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Frazzled? Make A List

The Harried Worker Can Stay Sane By Setting Priorities

By Tony Cappasso, Contributing Writer
April 4, 2001, 10:19 a.m. EDT

Women's Health Work, family, marriage and time for play -- many dual-career couples find that fitting all the facets of a full life into their schedules is increasingly challenging. Experts at the Mayo Clinic suggest that the key to carving out time for everything is clarifying what in your life is of primary importance and what can be assigned safely to second and third place.

This is the process of prioritizing -- ranking each of the possible activities in an order of importance. To get started, Mayo experts suggest these four steps:

Make a list of your long-range goals. Sort out what's most important in career, family, etc., and what you need to do to achieve these goals.

Once you've figured out what's most important, make a master list of all the tasks that make up your day. Be sure to include everything you have to do.

Then, make a daily list of the five to 10 things that you must accomplish daily.

Finally, prioritize by dividing your list into categories: The "A" items are the most important tasks. "B" items are important but not critical. On the "C" list, write out those tasks that are routine.

If after laying out your tasks and prioritizing them, you still find yourself pressed for time, the Mayo experts advise that you examine how you are spending your time. You may be putting things off to the last minute and aggravating your time crunch.

For more tips pn time management, follow this link for the search engine of the University of Nebraska's Extension Service and type in "time management."