By: Sue Shellenbarger/ The Wall Street Journal

Are things you need to get done falling between the cracks? Does taking an entire day off seem impossible?

Maybe you need a time-management system.

Many readers seem to think they do, based on the email response to my recent column on the importance of taking time off. Dozens asked me to recommend a time-management method that would help them get on top of their work and home duties. In response, I asked a half-dozen executive coaches to help me pick the most widely used time-management systems—not just software tools or high-tech to-do lists, but behavioral-change techniques that help people get organized, clarify thinking and increase output. Then, I tried out for a week each of the three methods they mentioned most often—including one that involved a ticking plastic tomato.

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Patrick Conlon/The Wall Street JournalFollowers of the ‘Pomodoro Technique’ tackle tasks in 25-minute increments, with the help of a kitchen timer.

Of course, a week isn’t long enough to reap the full benefits of these methods. Still, I learned a lot from this experiment. Like many people, I am often my own worst enemy in managing my time, distracting myself from the task at hand, or setting myself up for failure by starting each day with an unrealistically long to-do list. Second, the key to getting more important stuff done is often doing less of everything else. And finally, getting control of your time requires a significant up-front investment of mental effort—and, well, time.

Here, in no particular order, are the methods I tried:

• Getting Things Done: The reigning gorilla of time management, “GTD,” as its followers call it, was created in the 1980s by David Allen, an Ojai, Calif., consultant whose coaching, training materials and seminars can be found at davidco.com. Mr. Allen has since sold more than one million books about GTD and attracted 1.2 million followers on Twitter. GTD’s aim is to corral all the projects and tasks floating around in your head into an organizing system you update weekly. No matter what chaos erupts, the system in theory enables you to quickly identify the next step to take on every front to keep all your projects moving forward, while keeping your mind clear to relax, think and be creative.

I start GTD with a weekly “mind sweep,” writing down all the stuff I should be doing, want to do or dream of doing. The resulting list ranges from essentials, like meeting my next deadline, to nagging worries, like updating college-financing plans for my kids, to future hopes, like volunteering as a writing coach for needy kids. Next, I sort it all and create new files, action lists, calendar items or reminders based on what is needed next—for example, whether a project requires action (the deadline); input from someone (a talk with my accountant about college financing); or deferral (the tutoring plan). My daily calendar is reserved for only the most urgent items, such as the deadline.

How We Did It

To pick the time-management methods described in this column, I asked several experienced executive coaches and consultants which systems they see used most often. The three that were cited by at least two or more of them are featured.

• The coaches: Marshall Goldsmith, Rancho Santa Fe, Calif., cofounder of an executive coaching network and author of a forthcoming book, “Mojo,” on happiness and meaning; Michael Goldberg, a consultant and speaker with Building Blocks Consulting, Jackson, N.J.; Rich Gee, a Stamford, Conn., executive coach; Brian Underhill, owner of a San Jose, Calif., coaching firm; Pete Walsh of Peak Performance Coaching, Phoenix, and D. Luke Iorio, an executive with the Institute for Professional Excellence in Coaching, Shrewsbury, N.J.
• Time-management systems specific to particular fields, such as sales, weren’t considered. Also, I chose to feature only approaches that offer practical help managing a typical, mainstream workday. That eliminated such popular but unconventional philosophies as the freewheeling approach set forth by author Timothy Ferriss in “The 4- Hour Workweek.”

When all the collecting, reviewing and categorizing required by GTD is portrayed visually on a “workflow map,” the result resembles a cross between a corporate organization chart and a map of Middle-earth in “The Lord of the Rings.” GTD fans liken it to learning a new sport, such as tennis, and say mastering it can take two years.

Nevertheless, I see some benefits right away. GTD has me clump tasks together by context; phone calls, for example, are grouped so I can run through them quickly during a spare moment. And GTD ends sloppy habits, such as stashing piles under my desk, forcing me instead to decide what to do with all the stuff and either file or discard it. As I comply, I revel in the vast expanse of clear desktop that appears before me. I doubt, however, that I have the perseverance to stick to this system.

