in reply to Time management, multitasking, and programming, oh my!
IMO, the key skill to learn for time management is the setting and re-evaluation of priorities. Look at what you have to do, rank the tasks by urgency (based on criteria like: making me some money, keeping me out of jail/trouble with Inland Revenue, meeting my commitments to customers), and allocate amounts of time to different tasks depending on their priority. It takes a little bit of practice, but not too much.
When the status of a task changes (bailiffs knocking on the door/final absolutely the last deadline for paperwork/critical bug taking your customers system down) re-evaluate the top half dozen tasks .
You can do this on paper to start with - after a while IME it becomes a habit that just happens, and you have a good idea of where you are at any given time.
One other thing: don't spread yourself too thin. It takes a little while to shift your attention, if you try to allocate 5 minutes to 96 different tasks for the day, you won't get anything done.
There's also a couple of tips I've always found useful on time management in this node from a few days ago.
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