As our jobs become more complex and the types of tasks, duties and responsibilities are forever increasing one of the most important skills one can have is that of time management.

We have exchanged the paper based scheduling tools with the electronic ones only to conclude that it is not enough and embark in more spending in the form of pocket PCs that would make it easier for us to keep on scheduling even when we are away from our desks, synchronize the two devices and hopefully become more productive in the process. Why is it then that so many people are still facing the problem of not having enough hours in a day? What is it we are missing here and most of all what is it that we can do about it?

1. Ask yourself if you are scheduling activities out of a sense of abundance or out of a sense of fear.

A full schedule based on an expression of abundance will energize you. A tight schedule based on a sense of fear depletes you and leaves you spending even more time on recovery activities and addictive behaviors

There are many tips and tricks out there you can use to schedule better. Some of them you will discover in time by simply practicing the "art of scheduling". Meanwhile whether you use Outlook or any other scheduling tool here are a few things you should keep in mind to ensure better use of time:

• Schedule like activities in blocks of time. This will result in better focus over a longer period of time as you deal with similar skills, issues and activities.
• Reading emails is a very time consuming activity and tends to side-track you for quite a while diminishing your focus. Decide on two or three times during the day to deal with emails and ignore them during the other times. To avoid missing out on important messages create rules that will display a message alert when certain messages you know you will have to respond to immediately are coming in.
• Schedule activities that requite mental alertness in the morning when you are fresh and find it easier to concentrate. Such activities can be research, writing, making important phone calls, etc.
• As with the emails schedule your phone calls in certain blocks of time during the day. Try and find out what is the best time call the people you are interested in contacting and schedule accordingly. If you make sales calls avoid contacting a new prospect on Friday when people get ready for the weekend and are concentrating on finishing up on all the tasks still left to deal with for the week. Same applies to early morning on Monday. This is the time when people are not quite ready to focus on one issue but rather think about the weekend and make plans for the week.
• If you have a task that will take a few hours to complete try and break it down in smaller chunks by scheduling on individual steps within the task. It is a proven way to maintain focus and to ensure you are not faced at the end of the day with issues you have not considered when planning.

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