How often do you find that you have too much to do and too little time in which to do it? As a doctor you face many pressures each day, with more and more people placing demands on your time. It seems that there is never enough time in the day to get everything done. There are many duties and responsibilities that require your time and attention and you may frequently feel yourself pulled in different directions. You have to organize your time around a long list of clinical duties such as ward rounds, clinics, operating theatre sessions, multidisciplinary team meetings and on-call work. You have administrative tasks such as writing up discharge summaries and reports, dictating clinic notes, responding to queries and complaints. The clinical environment today also requires you to undertake teaching, give presentations, attend meetings and cover for absent colleagues, while continuing with your own development as a doctor. For you to balance all these activities and enhance your personal effectiveness, self-organization is clearly required.

The term ‘time management’ is somewhat of a misnomer, as time itself cannot be managed. We can only manage ourselves and our use of time. Most doctors have the capacity to manage their time better and by doing so can make their working day more productive and leisure time more fulfilling. The introduction of the European Working Time Directive has made the need for effective time management critical for doctors in training.