6 Time Management Tools to Save You Hours Weekly

You have 14 tabs open, a half-written email, and a meeting in five minutes. Welcome to the daily chaos of running a business. 😰

As a small business owner, you’re constantly juggling competing priorities and doing way too many things at once. And while your multitasking skills are impressive, it might be time to take a closer look at how you're managing your time. 

Are you really being productive? Could you optimize your day a bit better? Are you spending hours on admin work that could easily be automated?

In this guide, we’ve rounded up six best time management tools to help you save hours each week and free you up to focus on high-value work. For each tool, we’ll break down:

• What it’s best for
• Pros and cons
• Key features
• Pricing

Before you dive into new apps and features, it's worth taking a moment to understand how you actually manage your time. The most effective tools are the ones that support your existing habits—or help you build better ones.

Improving how you manage your time starts with being more intentional about how you use it. Before investing in any tools, it’s worth experimenting with a few simple time management techniques first. Tools are there to support good habits rather than fix underlying issues on their own. Once you understand what works best for you, you’ll be in a much better position to choose tools that actually add value.

Here are a few methods to try:

• The Pomodoro Technique: Work for 25 minutes, then take a 5-minute break.
• The Eisenhower Matrix: Prioritize tasks based on urgency and importance.
• Time blocking: Plan your day in focused time chunks.

This is just as important is setting clear priorities when it comes to better time management!

Start by asking:

• What are my top business goals this month?
• What’s eating up the most time with the least return?
• What can I delegate, automate, or drop entirely?

Once you have that clarity, it’s much easier to identify the right tool:

• Need to reduce time spent on admin? → Scheduling app
• Constantly interrupted? → A productivity tool that blocks distractions
• Juggling too many projects? → A workspace that centralizes tasks and plans

Now that you’ve got a handle on your priorities and time management style, it’s time to find the right tools to match. That’s what we’re going to focus on next.

If you’ve ever tried a “productivity” app that took more time to set up than it saved, you already know that not every time management tool is worth it.

We focused on tools that actually help you get time back, not lose it to endless setup, confusing features, or rigid workflows.

Here’s what we looked for when picking our top tools:

• Ease of use: If a tool isn’t intuitive, it won’t get used. We looked for platforms that work out of the box, with clean interfaces and minimal onboarding time.
• Customization & flexibility: Time management is personal. We’ve picked tools that give you options to adapt workflows, adjust preferences, and make the software work the way you do.
• Integrations: A great tool should fit into your existing stack. We gave extra weight to platforms that connect easily with your calendar, email, task manager, and comms tools.
• Visibility & insights: To manage your time well, you need visibility into how it’s being spent. Tools that offer tracking, reporting, or real-time feedback made the cut.
• Pricing: A good tool should pay for itself in time saved. We looked for transparent pricing, scalable features that grow with your business, and free plans that are actually usable.

If you want to save time managing your calendar, one tool you should seriously consider adding to your arsenal is YouCanBookMe (YCBM). Designed to streamline scheduling and reduce time spent on admin, YouCanBookMe connects directly to your calendar (Google, Apple, Microsoft, or Fastmail) and shows your real-time availability to anyone booking time with you. 

What really sets it apart from other scheduling apps is that it gives you granular control over when, how, and how often people can schedule meetings with you, so you stay in charge of your time, not the other way around.

Key features

• Booking limits: Set a maximum number of meetings per day to avoid calendar overload.
• Min & max notice time: Prevent last-minute bookings or meetings scheduled too far in advance.
• Padding & breaks: Add buffer time before or after meetings for prep, travel, or downtime.
• Calendar-managed availability: Customize working days and availability week by week directly on your linked calendar.
• Single-use booking links: Share private, one-off booking links for interviews or special meetings.
• Repeating availability: Create schedules that automatically repeat each week.
• Meeting requests: Accept or reject a meeting before it lands in your calendar to ensure you’re only spending time in the right meetings.

YouCanBookMe pricing

YouCanBookMe offers a 14-day free trial with full access to all features, no credit card required. After the trial, you can choose from the following plans:

• Free plan: Includes 1 calendar connection and 1 booking page. A good option for individuals just getting started.
• Individual plan ($8.10/month): Adds more customization options and up to two booking pages.
• Professional plan ($11.70/month): Unlocks advanced features like unlimited workflow automations and booking notes.
• Teams plan (from $16.20/user/month): Designed for teams that need shared booking management and collaboration features.

Notion is a flexible workspace that helps you organize tasks, schedules, and information in one place. For time management, it’s especially useful if you prefer a visual, customizable approach to planning. You can build out weekly planners, track recurring tasks, link deadlines to calendars, and create dashboards that reflect your specific priorities. 

Key features

• Flexible databases: Organize calendars, tasks, and goals with filters, views, and dependencies.
• AI-powered tools: Summarize meeting notes, draft content, and automate repetitive workflows.
• Team collaboration: Shared workspaces, permission controls, and project templates for scaling.

Notion pricing

Notion offers a generous free plan for individuals. Paid plans start at $10/user/month for small teams and $20/user/month for growing businesses.

If you’re constantly hunting for open space in your calendar, you’ll want to check out Clockwise. This smart calendar tool helps you reclaim uninterrupted blocks of time by automatically reshuffling flexible meetings and optimizing your schedule around your work preferences.

Key features

• Automatic focus time holds: Blocks time on your calendar for deep work without you having to lift a finger.
• Smart meeting optimization: Rearranges flexible events to reduce fragmentation and avoid back-to-back overload.
• Preference-based scheduling: Learns your habits and continuously adapts to how you work best.

Clockwise pricing

Clockwise offers a free plan with basic features. Paid plans start at $6.75/user/month (billed annually) and include additional productivity tools, like team scheduling, calendar analytics, and focus time protection.

If you’re struggling to stay focused or constantly find yourself checking the clock, Pomofocus might be the simplest way to get back on track. It’s a lightweight, browser-based Pomodoro timer that helps you break your day into focused work sprints with built-in breaks. Based on the classic Pomodoro Technique, it’s ideal for anyone who needs structure and rhythm without using a fully loaded productivity app.

Key features

• Custom timer settings: Set your own focus and break intervals to match your energy and workflow.
• Task tracking and templates: Add tasks for the day, estimate how long they’ll take, and reuse common ones.
• Visual reports: See how much time you’ve focused each day, week, or month.