Time management is a popular topic, especially amongst working adults. Go to a bookstore and you’ll find that there are many books written about the topic, with different systems that you can adopt to master your time. David Allen’s Getting Things Done is a popular one (you can search Google to find out more). And there are others like the FranklinCovey planning system based on Benjamin Franklin’s time management system and Stephen Covey’s Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. Most of these time-management systems come with computer programmes or special pen and paper planners that you need to use.

I freely admit that I’m not the most organized person in the world. When faced with a thousand and one projects and deadlines galore, I often panic, and then I don’t know where to start. I’ve had to develop my own ways of taming my time. Without forcing you to read a couple of books or buy an expensive planner system, here are a couple of simple tools that you can use to keep track of everything that you have to do, and make sure that it all gets done on time.

Calendar

Keeping track of deadlines and dates is important, so having a calendar that you can immediately transfer appointments and other information into is a must. My calendar of choice is Outlook, which synchronises with my Blackberry so that I have it with me all the time. The combination is actually quite powerful. At one point, I accepted an invitation to a friend’s 21^st birthday party on Facebook on my Blackberry, and after I synched it with my computer, I discovered that the party had been entered into my Outlook calendar as well.

Lists

I find a to-do list essential, too. I have a large master list to which I add everything that I need to do or want to do. Every day, I sit down with my calendar and create a shorter list of what I am going to do that day, including whatever meetings or other appointments I might have. I could be extra-detailed and specify what time I would do each task, but I find that staying loose is better for me. On the short list, I prioritise my tasks, so that I do the most important things first. Completed tasks get deleted off the master list (or updated to the next task, if there’s a series of things I need to do) and anything that doesn’t get done stays on the master list so that I can copy it to the next day’s list if I need to. You can use anything you want for these lists – write them down in your notebook, create a text file on your computer, or use the Task pane in Outlook or the List function of Backpack.

Timer

The other thing that I find important is a timer. I get far more done when I’m focused, but unfortunately I’m too easily distracted. Instead of sitting down and tooling away at a task for hours at a time, it’s better for me to set a timer for a short amount of time, say fifteen minutes or half an hour, and then take a break. I find that tends to make me more productive, especially if I have a nice cold drink or something to look forward to. I used to use a kitchen timer for this, but there are online services like Tick Tock Timer that will count down in the background and sound a chime when you’re done.

These three things have helped me to tame a lot of the tasks on my list, plus they help me to figure out when I’m overloaded or have over-extended myself. Plus, once I’ve transferred a task to my master list and my calendar, I know that I don’t have to think about it anymore. I look at them every day, so I’m not going to forget the task, and if it’s something that I need more notice about, I can set up reminders for myself easily enough.

I know this seems very basic and unsophisticated, but believe me, using these few tools will make a difference. Think of them as first steps towards developing a time management system of your own, or perhaps trying out one of the systems out there.