Author Jeff Davidson says that five factors are contributing to our feeling squeezed for time: population growth, the knowledge explosion, mass media and electronic addiction, the paper-trail culture, and an overabundance of choices. “Frequent-flyer programs, investments, long-distance telephone service, medical insurance, retirement options. The choices mount, the rules and regulations take longer to read, and are harder to understand.” He explains, “The faster we’re able to travel or to gain new information, the greater our expectations regarding what can and needs to be accomplished in our lives. We all seek to do more … . A day is still twenty-four hours, but it seems to shrink in the face of more to do or greater expectations about what has to be done.”

Why do so many intelligent, successful people have trouble managing their time and organizing their lives? Partly because we are not taught how when we’re growing up, and what we are taught often backfires and causes more problems than it solves. For example, everyone has heard the maxim, “You should handle each piece of paper only once.” Sounds good. Only problem is that it’s dead wrong. Another myth: “Files should be arranged alphabetically.” Maybe, maybe not. An alphabetic filing system in some cases will cause serious problems. Another piece of common wisdom: “Neatness is important.” Not necessarily! People with neat desks often have ineffective work habits. The worst example of pointless tidiness I’ve ever seen is the method used in some offices to store incoming mail and faxes according to the date of arrival: Five folders for mail, one for each day Monday through Friday, and five more folders for faxes, again sorted by day of arrival. Standard wisdom? Yes. Effective? Far from it.

Another reason that intelligent, successful people have trouble managing their time and organizing their lives is that the world has gotten much more complicated. Even people with an innate knack for organization are hard-pressed to handle the complexity of life today. What worked ten years ago is not adequate now.

Despite constant talk about how pressed everyone is for time, I contend that few people really live as if their time mattered. Most people spend more time planning their vacations than thinking...