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" For busy women \u2014 and who isn&amp;#039;t busy these days? \u2014 daily life is a constant negotiation between the things that need to be done and the time available to do them. That means we&amp;#039;re always on the lookout for shortcuts and time-saving strategies, but often those don&amp;#039;t go far enough. We wind up stressed out and disheartened, feeling as if time manages us. &amp;quot;Our time habits are much more complex than we credit them for being,&amp;quot; says Diana DeLonzor, author of Never Be Late Again: 7 Cures for the Punctually Challenged. &amp;quot;Research shows that solving problems like procrastination or chronic lateness is not just about learning some new tips; it&amp;#039;s about recognizing and adapting to your underlying personality characteristics. For most of us, the &amp;#039;just do it&amp;#039; mentality is just not the way to make changes.&amp;quot; One big problem: Modern life is not only over-full, but it&amp;#039;s bursting with distractions \u2014 Facebook, text-messaging, myriad cable TV channels, and more \u2014 that make it tough to focus on the tasks at hand. &amp;quot;The temptations have never been easier to access or more virulent. Adam and Eve had an apple tempting them; nowadays our apples are caramel-coated and dipped in chocolate,&amp;quot; says University of Calgary professor Piers Steel, Ph.D., author of The Procrastination Equation, who has spent his career studying time-management issues. Coming up: how to pinpoint the time traps that bog you down \u2014 it&amp;#039;s not uncommon to have more than one \u2014 and choose the tools that promise not just a temporary fix, but long-lasting change. The bonus: Understanding how to get time on your side will mean you&amp;#039;ll have more of it to spend on yourself. Time Trap #1 \u2014 Procrastination &amp;quot;I tend to put things off till the last minute and then get stressed because I miss a deadline or I have to cancel things I really want to do. Just looking at my to-do list makes me tired.&amp;quot; WHY YOU&amp;#039;RE IN THIS FIX: The tendency to put off work is as old as work itself, says Steel, who believes that procrastination is hardwired into human nature. &amp;quot;We procrastinate because we are impulsive,&amp;quot; he explains, and our overriding impulse is toward immediate gratification. Anything that&amp;#039;s fun and easy and provides an instant reward \u2014 like sleeping in, watching TV, or clicking the link to play the latest funny cat video on YouTube \u2014 feeds the pleasure centers of the brain. It takes a conscious effort to turn down instant pleasure and hold out for the delayed but deeper satisfaction that comes with completing a task that feels like work. Combine your innate impulsiveness with an environment full of smartphones and designer-discount malls promising quick and cheap thrills, and you&amp;#039;ve got the perfect setup for procrastination.  &amp;quot;I procrastinate with all things not kid-related,&amp;quot; says Chris Denton, 39, who works in product development in Minneapolis. &amp;quot;I wait for the last minute to finish a lot of projects, but I also like working under pressure \u2014 and I do get everything done on time, even if I have to stay up late the night before.&amp;quot; Like many procrastinators \u2014 and Steel&amp;#039;s research shows that 95 percent of us fall into this category at least occasionally \u2014 Denton believes she performs well with a looming deadline. In fact, though motivation peaks then, few of us do our best work when we&amp;#039;ve put things off to the eleventh hour: Studies have shown that when people are under pressure, creativity often suffers.  SIMPLE WAYS OUT: To counter the impulse to grab the immediate pleasure, make temptations harder to satisfy. This can be as simple as hitting the off button on electronics. Unless you&amp;#039;re on call for work or emergencies, try turning off your cell phone for an hour or three \u2014 forcing yourself to wait for the phone to boot up lessens the appeal of firing off a text-message. Similarly, if you need to focus on a project at work, turn off your computer&amp;#039;s e-mail indicator. Considering that in one study it took office workers an average of 15 minutes to refocus on work after each e-mail interruption and that it&amp;#039;s not unusual to check your inbox 50 times a day, this one adjustment can easily boost productivity by 10% in a year, says Steel.  