It doesn’t matter how hard you wish or work for more – there are only 24 hours in the day. How do you balance work and home priorities and still be content? Become ferociously protective of your time; be incredibly focused; and extremely well disciplined.

One of the first things Wendy will ask a client who is feeling overwhelmed is, “may I see your daily planner?”. If they don’t have one; have a blank one; or have a planner with only a few scribbled notes it in – it's easy to understand that suffocating sense of overwhelm. Our brain is not capable of remembering absolutely everything. Case in point: each day you and I see or hear more than 3,000 bites of advertising. Do you remember all 3,000? Unlikely. Good time management begins by writing or typing things down; planning each day and prioritizing activities.

Often clients will voice their frustration at not generating enough revenue. So Wendy will challenge them to write down 10 things they do each day. Once they do that – Wendy then asks them to identify which of the activities they've written down generate revenue. Typically it’s only 2 (20%). And for some reason – the revenue generating tasks are the ones that have a lower priority and therefore get pushed to the next day. There are better ways.

Forget about working harder… work smarter!

At The Art of Marketing, we’ve proven that good time management and organizational skills will bring you the results you want for yourself, your business, your family. Here's a little 3-question quiz for you:

• Look at your desk right now. The only thing on your desk should be the project you're working on. If there's more than that - change it. It's distracting to see everything else you have to do today out of the corner of your eye.
• How do you keep track of recurring tasks? If you say "by memory" - change it. Relying on your memory just adds stress to your day. Get it written down/typed in and forget it!
• What do you do with the business cards you collect at networking events? If you have a collection in your drawer - change it! You are missing huge opportunities by not following up and staying in touch with the people you've already met.

There's a Personal Organization Self-Analysis Quiz in The Marketplace that will help you zero in on how well you manage time, how organized you are; and how you deal with day to day challenges - AND best of all Your Getting Organized Action Plan is the compaion download. Now we're talkin' time management solutions!

p.s. procrastinators are welcome.