By Kevin L. Polk, Ph.D.

Have you ever ended up in the right place at the wrong time? Have you ever ended up in the wrong place at the right time? Both can be huge time wasters. While these are sometimes just clerical mistakes like writing something down on the wrong date, they often happen because we don't write things down in the first place. A way of saving yourself lots of time in your life is to make sure you get the information right the first time. This involves communicating clearly with others, then writing it down.

Being clear in your communications with other people is something you already know how to do, you just forget sometimes. You ask who, what, where, when and how questions of the other person. This is of course not necessary when you are just chatting with a friend. And that is exactly where we all fall into the bad habit of not writing things down when we need to. I have found that the best way to remind myself is just to go ahead and write things down as soon as I have the first inkling that I might be hearing something I need to remember. How many times have you said to yourself, "I will remember that", then forgotten it? These forgotten things can cost you lots of time in the future. Believe me, the few seconds you spend getting a pen and paper and writing something down will save you many hours each month.

So what do you want to write down? What I talked about above: who, what, where, when, how, and why. For example, Who am I going to meet with? What are we going to do? Where are we going to meet? When are we going to meet? How am I going to get there? Why am I going to invest time in doing this? Is it for business or pleasure?

Some of you may be thinking that this is just too simple. But it's actually a fantastic time saver.

Dr. Polk is a clinical psychologist and stress management expert.

Condensed with permission from the author. Copyright 1992 - 2000 by Kevin L. Polk, Ph.D. (www.timedoctor.com). All rights reserved.