Once your temptations are out of sight, make your goals more attractive: doable but challenging, broken down into specific steps (with self-imposed deadlines), aligned with your values. Even chores can feel meaningful if you make them relevant \u2014 say, cleaning to prevent allergic reactions. Since habits are easier to keep than to break, make tasks part of a routine so that doing them becomes automatic. &amp;quot;When something&amp;#039;s not regular, we need a full dose of willpower to get started,&amp;quot; Steel explains. But if you schedule a stretching session every morning from 6:00 to 6:20, it can become your default in as little as two weeks, behavioral research shows. The common tactic of relying on rewards for motivation to accomplish goals can be a bit tricky, says Steel. Instead he suggests &amp;quot;impulse pairing,&amp;quot; or mixing in a bit of what you like to do with what you have to do. So give yourself some specialty coffee as you pay the bills, or plan to scour the bathroom when you can listen to a favorite radio show. Steel likes games, so when he puts the kettle on for tea, he challenges himself to see how many dishes he can wash before it begins to whistle.  &amp;quot;The number one reason people give for putting things off is that they&amp;#039;re too tired,&amp;quot; says Steel. &amp;quot;The question is, will you be even more tired and feel even worse if you delay?&amp;quot; If it&amp;#039;s 10:00 P.M. on a Monday and you&amp;#039;ve still got laundry to fold and bills to pay, of course you&amp;#039;d prefer to hit the hay. But adding two more tasks to an already jam-packed Tuesday will push something else off until Wednesday, and soon the snowball effect will have rolled right over your whole week, compounding your fatigue. Finally, if you are convinced you do better with deadlines, simulate the eleventh-hour energy burst by setting your own \u2014 a few days ahead of the real ones \u2014 and writing them on the calendar in red. Time Trap #2 \u2014 Perfectionism &amp;quot;I like things done a certain way, and I don&amp;#039;t trust anyone else to do them right. But I don&amp;#039;t have the bandwidth to do it all myself, and I feel like a failure because I&amp;#039;m not living up to my own ideals.&amp;quot; WHY YOU&amp;#039;RE IN THIS FIX: The myth of perfectionism is that it&amp;#039;s about being a control freak who can&amp;#039;t stand it when things are out of place. In fact, many perfectionists are living in messy homes and feeling really bad about it. &amp;quot;The main thing that throws people off track is that they confuse the goal of perfection with the achievement of it,&amp;quot; says clinical psychologist Pamela Wiegartz, Ph.D., coauthor of The Worrier&amp;#039;s Guide to Overcoming Procrastination. While some perfectionists have trouble delegating tasks, others feel overwhelmed by standards they just can&amp;#039;t meet. Those stratospheric standards are reinforced by pristine pictorials showing hand-labeled cubbies, color-coded chore charts, and homemade everything, among other hard-to-reach fantasies. &amp;quot;I think it&amp;#039;s great to get crafty and do-it-yourself, if that&amp;#039;s what you enjoy,&amp;quot; says Tasha Fulkerson, 48, a corporate-events planner and mother of two daughters in Petaluma, CA. &amp;quot;But this idea that everything has to be handmade and perfect makes most of us feel like we don&amp;#039;t measure up.&amp;quot; Epiphany Ferrell, 44, from Carbondale, IL, also feels the pressures of perfectionism: &amp;quot;I never, ever wanted to be a supermom. Even so, it&amp;#039;s hard not to compare myself to that ideal.&amp;quot; As a single parent to her 10-year-old son, Ferrell feels the need to be &amp;quot;a hundred different people, meeting a hundred different expectations, from throwing the football to helping with homework.