ROCHESTER – A business associate recently confessed to a depressing little secret: every morning he jumps out of bed determined to get ahead of the game, and every day he ends up further behind. No matter how fast, how hard or how long he works, things fall through the cracks. There just aren?t enough hours in the day, he says. He?s not alone.

Out of the world population of well over six billion, it?s reasonable to assume at least a million people ? you might be one of them ? spend 15 seconds a day wishing they had more time. Most decide to do nothing about it, and continue on with their current activity. Put those seconds together and you?ve got more than 4,000 hours of lost productivity or unfulfilled personal desires, every day of the week.

No wall of wishes will change the fact that the day is only 24 hours long, and sooner or later you have to sleep. While many people take on time management systems in an attempt to control their lives, the truth is that you can?t manage time; you can only prioritize the time you have. Stuck in a quagmire of time-sucking activities, you must first learn to manage yourself, and how you choose to spend your time.

Steps to Greater Productivity

Acknowledging the need to choose actions wisely is the first step in truly gaining control over your life and winning back some of your lost hours or dreams.

The second step is committing your goals to paper. Writing your goals helps you make decisions on what is important, what is urgent, and what is neither. You can?t focus on a goal if the goal is out of focus.

The key is to turn undirected activities into goal-directed actions by taking the third step: creating a task-handling structure that assures your day is focused and productive.

Three Time-Saving Habits

There are hundreds of books, tapes and training classes on the subject of time and task management, any of which might be helpful to you. Here are three basic habits you can start with:

D3 : Do, Delegate or Dump. Determine what is important in reaching your goals. Decide what you have to do yourself, what others can do for you, and what is unproductive or unnecessary.

Must do/Should do: Mark the items on your ?To Do? list as either ?Must Do? or ?Should Do.? Items in the ?Must Do? column are to be completed first.

Upgrade your Downtime: Passive time ? the minutes you spend waiting for clients or colleagues to show up for a meeting, for example ? can be productive. Read a book or trade magazine, jot notes to your staff, or handle other office paperwork.

Tomorrow is Too Late

Do it now. If you procrastinate ? if you choose to put it off until tomorrow or next week or when things settle down ? you?ll continue to do what you do forever. Decide today that you?ll invest your portion of those 4,000 unproductive worldwide hours in achieving the rewards you desire.

Dale Hetrick is President of Unlimited Potential, LLC, a Strategic and Leadership Development firm committed to helping people achieve the success they envision, and a member of Automation Alley. Contact Dale at 248-651-3516 or visit www.up-llc.com