Time Management Skills to Add to Your Resume – With Examples (2023)

Written by

ResumeGiants Team

Updated on February 8, 2022

Time is your most valuable resource. That’s why it’s so important to let employers know how you handle it.

Work life can be hectic, and showing you know how to manage your time lets potential employers know that you can work effectively, prioritize tasks, and stay organized, no matter what your schedule or project list looks like.

Time management is an essential skill for any employee—for both in the office and daily life—but it can be difficult to display it effectively on your resume.

In this ResumeGiants article, you will see a few ways you can showcase your time management at work on your resume and tell employers why you would be a strong asset to their team.

Time Management Definition

Time management skills are exactly how they sound. They’re the process of organizing and planning your activities (time) in a way that it maximizes performance, efficiency, and productivity.

These skills are crucial for both everyday life and in a work environment.

Work life can move fast. Being able to manage your time effectively can help you stay on top of that pile of tasks you have to complete without missing deadlines or rushing through your work. It shows employers you can:

• Stay on track
• Remain organized
• Use your time (and their money) wisely
• Manage stress and keep calm in busy situations
• Complete projects on time

That’s why so many employers want to see time management skills on applicant resumes.

Time Management Skill Tips for Your Resume

No matter which industry you work in, time management skills are essential to manage your workload.

However, not every job uses the same skills. For example, scheduling (a type of time management) is likely more important for an administrative assistant than someone who works on an assembly line.

Here are a few examples of time management skills to add to your resume:

1. Setting Goals

The term “goals” can mean many things. A goal could be a long-term personal objective like a promotion, or it can be a short-term project like finishing the stack of paperwork that appeared on your desk.

Understanding your goals, no matter how small they may seem, is an important part of time management.

When you know what needs to be done—or even what you want to get done—you give yourself a sense of direction. You’re less likely to waste time on menial tasks, like checking your social media, when there are goals you want to achieve.

Goal setting is especially important for jobs that include long-term projects, like implementing procedures. It shows potential employers that you can focus on a project to completion.

2. Scheduling

Scheduling skills are almost the definition of time management. The ability to maintain a detailed schedule will obviously help you stay on track and manage your time wisely.

Luckily, technology has made scheduling skills much easier to grasp. You can use apps and software to manage your calendar and send alerts to help you manage your time.

Scheduling is important for jobs that require you to jump between or organize various tasks, like a manager or administrative assistant.

3. Prioritizing Tasks

Scheduling is only the first step of the equation.

Once you know what needs to be done, you need to determine the order of completion. Some tasks are more important or time-sensitive than others. That’s where prioritization comes in.

Prioritizing tasks is the ability to create a clear objective hierarchy.

Some tasks are more important than others and need to be completed first. You might have three projects on your schedule for the day, but if something else comes up, which ones can you push?

Understanding how to prioritize helps you manage your time wisely and shows potential employers that you can make important task-related decisions.

The ability to prioritize tasks is important for any job that requires you to juggle multiple tasks. It’s especially essential for management positions where unexpected tasks might pop up, forcing you to change your schedule at a moment’s notice.

4. Breaking Down Tasks

Just knowing what you need to do isn’t good enough to maximize efficiency.

If you’re really a good time manager, you’ll be able to break down tasks into smaller portions to allocate your time even more effectively.

For example, a large task like installing kitchen cabinets can be broken down into several steps:

• Measuring the space – 15 minutes
• Removing the existing cabinets – 30-45 minutes
• Covering the countertops – 15 minutes
• Installation – 2 hours
• Cleanup – 30 minutes

By breaking down large projects into smaller tasks, you can more easily stay on track and better estimate how long the project will take.

The ability to break down tasks is important for jobs that require the completion of large or long-term projects.

5. Setting Deadlines (and Sticking to Them)

Deadlines are an important part of time management for accountability. They’re the end date or time to complete a task.

You can be the best scheduler in the world, but if you don’t hold yourself accountable to that schedule, what does it matter?

The ability to set and stick to deadlines is especially important for project-based jobs, like graphic designers, web developers, and copywriters, though it can benefit just about any job that requires completion of multiple tasks.

6. Delegating and Outsourcing

A big part of time management is knowing what tasks are worth your while and which ones are best done by someone with different skills.

For example, you might be great at fixing cars but not so good at organizing your finances.

Instead of taking time away from doing what you do best to struggle your way through bookkeeping tasks, outsourcing to an accountant who can do the same tasks more efficiently shows stronger time management skills.

Delegating and outsourcing are important time management skills for managerial jobs or positions that require work with diverse teams.

7. Focus

The ability to multitask might seem like a strength you’d want to put on a resume, but it’s not always a plus. How can you put 100% into a single task if you’re working on several projects simultaneously?

Strong time managers focus on one project at a time.

When you can put all your energy into one task at a time, you can complete each project more efficiently and with fewer errors.

Coupled with scheduling and prioritizing, focus is a powerful time management skill that many employers love to see on a resume.

Focus is an important time management skill for just about any job, but it’s especially important for positions that require the completion of multiple projects at once. It shows you can stick to the project at hand and finish it quickly and efficiently without needing to go back and correct mistakes.

Effective Time Management Skills on Your Resume

Time management is an essential skill that all employers want to see, but it’s not always easy to showcase on a resume.

If you want to know how to improve time management skills on your resume, it’s much better to show than to tell.

Rather than put a generic statement like, “great at time management” into a free resume maker and call it a day, provide concrete examples of when you’ve used your time management skills and how they impacted your work.

This shows employers that you can (and have) used your organization skills to implement real change, and provides actual statistics to make the point sink in.

The more specific you can be to show your time management skills, the better.

It’s always better to show instead of tell. That way, potential employers don’t have to just take your word for it. You can prove it!

Time Management Skills Are an Important Part of Any Resume

It doesn’t matter which job you want to apply to, time management skills are something that any employer will want to see on a resume.

It shows that you know how to effectively use your time at work to complete tasks in an efficient and productive way and tells potential employers that if they hire you, they’ll get the most bang for their buck!

Once you think about which time management skills you want to showcase on your resume, hop over to ResumeGiants’ free online resume builder easily organize your experience on a document that’s sure to impress.

We have dozens of resume formats, templates, and examples available to help you build a winning resume to snag the job of your dreams.