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time management

in which to complete the plan. A to-do list by itself does not accom-
plish this, and makes your tasks easier to ignore. There are many
daily planners suitable for scheduling. When choosing a planner,
portability, capacity or space, and editability are important quali-
ties to keep in mind. Because you should use a single planner to
schedule all of your duties, it must be convenient to keep with you
and transport between locations. You will also want to be thorough
in describing each task, so you will need room to write and make
notes. And, because the meeting you were planning to prepare for
has been postponed for a week, you will need to reschedule the
preparation task in your planner with a minimum of effort.

Start with your regular and repeating responsibilities. The meet-
ings you attend every week, the checkups with your reports and your
boss, any recurring event should be scheduled (if it’s not already). It
will be possible to cancel or reschedule a meeting if necessary, but
laying them out should prevent most major conflicts. You may not
have assigned a high priority score to some of your meetings, feel-
ing that little is accomplished in a particular get-together. However,
if you are expected to attend, then it should go into the schedule.

Next, take your highest priority tasks, those you’ve objectively
determined are most important (the “As” and “Bs”), and schedule
each one, assigning a fixed slot with beginning and ending times.
If you have been thorough in the definition stage, and conscien-
tious in the prioritizing stage, it should be possible to schedule
most steps in the largest of projects. If you rely on project manage-
ment software for scheduling of complex projects, then your per-
sonal planner should at least reflect your time commitments, even
if the particular task is not specified. It’s important to know that
certain time slots will not be available for other tasks.

You may be alarmed at this point if your planner is beginning
to fill up and you still have many tasks to schedule. You may take
comfort in the fact that your tasks are prioritized—it should prepare
you for the reality that you have more to do than time permits. It will
be difficult for some individuals to realize that they simply cannot
accomplish everything they’re expected to do. The rational among

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