&amp;quot; SIMPLE WAYS OUT: If you have trouble delegating, Sarah Welch, co-founder of Buttoned Up, a company that helps stressed-out women get organized, suggests that you ask yourself three questions: What&amp;#039;s my goal here? What am I afraid of? How could delegating this benefit the other people in my life? When grumbling over another midnight session of packing school lunches, for instance, is the goal to impress the other moms with a gourmet lunch or to give the kids something nutritious that they&amp;#039;ll enjoy? Are you afraid their teacher will notice that they&amp;#039;ve had PB and J three times this week and think less of you? And is it possible that if you ask your spouse to make the sandwiches, it will actually be fun for him and make him feel more involved and connected with the kids? The point of the &amp;quot;power questions&amp;quot; is to call attention to the assumptions you&amp;#039;re making and find out if they really hold water \u2014 or not. Once you &amp;quot;shine the cold, hard light of day&amp;quot; on those assumptions, Welch says, you may find it easier to let go of them (and of a few chores as well). If you can accept the goal of aiming for perfection and measure your success against that, you&amp;#039;ll be rewarded with the pleasures of being &amp;quot;good enough.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;The reality is, I can&amp;#039;t be everything,&amp;quot; says Ferrell. &amp;quot;And it isn&amp;#039;t setting a good example for my son for me to try.&amp;quot; Instead, she tries to &amp;quot;celebrate the daily victories and ignore the daily failings. If I got my kid to his football game on time, in uniform, and having eaten a good breakfast \u2014 yay, me. The fact that the clothes currently on the line have been there for three days and three rainstorms \u2014 I&amp;#039;ll worry about it later.&amp;quot;  Time Trap #3 \u2014 Chronic Lateness &amp;quot;I can&amp;#039;t seem to be on time for anything \u2014 work, appointments, lunch dates. It&amp;#039;s embarrassing! I&amp;#039;m tired of people thinking I&amp;#039;m rude or lazy \u2014 or getting angry at me.&amp;quot; WHY YOU&amp;#039;RE IN THIS FIX: &amp;quot;There are so many misconceptions about lateness,&amp;quot; says time-management consultant DeLonzor. Top false assumptions: People who are late are inconsiderate, selfish, controlling, lazy, or looking for attention. In fact, many people who run late have trouble accurately judging time and thus underestimate how long things will take. Psychologists call this the planning fallacy \u2014 and it&amp;#039;s part of being human. &amp;quot;We have an idealized version of how things go,&amp;quot; explains Steel, &amp;quot;and we edit out how much time things actually require.&amp;quot; Chronically late people fall prey to the planning fallacy in spades, misjudging the time needed even for things they do regularly, like fixing breakfast or driving to work. Call her optimistic, idealistic, or unrealistic, but if a person who tends to run late once got to work in 19 minutes \u2014 on a good traffic morning, catching all green lights \u2014 she assumes she can bank on this swift journey every day. &amp;quot;Late people time things exactly, according to the best-case scenario \u2014 but of course the world doesn&amp;#039;t work that way,&amp;quot; says DeLonzor. &amp;quot;I have always, always, always run late,&amp;quot; says Carrie Hall, 38, of Oakland, CA. &amp;quot;I think it&amp;#039;s because I hate being early and sitting around.&amp;quot; And sure enough, when getting out of the house, the idealistic Hall leaves herself &amp;quot;exactly enough time to get where I&amp;#039;m going if everything goes my way: if there&amp;#039;s no traffic, if I find parking immediately. Only one time out of a hundred do things fall perfectly into place, which means I&amp;#039;m always running \u2014 literally running \u2014 to appointments. It&amp;#039;s extremely stressful.&amp;quot; Hall&amp;#039;s situation is a great example of the catch-22 of the chronically late: She knows she&amp;#039;s making herself late, but feels helpless to stop the cycle. SIMPLE WAYS OUT: First, confront your magical thinking with cold, hard facts: Spend a week timing your daily tasks \u2014 what DeLonzor calls &amp;quot;relearning to tell time.