In Steven Covey's successful book, The Seven Habits of Highly Successful People, the author outlines a four-quadrant method of time management that divides tasks into categories such as Urgent and Important, Not Urgent but Important, Urgent but Not Important, and Not Urgent and Not Important.

Like many of you, I have lived by these principles only to discover that the other side was working hard to create confusion by labeling everything either urgent or important or both. That means I have to work harder to sift through the dissonance and determine what is really urgent and important before I can begin to prioritize. If you have experienced similar confusion, here are a few things to consider. By the way, better time management is high on my list of 2005 initiatives (I don't really like the word resolutions ).

1) Read the email, but then pick up the phone. It is incredibly easy to send someone an email that requests completion of a task and sets an arbitrary deadline. We all do it. Multiply that request by 200 and you get an idea of how overwhelming these daily email requests can be. To preserve any semblance of sanity, I try to negotiate deadlines if possible and employ all my skills of diplomacy in the meantime. I always approach each request in the spirit of my willingness to assist (which is true), but in light of my packed schedule (also true).

I indicate that I understand how important the project is to the individual making the request and that I want to assist in a manner that gives mutual satisfaction of a job well done. More often than not, I can arrive at a compromise that works for both the party requesting and for me. I make it a point of conducting this negotiation by phone--not voicemail and certainly not via email. Picking up the phone also allows you to communicate better your situation and creates an environment for greater empathy, something that can be lost or easily mis-communicated in an email.

2) Respond to your inner conflict. This is the devil I personally face regularly. By nature, I am an accommodating person. It was relatively easy and manageable to handle every request back when the number of "pings" I was receiving on a daily basis was a reasonable integer. However, over the years, the requests increased in magnitude and complexity. Undeterred, I tried to accommodate the requests and keep up the pace. The situation grew overwhelming until I found that after several 1am and 2am revelations that I wasn't really making any headway.

Sound familiar? It happens to the best of us. To some, it results in total burnout, to others it plays out through serious health consequences. The solution is to respond to the conflict you feel. If accepting a task causes you to feel great consternation or anxiety, then it is important for you to first resolve that conflict with yourself before responding to the request. Is there something you can do in your schedule to accommodate the request without making a martyr of yourself? Can you solicit help? If there are options, consider them and re-prioritize. If there are no options, approach both the person making the request and your boss with the situation. If you are part of a good, healthy, supportive team, there will be a solution.

3) Elevate yourself to partner status, no matter who assigns the task. As corporate real estate professionals, we know that requests come to most of us from both peers and management. In either case, the secret to maintaining a healthy perspective on the issue of prioritization is to become a partner in the process, no matter your position in the organization.

The first step to becoming a partner is visualizing yourself in that role. The second step is developing and shaping that partner image in order to put yourself squarely in that role. The third step is actually exercising the role, approaching every request as if from a partner. If it takes affixing a post-it note that says Partner next to your phone, do it. The important thing is to avoid the slippery slope where your role is trivialized. This is probably not intentional on the part of your team or your management but will help you hit the brakes if you sense it happening.

Remember, burnout would probably be Number One if Covey had written The Seven Bad Habits of Highly Successful People. A bad habit, yes, but a good wake up call.

Based in Anaheim, CA, Vik Bangia ([email protected]) is a managing director in CB Richard Ellis' global corporate services organization.