Contents -- About This Course -- How to Take This Course -- Pre-Test -- 1 Why Learn to Manage Your Priorities? -- What It Means to Manage Your Priorities -- Why Learn to Manage Your Priorities? -- The Benefits of Managing Your Priorities -- More Productive Working Relationships -- Better Outcomes and Fewer Time-consuming Mistakes -- Improved Chances for Achieving Goals -- Increased Productivity -- Improved Work/Life Balance -- Reduced Stress and Improved Health -- What Gets in the Way? -- Failure to Identify Clearly What Is Important -- Vague Goals and Expected Outcomes -- Lack of Planning -- Poor Communication -- Conflicting and/or Unexpected Needs and Demands -- Failure to Recognize and Respond to Change -- Lack of Resources -- Striving for Perfection, Not for Results -- Failure to Think Creatively -- Organizational Problems -- What You Will Learn in This Course -- Recap -- Review Questions -- 2 How to Know What Is Important -- Why Focus on Goals? -- Linking Goals and Priorities -- Make Your Goals SMART Goals -- Relating Tasks and Activities to Goals and Consequences -- Consider Tasks and Activities in Terms of Goals -- Consider Tasks and Activities in Terms of Consequences -- Recognizing What Is Urgent and What Is Not -- 1. Urgent and Important -- 2. Not Urgent but Important -- 3. Urgent but Not Important -- 4. Not Urgent and Not Important -- Recognizing What Activities Have Greater Value -- Being Efficient Versus Being Effective -- Recap -- Review Questions -- 3 Strategies for Managing Your Priorities -- Use a System -- Focus on the Outcome and Clarify Expectations -- Guidelines for Focusing on the Outcome and Clarifying Expectations -- Evaluating Available Resources -- Determine What You Can Stop Doing -- Identify What No Longer Needs to Be Done -- Delegate Work You Do Not Need to Do Yourself -- Reduce Interruptions -- Anticipate Problems.

Manage Conflicting Priorities -- Take Care of Yourself and Manage Stress -- Warning Signs of Stress -- How to Take Care of Yourself -- Recap -- Review Questions -- 4 Planning and Scheduling -- What Action Planning and Scheduling Can Accomplish -- Components of an Action Plan -- What Is the Expected Outcome and What Is the Deadline? -- What Activities Are Necessary to Achieve the Outcome? -- What Resources Are Needed and Where Will They Come From? -- Who Else Needs to Be Involved and What Is the Nature of Their Involvement? -- What Factors Might Influence or Constrain the Way the Outcome Is Achieved? -- What Is the Sequence of Key Activities and What Are the Progress Checkpoints? -- Who Will Do What? -- What Problems Might Come Up and What Will Be Done to Handle Them? -- When Don't You Need an Action Plan? -- Scheduling -- Realistically Estimate the Time Needed to Complete Each Task and Activity -- Identify Activities that Can Be Clustered -- Decide When You Do Your Best Thinking -- Leave "Lag" Time in Your Schedule -- Include Time for Thinking and Reflecting -- Allocate Sufficient Time for "Important, Not Urgent" Activities as well as "Urgent and Important" Activities -- Build in Personal Time -- Review and Revise Your Schedules Regularly -- How to Build a Schedule -- What If There Really Is Not Enough Time? -- Recap -- Review Questions -- 5 Working Efficiently -- What It Means to Work Efficiently -- Obstacles to Working Efficiently -- Doing Things You Enjoy Instead of Those that Move You Towards Your Goals -- Using E-Mail Unproductively -- Unnecessary Interruptions -- Disorganization -- Managing by Crisis -- Inefficient Delegation -- Saying "Yes" to Everything -- Unnecessary or Poorly Planned Meetings -- Procrastination -- Doing Things That Do Not Need to Be Done -- Tracking Your Time Wasters -- Strategies for Working More Efficiently.

Decide What You Can Stop Doing -- Reduce Interruptions -- Check Your E-Mail on a Schedule -- Reflect on Your Day Before It Begins -- Revise Your Priorities, If Necessary -- Seek Help -- Keep Up with Routine Work -- Delegating Successfully -- Tips for Delegating Work -- Using E-Mail Productively -- Tips for Using E-Mail Productively -- Recap -- Review Questions -- 6 Using Technology to Manage Your Priorities -- Tools to Help You Manage Your Priorities -- Computer Applications for Organizing and Scheduling -- Computer Applications for Managing Your Goals and Projects -- Tools for Working Remotely -- Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) -- Teleconferencing System -- Instant Messaging (IM) -- Text Messaging -- Palm Pilot -- BlackBerry -- Pocket PC -- Personal Information Manager (PIM) -- Short Message Service (SMS) -- Common Problems When Using Technology-Based Tools -- Reducing Technology-Based Problems -- How to Learn More About Technology-Based Tools -- Recap -- Review Questions -- Bibliography -- Post-Test -- Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- K -- L -- M -- O -- P -- R -- S -- T -- U -- V -- W.