&amp;quot; Once you know how long it really takes to shower, get the kids dressed, and feed the dog, you can adjust your schedule accordingly. Second, always plan to arrive early, factoring 15 extra minutes into every trip. Chances are you&amp;#039;ll end up on time; in the worst-case scenario, you&amp;#039;ll have a few minutes to relax, get a drink of water, and fix your hair. Like Hall, late people often view time spent waiting as time wasted. But if you carry a book, knitting, or your cell phone, you can use a few extra minutes productively. Finally, have a strategy for each day. &amp;quot;A lot of people with time-management issues don&amp;#039;t have a clear sense of how their day is going to pan out,&amp;quot; says DeLonzor. So make a list, with your revamped time estimates written next to each item. Then you&amp;#039;ll be able to tell if you&amp;#039;ve scheduled 30 hours&amp;#039; worth of activity into a 24-hour day. In case you think your problem is incurable, take inspiration from Hall. &amp;quot;Two years ago, I started working as a college lecturer, and you can&amp;#039;t be late for that job \u2014 not even by five minutes, which I never even counted as &amp;#039;late&amp;#039; before.&amp;quot; By planning to arrive a half hour early, she has licked her time problem in one significant area of her life \u2014 and saved her job. Time Trap #4 \u2014 Overcommitment &amp;quot;I find it impossible to say no, even when I have too much on my plate. So I&amp;#039;ll say yes to picking up the refreshments for the book club, even though I&amp;#039;m already stressed from taking on another project at work and volunteering for a school event.&amp;quot; WHY YOU&amp;#039;RE IN THIS FIX: Once again, it&amp;#039;s the human tendency toward optimism and the planning fallacy at work; many overschedulers simply assume it&amp;#039;ll be no problem to run the charity auction while also preparing a year-end report and throwing an anniversary party. Couple this over-optimism with a lack of assertiveness or a need to prove yourself, and you&amp;#039;ve got plenty of reasons for taking on too much. &amp;quot;People-pleasers often have a hard time saying no, for fear of losing favor or angering others,&amp;quot; explains psychologist Wiegartz, and that fear may spring from a lack of self-confidence. People-pleasers may say yes to requests as a way to prove their worth both to themselves and to others, she explains. SIMPLE WAYS OUT: As a self-described &amp;quot;recovering &amp;#039;yes-er,&amp;#039;&amp;quot; Welch says, &amp;quot;Building your &amp;#039;no&amp;#039; muscles is easier than you&amp;#039;d think.&amp;quot; The first step is to interrupt your automatic tendency to nod your head and form the word &amp;quot;yes&amp;quot; before you know if you can or want to do what someone is asking of you. Buy yourself some time by saying, &amp;quot;Let me think about it,&amp;quot; and then assess your schedule, priorities, and desires. Welch recommends memorizing a couple of scripts and practicing saying them out loud; her favorite is &amp;quot;My heart says yes, but my calendar says no.&amp;quot; She also suggests instituting &amp;quot;policies&amp;quot; (a softer word for &amp;quot;rules&amp;quot;) so that when you do say no, you feel you have a legitimate reason for doing so. For instance, if you make it a policy to volunteer at only one school function per semester, it&amp;#039;s easier to turn down a request to help out at a second event. Just try this script: &amp;quot;Oh, I&amp;#039;m sorry, but I can&amp;#039;t do the Senior Picnic because I&amp;#039;ve already committed to Career Night.&amp;quot; After 22 years of mothering, Colleen Scholer, 50, a communications consultant at a research firm in Cedar Rapids, IA, has developed her own rationale for turning things down: &amp;quot;After a bit of burnout and experience, I can easily say no to projects. I justify it by explaining that I&amp;#039;ve already put in my volunteer time, and now I just want to spend time with my kids.&amp;quot; Not that she&amp;#039;s dropped out of volunteering altogether; she just has a more realistic view of what she&amp;#039;s capable of \u2014 and interested in \u2014 cramming into her schedule. Time Trap #5 \u2014 Prioritizing &amp;quot;It feels as if I spend my life putting out fires, taking care of the next thing that simply has to get done. Finding time to pursue big projects or my dreams, or even just to have fun, often seems impossible.&amp;quot; WHY YOU&amp;#039;RE IN THIS FIX: &amp;quot;Losing sight of what really matters to us is at the heart of our time-management stresses and strains,&amp;quot; says Welch, coauthor of Pretty Neat: The Buttoned-Up Way to Get Organized and Let Go of Perfection. &amp;quot;Women who are busy but managing well have an awareness and commitment to the things that are important to them. If you get focused on your priorities, you&amp;#039;re more consciously choosing what you want to do, not just reacting to stimuli such as the cluttered counter or undone dishes.