Effective Time Management

The other night I heard someone parrot the old "only handle a piece of paper once" thinking she was talking about being efficient. Wrong! If you handle each thimg as it comes up or in - you are wasting time, because you could be clustering and doing a bunch of related tasks at once - such as paying bills. Furthermore, by handling each piece of paper only once, you are not prioritizing and you are allowing someone or something else to control your time.

So, my suggestion: Create boxes, baskets, folders and sort your material into them. Create a system for clustering - such as paying bills every other week, or filing when you are brain dead and can't do something more creative. Create a priority list and a code so that you know what's important to do - and when it needs to be finished.

Cluster and prioritize.