For a class of nonlinear differential systems with heterogeneous time-varying delays, including distributed, leakage and transmission time-varying delays, a novel global exponential stability (GES) analysis method was developed. Based on the GES definition, some sufficient conditions and rigorous convergence analysis of nonlinear delayed differential systems are presented directly, which ensure all states to be globally exponentially convergent. The proposed analysis method not only avoids the construction of the Lyapunov–Krasovskii functional, but also uses some simple integral reduction techniques to determine the global exponential convergence rate. Furthermore, the main advantages and low calculation complexity are demonstrated through a theoretical comparison. Finally, three numerical examples are provided to verify the effectiveness of the theoretical results.