Conservation Entrepreneurship/time management

Time management
Covey's main point is that time management should be based on determining what is important. Thus it follows from Mission ("Begin with the end in mind"). He then provides a powerful tool, which is to evaluate each task or "to do" according to 2 criteria: urgency and importance. We tend to conflate these; what's pressing tends to be taken as important by default -- Covey's insight is to step back and separate these out. In principle, this will remind us to allocate time to the important things that are not urgent - quadrant II; and hopefully through planning, preparing, nurturing relationships, this will help us reduce the things that are urgent and important (crises).

Experiences
We all have different approaches for dealing with time issues. Please share some of your experiences. I will start with 2.

I just got back from a 2 week trip. It basically took me until Thursday afternoon to get back on track - productive and focused on what's important. What happened to those first 4 days? In part, I had to trim some work time to take my son to tennis, take my son to the dentist, catching up on family interactions that suffer when I travel - certainly important, but a distraction from work. Also Mon and Tues I had a major project (review 40 applications for ACLI visiting fellowships, wean out half, and form a review committee that could focus on the priority half only) and had to prepare for Wednesday's class. By Wednesday I had a cold and after class all morning, needed to take a break, go home early (and deal with the dentist appointment at 4 pm). So Thursday I'm finally ready to get down to business, longer term, high priority projects -- but my office and desk are so disorganized that I can't work -- I spent most of Thursday just tying up loose ends, such as my travel expense report -- not the important stuff, but I needed to get some level of organization around me so that finally, by late Thursday afternoon, I could get down to some important things -- by now also urgent because I travel again at the end of next week. I'm not a heavy traveller now, which my family appreciates, but this rhythm is very reminiscent of life at WWF -- work intensely before each trip to get each project advanced enough to be "pushed on to someone else's desk", and leave town with a clean desk. Travel, get back, be groggy for a few days, then another intense push to be prepared for the next trip.

In the midst of all this, a classic "bomb" (urgent and important, a crisis) lands on my desk. UF financial department sends me a draft financial report, that was actually due almost 3 months ago, and it's in a format that is going to raise a bunch of red flags with the donor. I have a much more subtle way of presenting the budgeted vs. actual expenditures, but the accounting department, who are people I have no real relationship with, have a totally different system (that will make me look bad with the donor). Aaack! First thought is to run out the door screaming, second is to tell the finance people they are wrong. After many deep breaths, let's try to get more information. Also, let's remember -- the finance people are probably really overworked (imagine how many grants they have to manage, and I'm sure UF budget cuts have hit their staffing levels) and they have a set of accounting principles and standard procedures to follow. Seek first to understand.... (Habit 5). Story to be continued, but probably the most important thing, for me, is to not let anxiety over this follow me home, this is important but nobody's going to say at my funeral "he really did a good job with financial reports" -- remember that what's much more important (Habit 2) is the time I'm going to spend with my family this evening, going out to dinner with my wife, helping my son with math and a speech he has to give. For me, time management is mainly a tool for stress reduction -- if you know your priorities and have a plan, it will help keep that gnawing anxiety from that overdue report from eating away at you.