Emotional Regulation and Time Management: Why They’re More Connected Than You Think
Most of us have tried at least one time management system — maybe you’ve colour-coded your calendar, tried time-blocking, or used productivity apps like Todoist or Notion. And yet, how often have you found yourself staring at your schedule and still not following through?
That’s because time management isn’t just a logistical challenge — it’s an emotional one. A growing body of research shows that emotional regulation plays a critical role in determining how well we manage our time, maintain focus, and complete tasks. In fact, many of the biggest productivity hurdles — procrastination, distraction, avoidance, and burnout — are driven not by poor planning, but by unregulated emotional states.
This blog breaks down the science of emotional regulation and time management, explores why traditional strategies often fall short, and offers practical techniques to integrate both for sustainable productivity.
Emotional Regulation: Your Internal Productivity Engine
Emotional regulation refers to the ability to manage your emotional responses in ways that support goal-directed behavior. This includes:
Recognizing emotional triggers
Managing anxiety, frustration, and overwhelm
Reframing negative thoughts
Tolerating discomfort without avoidance
These abilities influence not only how we feel but also how we perform and are increasingly recognised as pivotal for sustained productivity.
When our emotional state is unregulated, we’re more likely to procrastinate, avoid difficult tasks, or become reactive — even if we’ve planned the day down to the minute. When we’re regulated, we can tap into adaptive functioning that helps us activate behaviours that align to longer-term values, rather than short-term feelings. And that distinction can make all the difference when it comes to how we manage our time.
How Emotional Regulation Supports Time Management
Over the last two decades, a growing body of peer-reviewed research indicates that better emotional regulation is associated with better time management outcomes by:
Reducing procrastination
Increasing task initiation
Improving focus and cognitive bandwidth
Enhancing follow-through on plans
Mitigating time-wasting emotional spirals like guilt, fear, or perfectionism
Procrastination Is Emotional, Not Just Tactical
Much of the research on time use has zeroed in on procrastination — the habitual delay of tasks — as a key factor that undermines effective time management. Tim Pychyl, one of the world’s foremost procrastination researchers, puts it simply: “Procrastination is an emotion regulation problem, not a time management problem” (Sirois & Pychyl, 2013).
This framing is well-supported by evidence. In a large-scale study, Mohammadi Bytamar et al. (2020) found that students with stronger emotional regulation skills — including the ability to tolerate frustration, manage anxiety, and reframe perceived failure — exhibited significantly lower levels of academic procrastination, even when tasks were complex or demanding.
Further evidence comes from an intervention study by Eckert et al. (2016), in which participants were taught strategies such as mindfulness, distress tolerance, and cognitive reappraisal. Those who received this training showed a marked reduction in procrastination behaviours compared to a control group. This provides a clear causal link: improving emotion regulation leads to better task initiation and time use.
This also aligns with what I’ve seen in coaching. When individuals develop tools to manage the emotional weight of deadlines, perfectionism, or avoidance, their time management improves — not because they’ve learned new scheduling techniques, but because they’ve become more emotionally equipped to follow through.
Of course, it's important to note that this discussion primarily reflects neurotypical populations. For individuals with ADHD, for example, challenges in executive functioning — the brain’s system for managing time, tasks, emotions, and attention — introduce additional complexity. Impaired time perception, reduced working memory, and emotion dysregulation are common and often require different support strategies. That’s a rich and important topic in its own right — one I’ll explore in a future post.
time management tools: the usual suspects
First, a quick overview of the most common time management strategies:
These are all useful — but they assume you will act rationally on your plan. What happens when you block time for a proposal… but find yourself too overwhelmed to start? Or you know you should “eat the frog,” but your perfectionism kicks in?
This is where emotional regulation comes in. Without it, the best plan sits unused.
Research by Van Eerde (2003) found that time management training led to reductions in procrastination and improvements in perceived control over time. While the study didn’t explore emotional regulation directly, it highlights that logistical training can support better task engagement — though other evidence suggests emotional regulation may be critical for sustaining these changes over time.
how Emotions Derail Productivity
Let’s break down how emotions disrupt core time management processes.
Distorted Time Perception
Anxiety and stress don’t just feel bad — they change how we experience time. When we’re anxious, time seems to drag. Every minute feels harder, longer, more draining. Studies by Gable et al. (2022) show that our motivational-emotional state influences time perception. Tasks feel quicker when we’re emotionally engaged, and slower when we’re avoiding or dreading them.
This explains why emotionally disengaged workers report time dragging, while flow states make hours feel like minutes. Emotional regulation, by helping manage avoidance or dread, can shift how long a task feels — influencing persistence and task completion.
