One of the best ways to manage not only your days, but your weeks (and even larger portions of time), is to use a process called "time chunking".

Time chunking isn't a new process, but if it is new to you then it's worth examining how it has worked for me.

I have chunked my time on a daily basis, setting aside certain chunks of the day for projects or tasks, depending on the time I had at my disposal. But now I am now chunking by day of the week, rather than by hours within a day of the week. I have dedicated certain days to certain projects and tasks, allowing me to keep that much further ahead of (or on top of) all that I've got on my plate. In fact, by switching to this method of time chunking, I was able to see what projects I had room for in my life better than ever before. This allowed me to make the decisions to stop working on those projects with more confidence, since my time chunking process had shown me what I had time for and what I didn't.

Also, by time chunking my week rather than my day, I have room for more flexibility. I can play with the hours in a day now, whereas I couldn't before.

(Yes, I work from home, but I know that a lot of people who don't work from home can time chunk in the same manner-or at least use a combination of daily and weekly time chunking-so that they can make better use of their work week. I know this because I did it back when I worked in an office environment, and even when I worked in retail management.)

When you decide to start time chunking, I recommend you start chunking by day of the week. Take certain days for certain things. For example, you might want to make Monday the day that you do all of your administrative work. That way you get the bulk of the "have to" stuff out of the way earlier in the week so that you can get to the "want to" stuff for much of the rest of the week. On Wednesday you could set aside some time to work on a project that is really going to be exciting. That way you revitalize and recharge in a way that can carry you through the rest of the work week. Friday would be a great time to set some time chunks up for reflection of the week gone by or a preparation for the week ahead. Then you can go into the weekend with a clearer mind and actually enjoy your time away from work more fully and completely.

Once you've gotten used to the idea of time chunking your days, then you can break it down into hours of the day as well. This is where tools like the Emergent Task Planner and apps like 30/30 for iOS come into play. (But more on them later.)

Time chunking-and fine tuning the practice-will allow you to work with optimum productivity. It's worth trying in some form or another because it removes a decision from the process of doing: what to do and when to do it.