1. Write out anything and everything you want to do in your life

This may first seem to be a completely overwhelming and ridiculous task. However, David Allen, best selling author of Getting Things Done and time management coach to countless CEOs, has advocated doing just this process to jumpstart the time management process. The idea is that you sit down with a piece of paper or a computer and literally brainstorm everything that's on your mind that you need to do, from the smallest task awaiting you at work to your largest aspirations. For instance, your final list of hundreds of items might include everything from ?do the dishes? and ?change the cat-litter? to ?climb Mount Everest? and ?start a family.? You do this cleansing process to "clear your RAM" to make prioritizing and project planning more efficient.

Even though you may think that writing everything you need to do in your life down would probably take weeks to months, most people exhaust this list within a few hours! That's because the projects on the far horizon haven't yet been "chunked" down into smaller steps.

2. Break your list down into projects -- and identify your next step for each project

This idea of categorizing what you need to do and writing down your concrete next step for each project can vastly simplify the time management process. After all, most of the critical endeavors we undertake are multi tiered and nebulous at first. When you write an item on your list like "start a family" or "get financially organized," it's easy to be overwhelmed by the vastness of the work ahead of you. However, if you identify, for example, "get financially organized" as an independent project, you can then create a concrete next step to move forward. Consider this the "Rome wasn't built in a day" theory of time management. For instance, your next step for getting financially organized might be to ?call three potential financial advisors in your area.? That's a task that can easily fit on anyone's To-Do list, and it won't take more than 30 minutes to accomplish.

3. Build a schedule that you can use.

There are literally tens of thousands of time management products and services out there. But never fear - most standard time management support systems will work for most people. The key is to evolve a system that makes sense for your needs, work schedule and life style. Try to chunk things down into near and far term categories. For instance, you might keep a weekly schedule, a monthly schedule and a long-term schedule. At the end of every month, do another ?RAM clearing,? like we discussed in step one, so that you don't get clogged up with an internal monologue of "I have to do this, that, and the other thing" and end up unable to concentrate on immediate tasks.

4. To prioritize, cut ruthlessly

The key to keeping your time management system working is not to ?Do" as much as you can. It's precisely the opposite. You want to "Not Do" as much as you can -- while still getting the things done that you absolutely must. Do you really need to go to your boss's son's baseball game? Is it really in your interest to compare and contrast 15 credit card offers? Choose when to choose. Otherwise, you will likely be faced with an onslaught of priority options, which can overwhelm even the most adept mind. There is no such thing as optimizing your schedule. You have to settle with what's "good enough." So how do we determine what meets that threshold of "good enough"??

5. Begin with the end in mind

Steven R. Covey, the author of Seven Habits of Highly Effective People (among other best selling time management books), recommends that students of scheduling conduct the following experiment. Picture yourself at your funeral. All your family members and friends get up and give eulogies about you. What are they saying? What do you want to be remembered for in this world? Start with these basic principles -- these end goals -- and work backwards to build your time management system. You can live a purposeful life ? but only based on principle. Time management is ultimately a tool not designed to help you win the Rat Race but to help you achieve these more meaningful ideals.

Once you have visualized what you want your life to be, work backwards to figure out the projects and priorities you need to keep in center-focus to get there. This at first may seem like a macabre and almost clinical way to approach life. But consider the alternative. If instead you allow your life to drift based on random circumstances and whim, you will likely waste a lot of your time dealing with mundanities -- without getting to indulge in the good stuff that makes us human.