My dad used to tell me to do the unimportant, non-urgent stuff first. It took me a while to understand that he wasn't advocating idleness in the face of urgency, but rather trying to convey that if you make a best effort to make sure nothing becomes urgent in the first place, you end up with more time available to…

I'd started getting the bad habit of ignoring the easy, not-pressing tasks. By Friday I would have a dozen or so things which at that point had become not so short and easy, and more pressing.

Most of my job responsibilities come in through e-mail, so when I'm overwhelmed with requests I usually just write back to the requester to clarify something... anything really. Maybe someone will ask for "2011 FY Spending". I'll just write back and ask, "US only? Worldwide? What product line? When do you need…