Tools for best utilizing time

Some of the most useful tools for saving time are to-do lists and calendar applications. I did some search on the net for this and got few links. My personal favorites are Todoist & Google Calendar for all my personal work. However, I have found that MS Outlook works best for office environment. But better than both these is simple notepad (not windows notepad but physical notepad simple paper and pen/pencil)

LifeHacker did a survey of what people think is the 5 best to-do list management tools some time back. Paper/Pencil topped this list. I also found some interesting tools in this list. One of them is toodledo. What struck me most about this tool is that it is capable of attaching your goals to your to-do items/ tasks. It also can help you gather all related data/ files. This whole site is based on the principal of GTD (Getting Things Done by David Allen) to manage your time.

My favorite theory for time management is by Steven Covey, author of Seven Habits of Highly Successful People. He divides the work on two axes - Urgency & Importance. This creates four quadrants. The most important quadrant is the quadrant II which is for important but not urgent tasks. Steven prescribes to stay in this quadrant for maximum amount of time. However he observes that we stay in Quadrant I & Quadrant III for most of our time which is Urgent & Important and Urgent but not important. We should focus on moving to the Quadrant II from the Quadrant I by doing important works before they become urgent and learn to say NO to the urgent but not important work.