That’s right, you can’t manage time. Despite all the workshops, software programs, PDAs and personal planners available today, you can’t really manage time. I say that what you do manage are people’s promises and commitments (your own as well) made in time. A co-worker promises to have a report to you by three o’clock on Tuesday, you make a commitment to attend your daughter’s soccer game on Saturday, and so on. We make promises and commitments to do something within a certain time frame, and that’s what we manage, not time itself. So if that’s true, how do we manage our promises? How do we organize ourselves to get more done in less time, and with less stress as well? Here are five general principles that I have found extremely useful in my life to help me be really productive and effective: