"I don't have the time."

      "There just aren't enough hours in the day."

      How often have you heard yourself voicing one of these complaints? They are the mottos of the weary and overdrawn in our fast-paced culture. And while we may long for an eight-day week, a more realistic approach is to find effective ways to manage the precious hours we do have at our disposal.

      Time management skills are essential in most any job. If a given task seems especially daunting, just remember that what you're actually managing is not time itself but your own behaviour. And the reassuring thing about behaviour is that, with practise and effort, it can be adjusted to work to our greater advantage and well-being.

      The four pillars of a good time-management plan are goal-setting, prioritizing, decision-making, and delegating. All of these bases are covered in the following list of helpful time-management tips:

      1. Be organized. "A place for everything, and everything in its place" means you won't have to spend time searching frantically for that mislaid ruler, hammer, or can opener. De-cluttering your work environment frees you up to focus on the task at hand.

      2. Make lists. Writing tasks down and attaching deadlines to them frees up brain space and is a concrete way of keeping your goals on track. Make a new "To Do" list each day, transferring incomplete tasks from previous days to keep them fresh in your memory.

      3. Prioritize. Subdivide your lists into three categories: "Must Do" for urgent tasks, "Should Do" for tasks that could be done either today or tomorrow, and "Can Wait" for tasks you could put off for a few days. Tackle your "Must Do" list first, while energy and motivation are high.

      4. Break down tasks. Remember the joke about how you eat an elephant - "one bite at a time." Take on a large job (for example painting the house) in smaller stages: choosing swatches, purchasing painting equipment, sanding one wall, and so forth.

      5. Delegate responsibility. Seek support from co-workers, friends, or family. This strengthens teams and relationships by giving everyone a sense of shared responsibility. Instead of cooking everything yourself, arrange a potluck.

      6. Multi-task. Making five stops on a single outing is more efficient than making five separate trips. Make several phone calls at one sitting, or check e-mail on your Blackberry while riding the bus.

      7. Let some things slide. It's easy to overestimate how much we can do. Rather than trying to squeeze more in, decide what can wait until tomorrow. Most things don't need to be done to perfection; ‘good enough' is often exactly that.

      8. Save time for yourself and family. It's critical to block off unstructured time each day for relaxation and cultivating your own interests and well-being. Excluding this from your time-management plan is a guaranteed path to stress and burnout.

      THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK: "You will never find time for anything. If you want time, you must make it." (Charles Buxton, English politician, 1823 - 1871)