If you are working from home, you better be able to answer that question. If at the end of the day, you find yourself wondering where the time went, it is time to find out.

Keep a journal of your daily activities and the amount of time devoted to each for one full week. At the end of that period, you will learn valuable information about where your precious time is being spent.

Time is your most valuable commodity because once gone there is no getting any of it back — ever. It is arguably more valuable than money because you can hopefully always make more money.

I kept a journal for one week and learned some surprising things. E-mail, the life blood of my business (or so I thought), was sucking up way too much time. I found myself checking it and writing it incessantly. Once I realized this fact, I began scheduling two short blocks of time for checking e-mail and sending off short replies. I now do this activity each morning from about 8 until 8:30 am. I check it again late in the afternoon.

If I know I need to spent a large block of time writing e-mails I schedule it on my agenda and absolutely do not give in to the temptation to work on it at any other time during the week.

One thing I discovered before I switched to this system is that if I am “just checking” e-mail at a time when I really have other things to do it actually takes longer to process all my messages because I’m so pulled into reading mail that I’m not always processing the information quickly. For example, I’d read a message from someone who wanted to schedule an appointment or who wanted more information and I’d make a “mental note” of it while going onto other messages.

When I got back around to replying I was then wasting time in the sense that I was re-reading the same e-mails. My new rule is to read most e-mails only one time and only during designated times. That way I read them only when I am prepared to either respond, process information, file it or delete it.

I hope this tip helps you to recognize e-mail for the time killer that it is — unless properly managed.