Have you ever noticed that the more time you have, the less you get done?  When the unscheduled hours are scarce, I’m much more efficient in using them.  But give me an open weekend, or the extra hour gained with turning back the clocks, and I start wasting time like there’s no tomorrow.

In my practice, I treat many people who are organizationally challenged.  They typically underestimate how long it takes to complete a task and get sidetracked along the way by other activities.  Having a poor sense of time makes managing it difficult.

So does having too much time.  The extra hour yesterday fooled me.   “No hurry to start the day,” I thought.  “Plenty of time for everything.”  Until there wasn’t.  How did it get to be dark so fast?  Where did the time go?

I think it’s healthy to forget about the clock on occasion.  A day with no plans and no agenda can be like a mini spa retreat in our hectic lives. But allowing time to slip away from you can be frustrating. And losing track of the hours can create problems if you can’t accomplish what’s necessary or if you’re chronically late for work.

Here are some suggestions for better time-management:  take stock of your To Do list and keep it to the two or three most pressing items you can realistically check off in the time you have.  Then give yourself permission to do whatever you want when you’re done without feeling guilty about not using every minute productively.

As for me, I’m already planning how I’ll spend the Sunday when Daylight Savings Time returns and we lose an hour.  I won’t waste a minute.