In Good Time Make the most of your precious minutes with a time-management system that works.

Getting your entrepreneurial tasks done in a reasonable amount of time is what time management is all about. We know it's not easy, so we asked James Clark, time-management expert and co-founder of Room 214, a marketing and communications company in Boulder, Colorado, for some tips on how to fit your everyday business tasks, both large and small, into your tight schedule.

1. Get a System. Everyone works in a different way, says Clark. Whether you live by your Franklin planner, Outlook calendar, Palm Pilot or whatever, make sure you have a system for organizing your to-do lists. "The hardest part is to dedicate yourself to a system and stick to it," he says. Clark recommends looking to Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen for a possible system of guidelines.

2. Schedule "Do Not Disturb" Time. To get any system to succeed, you'll have to make an effort--whether it's organizing your incoming e-mails and voice mails or clearing out your inbox into to-do files. All that takes undivided attention, notes Clark. He suggests using a bulk of time in the beginning of your day (say from 9:15 a.m. to 10:00 a.m.) to organize and plan your schedule. Let everyone in your office know you're unavailable during that time. "After a while, when [people] see you're really efficient, they'll start respecting that [unavailable time window]."