One of the biggest time management goofs of all time is to prioritize by importance or urgency. Another disaster area of time management training is to schedule your activities to time. And the third major mistake people try to manage time with is the traditional weekly to-do list.

Prioritizing by importance has been a common sense time management technique taught for years. So telling you that it is a bad technique might raise some red flags. That's ok. I know I'm right. And you will discover your own solution by understanding this article.

Naturally, the 'time flies' phenomenon is great if you're in 'the zone' of productivity and life satisfaction. But how do you juggle all the deadlines, resources, and other people to find the balance?

And that's just at work!... But a Time Management System in today's fast economy must include both your work life as well as your personal life (leisure, hobbies, social relations, chores, etc).

Think of a handful of chores. Get your hair done. Cut the grass. Take the pet to the vet. Fill that outstanding paper work in, create some form of a meal, AND get your daughter off to her pain lesson. Developing your time management skill of prioritizing effectively seems an excellent plan.

Here's a question for you: Have you prioritized a list of things to do by degree of importance? If you only have a few things to do, then it works a charm. But if life was so smooth you wouldn't be reading an article on time management would you?! So you end up neglecting certain areas of life because prioritizing only works so far. One major question is making the choice between multiple options.

You would never get round to things like cutting the grass, exercising regularly, filing papers, reading your kids night time stories.

So can you combine importance with urgency? Say it's Saturday afternoon. Laura has a time with her piano tutor at 3.30pm. So that's an urgent priority. You plan to read your office work after taking her. But what about the haircut you wanted? At what point is the hair 'urgent' enough to be a priority? When it's long? How long? When the wife nags right?

How do you really prioritize between reading a memo and taking Sally to her tutor and getting your hair cut? Should you try to prioritize by urgency?

Taking Sally to her Tutor lesson is not as important as reading and responding to that Memo in your briefcase by Monday morning, plus it's not till tomorrow afternoon anyway. So on Friday the memo is urgently important at an A level, and Sally's tutor is only urgently important with a B level.

Now that your wife has made fun of your long hair it gets adjusted from priority C to priority A. The office memo can be done Sunday evening so that's actually priority B. But taking the wife shopping is a priority A as she's nagging that you didn't have time to go food shopping last week and she can't carry it all her self.

Along comes Saturday afternoon, and Sally's tutorship now gets crossed off the B list and put on the A list because it's Saturday, and you've got Memo and Sally's Tutorship on the A list.

That scenario does work, but it's not exactly smooth sailing is it? The ABCDE Method of prioritization is difficult to imagine working even with only 3 tasks... But what when you try to mix in the rest of your responsibilities and life? ...And there are changes in what's urgent all too often... so trying to prioritize like that soon gets you in a jam.

Modern time management needs something far better than the old fashioned method of prioritizing. Such a limiting time management technique creates big problems.

Searching for modern solutions to time management prioritizing is worth your time. Because your time is the most precious commodity you have. So abandon the traditional time management techniques and develop your own natural time management skill by striking out on new paths. Make your own choices. Discover what works for you.