducted over time)
- A survey by Time Watch found that 38% of people waste less than an hour every day.
- According to studies, unstructured workspaces squander 45 minutes each day or 4.3 hours per week.
- 36% of Gen Z and millennials claim to check their phones at work ten or more times per week. (Udemy)
Let’s have an overview of people spending time on tasks that are not important to their role.
(Source: Timewatch)
Less Than 1 Hour A Day | 38% |
1-2 hours a day | 32% |
2-3 hours a day | 17% |
3-4 hours a day | 7% |
4-5 hours a day | 6% |
5-6 hours a day | 4$ |
Time Management Statistics: Habits By Age
- Even if they can determine the time, younger kids frequently cannot distinguish between 5 and 15 minutes. (Excellent Family)
- 20% of what is learned can account for up to 80% of your grade.
- Teenagers use the internet for a daily average of nine hours. (The Allison Academy)
Time Management Techniques And Their Effectiveness
74% of people use some type of time management system, such as a calendar (23%), to-do list (38%), or inbox (13%) but do not perceive it as a time management strategy, ignoring those who already have a dedicated time management system.
- Despite the fact that only 5% of people claim to utilize time blocking, a further 23% do so in the form of calendar scheduling.
- Even though just 2% of people claim to utilize the Eisenhower Matrix, 78% actually do, which suggests that they may be able to improve their time management.
- 56% of people claim that their workplace is out of control. Every day for five days a week, average people squander 100 minutes on irrelevant tasks, and more than 63% of people are interrupted by emails at work.
- 89% concur that exercising better time management will boost their output at work.
Time Management Advantages Statistics
- 87% of students think that if they were more organized and skilled at managing their time, they could do better academically.
- According to 91%, more effective time management will lower workplace stress.
Following is the detailed statistics on how often Americans feel that they have things under control at work.
Every Day | 20% |
4 days per week | 21% |
3 days per week | 27% |
2 days per week | 13% |
1 day per week | 9% |
Never | 12% |
- 90% believe that higher productivity will result from better time management.
- 86% agree it will result in increased task attention.
- 83% say better decision-making will result from it.
- 84% feel it will expedite goal-achieving.
- 82% believe it will boost employees’ self-assurance at work.
- 76% think it will improve their professional reputation, and 75% believe it will improve relationships with coworkers.
- According to 73%, more free time will result from better time management.
Conclusion: Time Management Statistics (2024)
Time management is a crucial skill that can greatly impact an individual’s productivity, effectiveness, and overall well-being.
The statistics and research discussed in this article provide valuable insights into how people currently manage their time and the trends that are shaping time management practices.
From the above data, it is clear that leisure activities, such as watching TV or browsing the internet, and technology usages, like checking phones or emails, are major time-wasters.
Additionally, interruptions and multitasking, as well as a lack of planning and goal setting also contribute to poor time management.
On the other hand, setting specific and challenging goals, taking regular breaks, writing down goals, and prioritizing self-care are all strategies that can help improve time management.
Therefore, it’s important for individuals to be aware of their time-wasters and implement strategies to improve their time management skills.
I hope the above time management statistics gave you an overall idea of time management and its trends. What are your thoughts on this?
Let us know in the comment section below.
FAQs
How many hours per day do people waste on average?
Estimates vary, but studies suggest people waste 1.5 to 2 hours per day or more on non-work related activities like checking social media, watching TV, web browsing, etc. This wasted time adds up to over 100 hours per year.
What are some top time wasters identified in time management research?
Common time wasters include procrastination, distractions like email and social media, poor planning and scheduling, multitasking, lack of priorities, saying yes too often, and inefficient habits.
What percentage of people make daily to-do lists?
According to workforce surveys, about 40 percent of people make daily to-do lists. Those who use to-do lists tend to be more efficient with their time.
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