Time is not elastic, it will not magically expand to accommodate all we have to do. So we have to learn to use it wisely.

We need to understand our time better. If you think of time as some formless dimension, you will fritter it away without any real consideration of its best use. And all time is not equal. If you’re a morning person, that time is worth more in terms of productivity than your late afternoon time. Learn to identify your most valuable and productive time.

Reserve your most valuable time for intellectually-demanding activities. Your intermediate value time should be spent on important tasks that don’t require that same level of concentration. Finally, reserve your low-value time for activities that require very little concentration.

Effectively structuring your time in terms of peak, intermediate and low-concentration blocks can make a profound impact on your productivity if you use that time intelligently. That means identifying what you have to do and, more importantly, what you don’t have to do. A good way of doing this is to see if the activity furthers a particular objective. If it doesn’t, why do it?

Estimate how much time each activity in your day is likely to take. Be realistic about what you can really accomplish. If you overload yourself you’re only going to get stressed out about what you’re not doing, and that makes you less effective in what you are doing. So pace yourself. Just don’t waste time.

Grouping tasks will allow you to accomplish more in the same amount of time. Email is a prime example: it is far more efficient to check and respond to mail twice a day than to each message as and when it comes in.