&amp;quot; When big-picture priorities \u2014 like going back to school, starting a home business, or teaching the kids to ski \u2014 get overshadowed by the daily grind, it&amp;#039;s much harder to get excited about taking care of business.  Part of the problem is cultural, says DeLonzor: &amp;quot;So much is demanded of us now, and in our society a productive life is what&amp;#039;s considered an important, successful life. So instead of enjoying the journey, we&amp;#039;re in a race to see who can get the most done.&amp;quot;  Fulkerson knows that race very well, and she feels as if she&amp;#039;s rushing around trying to squeeze in so much that it&amp;#039;s tough to find pleasure even in social events. &amp;quot;It takes a real effort to remind myself of my own priorities, to remember that life is not always about accomplishment and that it&amp;#039;s OK sometimes to take the easy way out \u2014 like not keeping the house spotlessly clean so that I can get more sleep instead,&amp;quot; she says. Think of your prioritizing issues as being at the root of your time-management problems: When you don&amp;#039;t know what you really care about, it&amp;#039;s easy to get waylaid by perfectionism, procrastination, overcommitment, and even lateness. Expectations that come from outside sources \u2014 including overbearing parents, DIY blogs, or glossy shelter magazines \u2014 rather than your own desires can make you feel disappointed in a perfectly good life. Ferrell says she struggles all the time &amp;quot;to make my priorities really my own and not someone else&amp;#039;s.&amp;quot; SIMPLE WAYS OUT: First, look at the big picture. Welch recommends taking an &amp;quot;off-site&amp;quot; twice a year, alone or with your spouse \u2014 even if it&amp;#039;s just a couple of hours at a favorite caf\u00E9. The point is to reflect on what you really want to do, as well as on what you don&amp;#039;t want to do. &amp;quot;It can be very freeing to take things off your list,&amp;quot; she explains \u2014 for instance, painting the bedroom (if the current color will last another year). After you&amp;#039;ve discovered what&amp;#039;s important to you \u2014 as opposed to what&amp;#039;s an expectation you feel obligated to fulfill \u2014 organize your time around your desires rather than around &amp;quot;shoulds.&amp;quot; As Welch puts it, &amp;quot;Once you have some stakes in the ground to mark what really matters, you&amp;#039;re less susceptible to feeling bad about what you can&amp;#039;t get done.&amp;quot;  When you&amp;#039;ve figured out your big-picture goals, break them down into manageable steps and write these steps on your daily to-do list along with the dentist appointments and groceries to buy. &amp;quot;A to-do list should reflect not just today&amp;#039;s tasks, but also goals for your life,&amp;quot; says DeLonzor. The biggest mistake people make in writing down goals is not making them specific enough. &amp;quot;Plan vacation&amp;quot; is daunting, while &amp;quot;Call Denise for the name of the bike-tour company she used in Vermont&amp;quot; is doable. &amp;quot;Make sure your instructions are simple and clear enough to motivate the 10-year-old version of yourself,&amp;quot; says Steel \u2014 so easy that even a child could accomplish them. Finally, make time for yourself a priority. Schedule it first, in reasonable increments such as a 20-minute bike ride or an hour for lunch with a friend. Along with a life goal, DeLonzor has a space on her to-do list for socializing. She also schedules 15 minutes a day of downtime, which she spends reading the paper, knitting on the couch, or just staring out the window \u2014 anything that makes her feel better about facing the must-do&amp;#039;s and have-tos that fill up the rest of her day. &amp;quot;The real key to time management is remembering the important things in life, like laughing and relaxing,&amp;quot; she says. When you work with your personality to address your time issues, you&amp;#039;ll have more room for both of those things--and for whatever else truly fulfills you. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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