In your daily life it is unlikely that you will consciously waste time purely for the sake of it. The consequences of such destructive behaviour are obvious. You probably engage at times in activities that apparently added nothing to your utility value of your time like idle chitchat with a colleague, flicking through a magazine without really reading it, looking out the window, daydreaming. These are all examples of 'time stealers'. But how does one go about prioritizing and change their way of thinking for effective time management?

To keep your attention focused on the activities that are most important - the ones that contribute to the accomplishment of your objectives - you need to set priorities. The more an activity will help move you toward an objective, the more valuable is that activity. The more valuable an activity, the higher its priority. Urgency should only be a secondary consideration when deciding priorities.

All activities have some degree of importance and urgency. Generally they fall into 4 categories;

1. Important and urgent - example: paying a mortgage which already has 2 months missed payments.
2. Important but not urgent - example: getting driving lessons so you can get your license to drive your car.
3. Urgent but not important - example: your favorite TV program starts in 2 minutes but you're 5 minutes away from home.
4. Neither important nor urgent - example: meeting some friends for another night out or drink at a pub (although some may beg to differ).

Your challenge is to decide what are the most important things, then to focus on these and ignore the others. When you respond to urgencies and ignore the important ones, you have a time management problem and you'll be on time's treadmill. The only way to break the tyranny of urgent demands that seem to fill every day is to define and adhere to a pursuit of your objectives.