I'm always  looking for more time. I can't make more of it. I get 24 sixty minute hours each day. that's it. (Yes, I realize that periodically they add a second or so to a day to keep pace with the sun, but really, one second every 18 months doesn't make a difference.)

So, what can we do? One of my favorite techniques is using the little bits of time that appear in all of our days — the 5 minutes that we wait for a friend to show up; the last 10 minutes of lunch hour; the 20 minutes we sit waiting in the doctor's office; the time under the dryer at the hair salon; the 45 minutes at the garage — you get the idea.

I keep track of little tasks I can do in those bits of time — pay a bill, send an email, write a birthday card, fill my pill case, clean my purse, sort some laundry, empty the dish rack, take something out to defrost, plan dinners or work outfits for a week, write an errand list, make a bed, catch up on a magazine. Your list will be different and the right task will depend on where you are (You can't fold laundry in the doctor's waiting room. People will stare.), but you can use that time well. Getting rid of those little tasks in time that would be otherwise wasted watching tv, checking your newsfeed, or mindlessly surfing the web leaves larger blocs of time free for more important and time-consuming tasks.