A common and general people's illness in today's business world which appears to me is that numerous people can be extremely stressed by the limited time in a business day and the numerous tasks they have to dedicate their time onto.

Being a technical writer on my free and often personal time as well as a support person on programming questions, I attempt to manage my time the way compiled programs versus interpreted programs are useful for.

For a compiled correctly designed program, the rule is "Loose time once when developping the program, gain many for the sum of each execution". Therefore when a technical subject deserves to be more documented either because it is not clear enough for one person or not enough highlighted with its consequences, I always take all the time needed to document it the best way I can. If it has not been clear enough for one person, it is very likely it is or will not be clear for other people. In a multi-national company, with the time lost on one article, you can address the concern either current or future of customers over the planet. Some of these customers may be in touch with me for this very same subject. Having lost time once, I can save many of my own future time.

For an interpreted correctly designed program, the rule is "Gain time once when developping, loose many for the sum of each execution". An interpreted language such as PHP or Python or Perl may have its interest when the code is just executed once or a limited number of times on a machine. Applied to my technical writing activity, although I can spend lots of time in analyzing a software error, I do not feel necessary to formely document my findings, except for the product lab. A bug has for me a very transient interest which completely vanishes once the problem is fixed.

I propose you to manage your time the same way you would choose a programming language. Loose time once if it can save you lots of future time. Choose the easiest way to do the job if you have to do it only once. Before each new task, take enough time to best tune your strategy.

The real secret for the success is to perform only one task at a time and to perform it fully. This way you will not soon hear from your task. In summary, the author handles and invests time the exact same way others handle and invest their money. Despite they are missiles, the best comparison are the so called fire and forget missiles.