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Time management will later be a Mom topic as well, but this week it's a Me topic, and we'll look at how it relates to you and your life. Most of the assignments from this column take a little time each week, so it's important to figure out where some extra chunks of time could come from.

We've all occasionally wished there were more hours in a day, but where does all the time actually go? Sometimes, especially if we're at home, entire days can fly by without us being quite sure what happened.

In order to make the best use of your time, you first have to figure out where you're losing blocks of it. So-called "time drains" are often culprits - the big three for many people are TV, computer (especially e-mail) and the telephone. If you keep track over a given day or two of how many minutes you sit in front of the computer or TV, and how much time you spend on the phone, the numbers might surprise you.

If you're organized enough to enjoy this type of thing, you could keep a log throughout one whole day, and every half hour write down what you've done in that time. This may not be especially fun, but it will give you an extremely clear picture of how your time is spent. It may also help you to figure out what's taking too much time, or what could be cut out, delegated or done more efficiently. The way you spend your time is an important measure of what you value; do you feel good about where your time is going?

When you want to make better use of the time you do have, a key ingredient is prioritizing. There will never be enough time for every single thing you'd like to get done, so if you can decide what things are the most important to you, and schedule those first, you'll at least be honoring your top priorities. If you don't do this, busywork and distractions can take over, and you may not have enough time left for things that are more important.

Your assignment: Look for ways to make better use of your time over the next week. Keep a time log for a day, or start each day figuring out where your top priorities will fit in, or scope out the "time drains" that grab too much of your time and attention. Good luck!

Ready to take the assignment? Want to talk about this? Share your ideas and thoughts at M.O.M. Balance forum.

Want to read more from Karen Harvey's M.O.M. Balance column? Click here.