How did you feel the last time someone casually gave you the advice to, "work smarter, not harder"? You probably wanted to give them a good solid shake. But it turns out this cliché highlights an excellent time management tool. Just because someone works day and night does not mean he or she has good time management skills—usually just the opposite, in fact. It is often the person who arrives at work on time and leaves after putting in his or her eight hours whose time management skills are excellent. How do they do it?

Time Management Tool #1. They Have A Daily Schedule

Even if your job is a "crisis mode" type job and you feel like you spend most of your time putting out fires, it's still an important time management tool to have an idea with what you'd like to do with your day. For instance, spend an hour or two calling your problem clients first so that you can anticipate and solve problems rather than wait to hear from them when something goes wrong.

Time Management Tool #2. They Start On Projects Immediately

Almost anyone who's ever been in college knows that an "all-nighter" means staying up all night trying to complete an assignment or memorize a textbook because they did not prepare for the test or the assignment in advance. While this may be a badge of honor when your nineteen, it a sign of disorganization when you're thirty-nine. From the moment you are assigned a project, break it down into smaller components and work on it a little bit every day. In other words, make it a part of your daily schedule. That way, you won't be faced with a difficult deadline.

Time Management Tool #3: They Take Lunch And Breaks

The body was not designed to work for eight or more continuous hours. If you take fifteen minutes to walk around the building or half an hour to eat a health lunch and decompress, you'll probably find you're about twice as productive as you were before your break. In fact, some studies suggest that people who stop and take lunch accomplish more during the day than those who do not.

Time Management Tool #4: They Prioritize

I'm not just talking about prioritizing a job, though this is certainly important. I'm talking about prioritizing your life. Take out a piece of paper, and list the different areas of your life and roughly how much time you spend doing them. Now do the same thing, only this time list how much time you'd like to give to that area. What does your ideal vs. your real world look like? In an idea life, would you be spending 80% of your time at work and 20% of your time with your family? Or would you like to see those numbers evened out or reversed? Now that you know what you want, commit to taking one small step to achieving it each day (e.g., leave work fifteen minutes earlier than you have been doing, put ten dollars more per month in your retirement account, etc.)

By using a good time management tool or two, you can enhance your performance on the job without increasing your hours.