• The Pomodoro Technique: This quirky method had me working in intense spurts guided by a kitchen timer shaped like a tomato—or pomodoro, in the inventor’s native Italian. Developed by Francesco Cirillo, director of XPLabs, a software design firm based near Rome, this technique is spreading via Twitter and other social networks. It can be learned in a few hours from a free guide at pomodorotechnique.com; making it a habit takes up to 20 days.

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• Discuss: Do you use a time-management system? What’s worked best for you?

While any timer will do, I purchased my own tomato for $14.95. I start each day by making a log of things to do, then tackle each in 25-minute intervals called Pomodoros. When a Pomodoro is over, I mark an X on the log next to the item I am working on, then take a refreshing 3- to 5-minute break. Nothing must be allowed to interrupt a Pomodoro. If co-workers barge in, Mr. Cirillo advises trying to defer the conversation.

The method is based on the idea that time-management tools and techniques should be simple; that frequent breaks can improve mental agility; and that changing the way people think about time can ease anxiety, freeing them to concentrate better.

Although I found this method laughable at first, its simplicity is deceptive. Working with my ticking tomato made me aware that I constantly interrupt myself. Users are asked to put an apostrophe over the “X” on the log each time they are tempted to break a Pomodoro. I had no less than eight apostrophes over one “X”—marking impulses ranging from reading email to ordering a toner cartridge to running outside to see if my car had a flat tire. (Seriously.)

This method offers less help than the others with organizational problems; it is narrower in scope. However, it eased my anxiety over the passing of time and also made me more efficient; refreshed by breaks, for example, I halved the total time required to fact-check a column.

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Patrick Conlon/The Wall Street JournalAn example of a “Getting Things Done” workflow map

• FranklinCovey’s Focus: This method, subtitled, “Achieving Your Highest Priorities,” hits workaholics where it hurts—in their upside-down priorities. Created by FranklinCovey, Salt Lake City (franklincovey.com), Focus aims to help users jettison busywork and wasted time and devote themselves to their most valued pursuits. FranklinCovey has trained more than two million people in the method. Some of its concepts are widely known, such as “sharpening the saw,” a metaphor for setting aside time to take care of your health so you can work (and play) with more vigor.

Another well-known symbol, its four-quadrant “time matrix,” helps users distinguish among tasks based upon whether they are truly urgent and important; important but not urgent; urgent but not important; or neither. A pretest shows I squander one-third of my time on unimportant stuff. To remedy this, I settle down for a half-hour planning session, a weekly Focus requirement, to think through my values, identify the roles and goals most important to me, and block out time in advance to pursue them. I enter other tasks day-by-day on my calendar, prioritizing them based on their importance. Like GTD, Focus requires a fairly high up-front investment of mental effort to be useful.

Focus aims to break users’ “urgency addiction,” the habit of rushing around needlessly. By week’s end, I am surprised at how much calmer I feel, as I let insignificant stuff slide; in a spillover benefit, I am able to help my teenage son see that his race to finish a college research project early isn’t truly urgent. Also, in pursuit of the value I place on generosity, I start working early on a holiday gift for my extended family, a photo calendar; not only do I take more pleasure in making it, but I know it won’t be the usual slapdash, last-minute affair. In an era when values are often neglected, this system is a worthy antidote.

In the end, I expect I will embrace elements of each of these systems—the approach experts recommend for most people. The essence of good time management is sticking to rituals that make you more productive, and rituals are largely a matter of personal preference. “The only system that matters,” says Luke Iorio, president of iPEC Coach Training, Shrewsbury, N.J., “is the one that works for each individual.”

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By: The Wall Stret Journal/SUE SHELLENBARGE

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By: SUE SHELLENBARGER/The Wall Street Journal

By economic yardsticks, Roger the Plumber should be feeling pretty low. Roger Peugeot, owner of the 14-employee Overland Park, Kan., plumbing company that bears his name, is part of a sector hit hard by shrunken credit and slumping sales. He has been forced to reduce staff and is battling new competition from other plumbers fleeing the construction industry.

