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You will always have too many demands on your time, but you can use it more effectively, become more productive, and make your life richer and more satisfying. Some people become time-squeezed because they do not use time management tactics that help them be proactive about work. It will take effort, but it takes time to make time. Here are steps to effective time management: 1. Have a master plan. 2. Make a list. 3. Prioritize your goals and desire. 4. Analyze your work processes. 5. Take note of time. 6. Be more assertive. 7. Delegate some of your tasks. 8. Overcome bad work habits: perfectionism and procrastination.

Copyright Advanstar Communications, Inc. Apr 6, 2007

The hours flew by; the day is over; the week is up. But you still have tasks crying to be done, and come Friday, you're stressed and frustrated.

You'll always have too many demands on your time, but you can use it more effectively, become more productive, and make your life richer and more satisfying.

Some people become time-squeezed because they don't use time management tactics that help them be proactive about work. Other times, your own personality quirks get in the way. See if any of these common issues are what's bogging you down, and read what to do about it. It will take effort, but it takes time to make time.

1. No master plan. Do you have clearly identified long-term professional and life goals? If not, you probably work on whatever seems pressing or appealing at the moment, but you're not carving out time for what will bring you ultimate satisfaction or profitability. Determine a limited number of goals that you really want to achieve. Then, when other activities crop up, evaluate where they fit in to your master plan. If you don't identify what you want to accomplish, you probably haven't scheduled time to do it.

2. No lists. It's hard to stick to a plan if you haven't committed it to paper. You should have two lists: the first, a master list showing long-term (which you want to accomplish within three to 10 years), mid-term (which you want to accomplish within the next six months to three years), and short-term goals. Break down goals that entail several steps into substeps, listing each activity required.

The second is your daily to-do list. It itemizes what you want to accomplish during your workday. The point of the list isn't just to cross things off. The list enables you to analyze your tasks; evaluate, prioritize, and group them; and look for efficiencies. Make up your list at the end of the day, so it's ready for you to hit the ground running the next morning.

3. Too many goals. The world is a cornucopia of hobbies, sports, challenges, interactions with family and friends, career goals, etc. It's tempting to want to do everything and easy to overcommit yourself.

It's been said that you can do anything but you can't do everything-at least not all at once. Before getting involved in a new activity or saying Yes to a social event, consider the time required and review your schedule. Prioritize your goals and desires, and see where the activity stacks up. If a pleasant diversion deflects you from what's important to you, you may need to rejigger your priorities or table the goal and revisit it later.

4. No work efficiencies. Some work processes take on a life of their own; perhaps they're a holdover from old technology, a different staff, or prior needs. You should, on a regular basis, analyze your work processes to see what you can streamline or re-engineer. Change the process itself-don't just keep performing all the same steps faster.

Efficiency deals with how much work you can get done in a given amount of time. If you're more efficient, you'll do more work in less time. By contrast, effectiveness has to do with the bottom line. If you're more effective, you'll get the important work done.

Watch out for the efficiency illusion, in which you have lots of activity and you feel productive, but the tasks you're doing may be unimportant to your bottom line or to your life goal.

5. Unrealistic idea of time required. Talking with a specialist, conversing with staff, updating a chart. In your mind, each takes three minutes; in reality, each takes longer. Misestimating a number of things could throw you off track for the entire day. Take note of how much time small activities take, and make sure you've scheduled appropriately.

6. You can't say no. Helping others may be part of your life ethos. But you may need to set boundaries. You're not an ogre if you evaluate how requests for your time fit in with your overall goals. Perhaps you can think of creative ways to help out without taking the time personally.

Sometimes it helps to be more assertive. You don't have to get the other person's agreement to bow out. You don't need permission to stand up for your life and your decision.

And don't let your staff delegate upward. If an employee is continually not getting to a certain task, don't do it yourself. Work with your staff to prioritize their activities, and get them the help or training they need.

7. You don't delegate. When you look at tasks, ask yourself, "Is a medical degree required to perform this work?" Maybe you feel you're the only one who can do a particular task right, and perhaps you're correct-at least for now. Of course, with today's legal climate, everyone wants to be careful about who holds the responsibility. But, with proper training, your office staff can safely handle taking histories, vitals, conducting patient education, etc.

To lessen your risk, develop guidelines and decision trees for how to handle routine scenarios in your office-a phone call for a prescription refill, for instance. You may have to restructure your staff responsibilities. Build time to review their decisions into your schedule, so that you can hone the guidelines and give feedback so that employees make better decisions.

In your home life, you can hire people to handle household tasks and chores. Delegating personal chores costs money, but weigh it against the mental capital you're spending by missing out on what's more important to you.

8. Bad work habits: perfectionism and procrastination. Perfectionism sounds positive-what's wrong with perfect?-but the term refers to overemphasis on details that are unimportant to the effectiveness or success of the overall goal. Of course, the specter of malpractice has terrified physicians into double- and triple-checking everything, so no one recommends cutting corners on, say, documenting a patient visit. Still, not every minute task demands extreme time and effort.

Procrastination is another bugaboo. It's common to put off things you don't like doing-such as performance and salary reviews-or don't feel confident about. One way to help overcome procrastination is to break each unpleasant task into smaller components. Even if you dislike the components, you're more likely to tackle 20 minutes' worth of a distasteful task rather than the two-hour block of time you'd need to undertake the whole thing at once.

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