Eliz:

I'd like to see the whole "set of questions".

Anyway...

> But I would like to know. Seriously, do you
> schedule your day or week in advance. And if
> so, do you find yourself straying a lot from
> that schedule or do you find the exercise a
> very useful one for accomplishing the tasks
> you set out to do?

I schedule my week as much as possible using a "daily diary". And I also realise unscheduled things can pop up. IF those unscheduled things are more important than what I have scheduled, my schedule changes. If not, I move the new item to a place I can fit it in.

This frees my mind from trying to keep track of everything.

> I used to religiously make 'to do' list and
> found that I seldom accomplished even 50% of
> the tasks that I had written. Maybe I've got
> a discipline problem? :-)

Maybe... maybe not.

I seldom accomplish all the things on my daily to-do list. BUT, I get much more done than if I don't have a list.

And what of my list?

I write down the things I need to do and then prioritize them.

Then I do the most important item until it is done, then move on to the next most important until it is done. And so on down the list.

If I don't finish the list... and I seldom do... at least I got the most important things done.

The items that didn't get done get moved to the next day's list.

They might not get done the next day either - but - eventually they do get done.

I have found that certain items can take a long time to do if I were to keep doing them until done. And so I'm now experimenting with breaking them up and doing a little bit a day over the course of a week or so.

With running different businesses, marketing them, seeing existing clients, visiting with prospective clients, taking on new projects like The Entrepreneur's Hotsheet, updating existing projects like The Art of Leverage, plus working on new projects, I would get nothing much done without a written schedule.

And all this organizing for the week ahead gets done on the weekend.

Works for me.

Michael Ross
The Entrepreneur's Hotsheet
http://www.sowpub.com/entrhotsheet.shtml

The new and improved Writer's Friend V2
http://www.sowpub.com/writersfriend.html

The Art of Leverage
http://www.sowpub.com/artofleverage.html