Reduced Focus and Executive Function
Stress hijacks the prefrontal cortex — the part of the brain responsible for attention, planning, and decision-making. Unregulated emotions narrow attention, increase distractibility, and reduce working memory. In contrast, emotional regulation restores cognitive capacity. That’s why even a short breathing exercise or mindfulness pause can dramatically improve concentration (Gross, 2015). Mindful employees, studies show, are more present, less reactive, and better able to return to task after distractions (Nasir, 2024).
Task Avoidance and Mood Repair
Tice et al. (2001) found that people often prioritize mood repair over task relevance. That’s why we scroll, snack, or clean when we should be working. Emotional regulation strategies — such as reappraisal or urge surfing — interrupt this cycle and support task activation.
Emotional Regulation Tools That Improve Time Management
While this article centres on emotional regulation, it’s important to note that it doesn’t replace the need for planning and prioritisation. These two domains work best in partnership:
Time management strategies help you decide what to do and when.
Emotional regulation strategies help you follow through — especially when emotions threaten to derail your plans.
In coaching and therapy settings, particularly in ADHD and executive functioning support, both sets of skills are routinely developed side by side. Yet in professional environments, psychological skills are often dismissed as ‘soft’ or too abstract — which is precisely why this conversation matters. So, because corporate won’t teach you the Dark Arts, here are some evidence-backed strategies to build emotional regulation — and by extension, improve time management:
When Emotional Regulation Has the Bigger Impact
For individuals who already know how to plan — emotional regulation often offers the biggest performance lift. That’s because the remaining barriers aren’t technical but emotional: anxiety, distraction, self-doubt.
In one workplace study, employees who practiced mindfulness and emotional regulation reported 25–30% higher productivity than peers who used time-blocking and to-do lists alone (Nasir, 2024). The emotional tools helped them follow through consistently, manage setbacks, and prevent burnout.
This doesn’t mean you should ditch your planner — it means your planner works better when you can manage the emotional waves that try to knock it off course.
The Bottom Line: Master Both Mind and Method
The most effective time managers don’t just manage their calendars — they manage their emotions. In a world full of productivity hacks, emotional regulation remains one of the most overlooked levers. And yet — it’s easier said than done.
As someone with a background in psychology, I’ve seen just how deeply rooted some of these patterns can be. Knowing the strategy is one thing; applying it consistently in the face of stress, self-doubt, or shifting priorities is another entirely.
That’s where coaching can comes in. It’s not about more tips or pressure — it’s about building the kind of insight, emotional capacity, and accountability loops that make real change stick. Coaching can help you anchor the strategies we’ve talked about here and work through the internal blocks that often sabotage the best intentions.
If this resonates, I’d love to help you explore how to bring both structure and self-awareness to the way you manage your time — and yourself.
References
Eckert, M., Ebert, D. D., Lehr, D., Sieland, B., & Berking, M. (2016). Overcome procrastination: Enhancing emotion regulation skills reduces procrastination. Learning and Individual Differences, 52, 10–18. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lindif.2016.10.008
Gable, P. A., Wilhelm, A. L., & Poole, B. D. (2022). How does emotion influence time perception? A review of evidence linking emotional motivation and time processing. Frontiers in Psychology, 13, 848154. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.848154
Gross, J. J. (2015). Emotion regulation: Current status and future prospects. Psychological Inquiry, 26(1), 1–26. https://doi.org/10.1080/1047840X.2014.940781
Mohammadi Bytamar, J., Saed, O., & Khakpoor, S. (2020). Emotion regulation difficulties and academic procrastination. Frontiers in Psychology, 11, 524588. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.524588
Nasir, I. (2024, December 17). The crucial role emotions play in productivity. TIME Magazine. https://time.com/7201189/productivity-managing-emotions-essay/
Sirois, F. M., & Pychyl, T. A. (2013). Procrastination and the priority of short-term mood regulation: Consequences for future self. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 7(2), 115–127. https://doi.org/10.1111/spc3.12011
Tice, D. M., Bratslavsky, E., & Baumeister, R. F. (2001). Emotional distress regulation takes precedence over impulse control: If you feel bad, do it! Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 80(1), 53–67. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.80.1.53
Van Eerde, W. (2003). Procrastination at work and time management training: A means to reduce procrastination and promote self-discipline. The Journal of Psychology, 137(5), 421–434. https://doi.org/10.1080/00223980309600625
Wohl, M. J. A., Pychyl, T. A., & Bennett, S. H. (2010). I forgive myself, now I can study: How self-forgiveness for procrastinating can reduce future procrastination. Personality and Individual Differences, 48(7), 803–808. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2010.01.029