So why is Mr. Peugeot so happy? He genuinely likes fixing plumbing messes, for one thing, and despite the worst recession he has seen, “I’m still excited to get up and go to work every day,” he says. He relishes running into people at the local hardware store whom he has helped in the past. And in hard times, he says, his fate is in his own hands, rather than those of a manager. “Even when things get tough, I’m still in control,” he says.

In the broadest, most-comprehensive survey yet of how occupation affects happiness, business owners outrank 10 other occupational groups in overall well-being, based on the landmark survey of 100,826 working adults set for release today. Defined as self-employed store or factory owners, plumbers and so on, business owners surpassed 10 other occupational groups on a composite measure of six criteria of contentment, including emotional and physical health, job satisfaction, healthy behavior, access to basic needs and self-reports of overall life quality.

This puts Roger the Plumber well ahead of movers and shakers typically regarded as the top of the heap in society—professionals such as doctors or lawyers, who ranked second, and executives and managers in corporations or government, who came in third—according to the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, a collaboration between Gallup and Healthways, a Franklin, Tenn., health-management concern. This is despite business owners ranking below those more-prestigious occupations in physical health and access to basic needs, such as health care.

The findings, psychologists say, reflect the importance of being free to choose the work you do and how you do it, the way you manage your time, and the way you respond to adversity. Regardless of occupational field, the survey suggests that seeking out enjoyable work and finding a way to do it on your own terms, with some control over both the process and the outcome, is likely for most people to fuel satisfaction and contentment.

“Despite the recession, it still pays to be your own boss,” says Frank Newport, editor in chief of the Gallup Poll. The survey, adds John Howard, director of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, “reaffirms my view that the more control you have over your work, the happier you are.”

Smaller studies have shown links between certain kinds of stress and particular job roles or employment groups. But the huge size of the Gallup-Healthways project, which conducts 1,000 telephone surveys a day, makes it possible to draw detailed, reliable distinctions among a large number of occupational groups. “I know of no other survey of this size” on the subject, says Humphrey Taylor, chairman of the Harris Poll, a competitor. The 11 occupational categories surveyed also include farmers and sales, clerical, construction, installation and service workers.

Unlikely Winners

Business owners may seem unlikely winners. About half of the nation’s full-time small businesses typically fail within five years of start-up, and the rate has risen in the recession, says William Dennis, a senior research fellow with the National Federation of Independent Business Research Foundation. They are more likely to work extremely long hours than people in any other occupation group, other Gallup research shows.

The findings likely reflect declining quality-of-life in some professions, Dr. Howard says. Rising cost controls in medicine, for example, and mounting pressure to chalk up billable hours in law, have curtailed doctors’ and lawyers’ flexibility to control their work.

“Where professionals may have had greater freedom 20 or 30 years ago, many are now experiencing loss of control, erosion of satisfaction and increased stress,” Dr. Howard says.

At the bottom of the heap, transportation and manufacturing workers scored lowest on well-being. These occupations tend to foster conditions Niosh has identified as contributors to unhealthy stress: lack of control or participation in decision-making, conflicting or unclear job expectations, and hectic tasks with little inherent meaning.

Management and executive jobs have gotten tougher, too, during the period the Gallup-Healthways data were gathered, the first eight months of this year. Beset by cost cuts and layoffs, corporate bosses at all levels now share more of these stress-inducing conditions.

Business owners stand in stark contrast. Even in tough times, “you do your own thinking and no one can tell you you’re wrong,” says Edwin Locke, an industrial psychologist and professor emeritus of leadership and motivation at the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland. “You make your own decisions, and if you’re wrong, reality gives you the feedback,” he says.

Staying in Control

As a business owner, Mr. Peugeot says, “even when things are out of your control, as they are with this economy, you’re still in control of your relationships” with customers. Corporate managers and executives may “sit and wonder if they’re going to be laid off, or get frustrated with the inabilities of management,” he says. “If you’re the owner, you may have to say, ‘I screwed up,’ but it’s a lot better than saying, ‘I didn’t deserve that.’ ”

Other patterns among the self-employed help explain their psychological well-being. Entrepreneurs tend by nature to be optimistic, evidenced in their willingness to strike out on their own, psychologists say. Laura Street, of Pleasanton, Calif., isn’t making a profit in the handmade-jewelry business, Ampersand Designs, which she co-founded last year. But to her, the glass is half full: She says sales are rising, she expects to turn a profit soon, and she loves her work.

