Many of my colleagues pride themselves on their ‘busyness’. They always show me how full they are - instead of showing me how they are prioritizing, and what are the results of their efforts.

Nothing gets done because the person is just ‘busy’, trying to tick his tasks off the list rather than prioritizing, and ignoring the less important tasks.

We are all so busy because everyday, more and more people and tasks scream for your attention. No matter how fast you are, if you cannot ignore these, you will be overwhelmed.

Tick Tock: Tips for Allocating Your Time | The View from Harvard Business | BNET.com

Do you spend your work time as effectively as you could? Let me answer for you. No.

Whether you are a CEO or front-line manager, we all squander our most valuable resource — time — like an untuned automobile wastes fuel. Our time to create real value for the organization gets chipped away by everything from having to answer trivial e-mail to putting out petty corporate fires.