Short answer: split your 40 minutes roughly 5 minutes planning, 30 minutes writing, 5 minutes checking. Most people who run out of time aren't slow writers — they skip planning and get stuck mid-essay deciding what to say next.
⏱ Test your typing speed — see how much of the 40 minutes it actually leaves you →Forty minutes for roughly 250 words sounds generous — under 10 net words per minute of finished output. But you don't type continuously. You pause to think, reread what you've written, and reconsider phrasing. Those pauses, not raw typing, are usually what eats the clock. Good time management is really about minimising how often you stop and stall, not about typing faster in short bursts.
| Phase | Time | What happens |
|---|---|---|
| Plan | ~5 min | Decide your position and two supporting points before writing a single sentence |
| Write | ~30 min | Draft the full essay without stopping to perfect earlier sentences |
| Check | ~5 min | Fix obvious errors and confirm the word count and conclusion are both there |
These numbers aren't rigid — a faster typist can spend a little longer planning; a slower one should protect the writing phase and trim checking instead. The point is having some split decided in advance, rather than discovering with 10 minutes left that you're only halfway through.
One of the most common time-management failures has nothing to do with Task 2 itself: spending too long on Task 1. Task 1 is worth roughly a third of your Writing score and gets 20 minutes; Task 2 is worth roughly two-thirds and gets 40. If you let Task 1 run 10 minutes over because a chart felt awkward to describe, you've cut your Task 2 budget by a quarter before you've even read the question. Set a hard stop for Task 1, move on regardless of whether it feels finished, and protect the full 40 minutes for the task that carries more weight.
You don't need a detailed plan — you need a working skeleton: one sentence stating your position, two supporting reasons each with a concrete example in mind, and a rough idea for your conclusion. That's four or five short notes, not full sentences. Once you have that skeleton, writing becomes execution rather than invention, which is where most of the real time saving comes from.
The single biggest time sink isn't typing speed — it's stopping mid-sentence to reread and rephrase something you already wrote. Get the first draft down close to how you want it, then fix things in your checking phase. Rewriting a paragraph three times as you go can quietly consume 10 minutes you didn't budget for, and it's the habit most worth breaking before exam day.
With limited time, check for impact, not perfection: confirm you've hit at least 250 words, confirm the conclusion is actually there and not cut off mid-thought, and scan for the kind of grammar slip that changes meaning rather than every small typo. An essay that's finished with two minor errors scores far better than one that's polished but incomplete.
Planning discipline only helps if you can convert your outline into words fast enough to fit the remaining 30 minutes. If your typing speed is well under the comfortable range, no amount of planning will create time that isn't there. Our guide on how fast you should type for computer-based IELTS breaks down exactly what WPM you need and where the danger zone starts.
Practise full Task 2 essays with a live pacing meter →About 5 minutes planning, 30 writing, 5 checking — flexible, but decide the split before you start.
Yes — a 60–90 second outline prevents the much bigger time loss of getting stuck mid-essay.
Cut planning to under a minute, aim for at least 250 words, and prioritise finishing the conclusion over final proofreading.
Yes — planning only helps if you can type your ideas out fast enough to fit what's left of the 40 minutes.
Typehush — practise typing high-band IELTS model essays for the computer-based Writing test. Take the speed test · Browse the model-essay library · How fast should you type?