“Yes, the economy is bad. But we aren’t coming into a workplace wondering, ‘Are we going to get fired today?’ ” she says. “If you control your destiny, the well-being is something that just comes naturally.”

The freedom business owners have to control their schedules enables them to adhere more closely to their personal priorities, says Amy Neftzger, an organizational psychologist for Healthways. They have the flexibility to “make it to a child’s play, or spend time with family,” she says.

Golfing With the Mayor

Many also have community ties that feed a sense of well-being. James Barnard, chief financial officer of his family’s business, Barnard Manufacturing in St. Johns, Mich., didn’t have a great summer. He and his cousin Gary Barnard, president of the heavy-equipment parts maker, stopped drawing paychecks to help the company through a steep sales drop. They agonized over a decision to lay off dozens of workers, and Gary sat nearly alone in the plant for several weeks, answering phones.

But their company has a good image in the community, and “it’s a big deal to us to keep that going,” James says. He takes part in civic groups and enjoys golfing with the mayor and police chief. Pressed to describe the rewards of running a family business, he says, “It’s pride. Definitely pride.”

Another surprise from the survey: Farmers and other outdoor workers, from farmhands to forestry workers, scored No. 1 among all groups in “emotional health,” as measured mainly by the amount of smiling, laughter, enjoyment and happiness they report experiencing the previous day—despite the fact that farmers ranked near the bottom in access to basic needs.

Steve Swenka, a Tiffin, Iowa, farmer, had just finished mowing two fields of hay when I reached him by phone last week to discuss the poll. The results didn’t surprise him. Farm work, he says, is pretty trying. “When you’re out there in the heat and the dust, sweating, you may feel miserable,” he says. But over time, “you can see the progress, the fruits of your labor.

“And when the day is over and you see the loads of hay stacked, there’s something fulfilling about hard manual labor like that,” he says. “You forget your little troubles, and start to see the bigger picture.”

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By: Michael Arrington 

The Wall Street Journal has long envied the success of professional social network LinkedIn and its 15 million or so monthly visitors (WSJ.com has just a third of that). In late 2008 they launched WSJ Community, a social network bolted onto the main WSJ site. That community is a ghost town – raise your hand if you’ve even heard of it, let alone visited it. At some point, they’ll likely shut it down as quietly as possible.

But they are still serious about gunning for the LinkedIn crowd and all those monetization opportunities (jobs, ads and a heck of a marketing pool for WSJ subscriptions). They’ve been working on a new social network, to be called WSJ Connect, we’ve confirmed. And instead of building it internally, like they did with WSJ Community, they’ve enlisted the help of another arm of parent company News Corp. – Slingshot Labs. And yes, they call it “LinkedIn Killer” internally.

Slingshot Labs is the R&D arm of News Corp. and works on digital products. Their first product was Daily Fill, which launched earlier this year. They also built the MySpace Events product that we covered in March. They operate fairly independently, have their own funding and 40-50 staff, according to one person familiar with their operations.

WSJ Connect is still in the planning/conceptual stages, says one source, but there is “strong interest” to move the project forward. Importantly, it would leverage the WSJ brand but would be a separate property and unencumbered by the need for a paid subscription to the newspaper.

Conceptual screenshots of the product are apparently floating around Slingshot, the WSJ and MySpace. We’re trying to track them down.

Absolutely no one responded to our requests for comment. Luckily, lots of ex-MySpace employees are happy to talk.

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By: The Wall Street Journal / Sarah E. Needleman

For Companies, a Tweet in Time Can Avert PR Mess

A growing number of businesses are tracking social-media outlets such as Facebook and Twitter to gauge consumer sentiment and avert potential public-relations problems.

