A method for managing a trigger on a terminal device, and a terminal device are provided. In response to an operation (S301) of setting a trigger by an application program (181), a trigger manager (235) determines a triggering policy of the trigger based on a use habit of a user, characteristic information of the trigger, and characteristic information of the application program. The triggering policy is accelerating triggering, normal triggering, or delaying triggering. Different triggering policies are executed for triggers having different characteristics, to dynamically change timings for the triggers to trigger scheduled tasks. In this way, a malicious trigger configured to keep an application alive or trigger a task that does not match a true will of the user is prevented to reduce resource consumption, and a trigger beneficial to a system or the user can be triggered earlier to improve user experience.