ORGANIZE YOUR TIME

As you go home at the end of the day, do you sometimes feel you've been busy all day but that you've accomplished next to nothing? Before frustration takes over your life, take control of your day.

Here are the skills you need to organize your time:

Identify your priorities. Determine the purpose you're trying to accomplish in your job, not just the task list before you. What are your long-range goals - for your job and for your personal skills advancement?
Schedule your priorities. Rather than prioritize your schedule, create the time to do the things that are important. That's better than just doing the next thing that comes up, or waiting until you're told the next thing to do.
Fulfill the purpose of your job. Identify the purpose of your work, join it to your own purpose, then determine on a weekly and daily basis the tasks that need to be done that will move you along toward accomplishing those goals.
Work from a daily "To-Do" list. On one piece of paper, list the items you intend to do in a given day. You may not like them, but lists work. Make a new to-do list each day. Where you keep your list (in a calendar planner or on a computer program) is not as important as that you do it.
Set priorities for the items on your list.
Put A beside the two or three tasks that are highest in priority, B beside the next-most important tasks, and C beside the least-important tasks. Number the As according to which you need to work on first, second, and so on. Number the Bs and Cs in the same manner. When you finish, your list will look like: A-1, A-2, B-1, etc.
A items might include tasks assigned by your supervisor, a task that is the main thrust of your job, or one that is due today. B tasks are those matters that seem pretty important but that don't quite rise to the A level, and don't need to be done immediately. C tasks are those matters that don't have a date on them, and/or are repetitive.
Give prime time to prime tasks. Do A tasks when your energy and attention level are at their highest. Save B tasks for a time when your powers of concentration have lessened, and you have completed all the A items. Some B and C tasks - such as reading memos and email - can be put in those cracks of time when you've been put on hold on the telephone and can't give all your powers of concentration to an A.
Complete the A tasks first. Keep working on the A tasks until you complete them all. Resist every impulse to flee to a C, or even a B, until you have completed the A tasks.
Cross off a completed item. Each stroke is a mark of accomplishment about which you can feel good.

Ross West, author of Go to Work and Take Your Faith Too! and co-author of Teaching Adults the Bible, has been writing and speaking on work satisfaction for a decade. Through his business, Positive Difference Communications, he offers assistance to companies, organizations, and churches. Prior to his current work, Dr. West was a pastor and editor and manager at the Baptist Sunday School Board, and then director of Creative Services for Boy Scouts of America.

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