Ford Motor Co., PepsiCo Inc. and Southwest Airlines Co., among others, are deploying software and assigning employees to monitor Internet postings and blogs. They’re also assigning senior leaders to craft corporate strategies for social media.

C.C. ChapmanFord’s Scott Monty

One morning last December, Scott Monty, Ford’s head of social media, saw Twitter messages alerting him to online comments criticizing Ford for allegedly trying to shut a fan Web site, TheRangerStation.com. The dispute prompted about 1,000 email complaints to Ford overnight.

Mr. Monty, who joined Ford the previous July from an advisory firm specializing in social media, didn’t wait to learn the facts. He posted messages on his Twitter page, and Ford’s, saying he was looking into the matter, adding frequent updates.

Within hours, he reported that Ford’s lawyers believed the site was selling counterfeit goods with Ford’s logo. He persuaded Ford’s lawyers to withdraw the shut-down request if the site would halt the sales. By the end of the day, he Tweeted that the dispute had been resolved.

Jim Oaks, who founded TheRangerStation in 1998, credits Mr. Monty with resolving the problem so quickly. “My relationship with Ford has been better because of this,” he says.

Mr. Monty’s response won plaudits from social-media watchers. Ron Ploof, founder of consulting firm OC New Media LLC, posted a case study of the incident on the Web, to show clients how companies can use social media to their benefit.

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PepsiCoPepsiCo’s Bonin Bough

“Social media have magnified the urgency of crisis communication,” says Shel Holtz, a communications consultant in Concord, Calif., and co-author of “Blogging for Business.” He says seemingly small incidents can quickly spread into bigger PR problems via the Web.

PepsiCo intensified its social-media efforts last November after employees saw critical Twitter posts about an ad in a German trade magazine for a diet cola, which depicted a calorie killing itself. A popular commentator, whose sister had committed suicide, asked, “How could Pepsi do this?”

A Pepsi spokesman quickly posted an apology on his personal Twitter page. So did Bonin Bough, who is Pepsi’s global director of digital and social media. Mr. Bough, who was hired for the job in September, says the incident prompted Pepsi to create a corporate Twitter profile; in May it launched The Juice, part of the networking site BlogHer.com.

Monitoring a corporate image in cyberspace is a daunting task, even with technological help. Tracking software can identify hundreds of posts daily, and managers must decide which could prove troublesome. “If you start seeing a lot of people retweeting it, then you know” to pay attention, says Marcus Schmidt, a senior marketing manager for Microsoft Corp.

Some companies use the information to shape responses to news. On July 13, a Southwest Airlines flight from Nashville to Baltimore made an emergency landing in Charleston, W.Va. Southwest’s six-person “emerging-media team” scanned Twitter, Facebook and other Web sites for passengers’ reactions — and found mostly positive comments. The Southwest employees quickly posted Tweets praising the “great work by crew and customers onboard.”

Linda Rutherford, Southwest’s vice president, communications and strategic outreach, says she might have reacted differently if passengers had been more critical. “We would still be complimentary of our crews, but we might not emphasize that as much,” says Ms. Rutherford, who added responsibility for social-media initiatives last summer.

Some companies are training staffers to broaden their social-media efforts. At Ford, Mr. Monty plans to soon begin teaching employees how to use sites like Twitter to represent the company and interact with consumers.

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J.D. ScottCoca-Cola’s Adam Brown

Coca-Cola Co. is preparing a similar effort, which initially will be limited to marketing, public affairs and legal staffers. Participants will be authorized to post to social media on Coke’s behalf without checking with the company’s PR staff, says Adam Brown, named Coke’s first head of social media in March.

For now, that job falls to Mr. Brown and three staffers. Last fall, Coke’s software spotted a Twitter post from a frustrated consumer who couldn’t redeem a prize from the MyCoke rewards program. The consumer’s profile boasted more than 10,000 followers.

Mr. Brown quickly posted an apology on the consumer’s Twitter profile and offered to help resolve the situation. The consumer got his prize and later changed his Twitter avatar to a photo of himself holding a Coke bottle.

“We’re getting to a point if you’re not responding, you’re not being seen as an authentic type of brand,” says Mr. Brown.

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