Recently I found myself in a situation where I felt that I have more things to do than the time available in hand. The number of unread e-mails and pending tasks were growing in a faster rate day by day. I missed to act upon a few important e-mails. This new situation had increased my stress and caused a sense of unaccomplishment in spite of being reasonably productive. My positive sense of being in control was going down day by day. That is when I started to realize that there is something basically wrong in the way I handled things.
On the other hand, I see some of my manager‘s activities through his Twitter updates and blog posts. The wide range of stuff he does is mind-boggling. He might have ten-folds of things to do than I have. However I saw a sense of completion in most of the things he did. I discussed with him about this in one of the 1-1 meetings we had. From his answers, I realized that instead of trying to manage my time, I should try to manage the things that I do. He recommended to read “Getting Things Done” by David Allen. I promptly bought the book. However due to bad management of things I do, I was not able to start on the book until a couple of months later.