Have you ever wondered where all your time goes?

You're not alone. People have been talking about time for centuries. Consider this excerpt from "The Book of Fate," written by Voltaire in the 17th century: "Of all the things in the world, which is the longest and shortest, the quickest and the slowest, the most divisible and the most extensive, the most disregarded and the most regretted, without which nothing can happen, which devours everything that is little, and gives life everything that is great?"

The answer is time. According to Voltaire, "Nothing is longer ... since it is the measure of eternity. Nothing is shorter, since it is lacking in all our plans. Nothing is slower for him who waits. Nothing is quicker for him who enjoys. It extends to the infinitely little. All men disregard it. All men regret the loss of it. Nothing happens without it. It makes forgotten everything unworthy of posterity, and it immortalizes the great things."

I have a saying that I've often used: "Killing time isn't murder; it's suicide." We all start out in life with one thing in common; we all have the same amount of time each day, each week, each month and each year. Now it's just a matter of what we do with it.

I've seen estimates that the average person spends seven years in the bathroom, six years eating, four years cleaning house, five years waiting in line, two years trying to return phone calls to people who aren't there, three years preparing meals, one year searching for misplaced items and six months sitting at red traffic lights.

That's nearly 30 years, and it doesn't include a lot of what you might need or want to do. Prioritizing your time should be a top priority.

Getting more done doesn't always mean doing more things. Sometimes it's about doing less. Don't try to schedule every minute of every day. When you make and prioritize your to-do list, leave yourself some flexibility to handle interruptions and unplanned tasks that are bound to come up. You should block out segments of your day for important tasks, but be sure to reserve enough time so that you don't have to rush through things. Taking your time can sometimes be the best use of your time.

Do you need to manage your time better at work? Who doesn't? One of the first things you have to take control of is your time. It always seems like there's not enough time to accomplish everything when you're working hard, but Bob Nelson in "1001 Ways to Take Initiative at Work," says there are some steps you can take to rescue your time. Here is some of his advice:

-- When you get to the end of your day, make a to-do list for tomorrow. Put whatever's most important to accomplish at the top of your list. That way, when you walk in, you'll know just what you need to do and where to start.

-- Make a commitment to arrive at work a half-hour early every day. Then you can get started on whatever's most important and work without interruption for that period of time.

-- Don't jump down on your list to lower-priority tasks until you have made sufficient progress on your higher-priority tasks.

-- Use a calendar and plan. It will organize you, and you won't have to spend time asking what you're supposed to be doing. You'll already know.

-- Go through your inbox at least once a day and prioritize it.

-- Say goodbye to unimportant meetings. If you don't need to be there, don't go. It will waste your time, and your list won't get any smaller.

-- Focus on what only you can do. Then, when possible, delegate to others.

-- Take a couple of hours every week to sit down and look at your big-picture goals. Are you making progress? Set or reset your goals appropriately.

-- Learn to say no. Be polite, but firm. Otherwise, you won't have the focus or energy to attain your goals.

Remember the old saying: "If we take care of the minutes, the years will take care of themselves." A minute doesn't seem like much, but the cumulative value of those minutes determines the quality of a lifetime. Don't waste another second!

Mackay's Moral: If you want to have the time of your life, make the most of your minutes.

A rancher left 17 horses as a bequest for his three children. When the rancher passed away, his children opened his will.

The will stated that the eldest child should get half of his 17 horses.

The middle child should get one-third of the 17 horses.

The youngest child should be given one-ninth of the 17 horses.

Because it is not possible to divide 17 into halves or thirds or ninths, the heirs started to fight among themselves as to the distribution. So they agreed to consult a wise old neighbor.

The wise neighbor listened patiently to the will. After giving the instructions much thought, the wise man brought one of his own horses and added it to the 17, bringing the total count to 18.

Then he started reading the will again. Half of 18 is 9, so he gave the eldest child 9 horses. One-third of 18 is 6, so he gave the middle child 6 horses. One-ninth of 18 is 2, so he gave the youngest child 2 horses.

He had distributed 9 plus 6 plus 2 horses, which came to 17. Then he took his own horse back.

Problem solved.

In this case, the wise neighbor started by acknowledging there was a problem and finding the "18th horse" -- the common ground. In order to reach a solution, you must believe that there is a solution. Once the parties find the common ground, a solution may well follow.

In my opinion, this lesson should be taught not only in every problem-solving workshop but also in every team-building exercise.

Too often, we make problems larger than they are by rushing to solutions. Methodical thinking, breaking down the problem into manageable parts, and considering unorthodox approaches are necessary skills that feed into practical outcomes.

Following are a few simple steps that will lead to more successful problem-solving.

-- Identify the problem. Believe it or not, this step is often overlooked. You know something is wrong, but you haven't identified it. Example: Sales are down. Reason: Inferior product? Ineffective sales force? Competition? Pricing strategy? Get to the root of the problem, or you will not be able to address it.

-- Come up with a list of solutions. Let your brain roam freely. Even bad ideas can lead to good ideas. Stay open-minded and be willing to listen. Consider a variety of ideas and assess the merits and pitfalls of each.

-- Trim the list to one or two solutions. Think about how those actions would best solve the problem at hand. Do you have the resources or personnel to put those solutions into action? Will committing more money help, or hurt elsewhere and create a new set of problems?

-- Take action. Decide what your ideal outcome will be. What help will you need? What is your strategy when you encounter an obstacle? Do you have the flexibility to alter your plans if the problem persists?

-- Finally, evaluate. If you have achieved a satisfactory result, can you sustain your progress? What changes would you make to improve the outcome? Can you use your plan to address other issues?

It's helpful to have a strategy prepared for when problems arise, because problems are a fact of life despite your best efforts. Accept that, but you don't have to surrender to them. Read on for a very creative solution.

A woman tells a psychiatrist: "Doctor, I have a problem and I really need help. Every night I have this terrible feeling that something or someone is under the bed, just waiting to get me."

"That sounds very serious," the doctor replied, "but I think I can help you. It will require many hours of treatment and could take several months. And it could get expensive."

"How expensive?" the patient asked.

"Each session will cost $150," the doctor replied.

"Let me think about it and get back to you," she said.

A week later the woman called the doctor and told him she would not require his services.

"Are you still planning on having therapy for your problem?" he asked.

"No, when I told my husband how much it would cost, he said he could cure me, and he has," she said.

"Really?" the incredulous doctor asked.

"Yes," she said. "He cut the legs off the bed."

Mackay's Moral: You can't solve a problem until you first admit you have one.

Thomas Watson Jr., former chairman of IBM, liked to tell anecdotes about his father, Thomas Watson Sr., who founded the company. One of them went like this: "Father was fond of saying that everybody, from time to time, should take a step back and watch himself go by."

This was the elder Watson's way of saying that everyone needs to step back once in a while to check their perspective. Good advice for everyone.

Perspective in business is important. Perspective in life is very important. Perspective has many definitions, such as the ability to understand what is important and what isn't. It's the capacity to view things in their true relation or relative importance.

Humorist Will Rogers once wrote on keeping one's perspective about other people: "You must never disagree with a man while you are facing him. Go around behind him and look the same way he is looking, and you will see that things look different from what they do when you're facing him. Look over his shoulder and get his viewpoint, then go back and face him and you will have a different idea."

Sometimes it seems all perspective is lost. Consider the current political season. Every side of every issue has a perspective -- often narrow -- that prevents civil discussion. Former New Hampshire Gov. John Sununu once summed it up: "Perspective gives us the ability to accurately contrast the large with the small, and the important with the less important. Without it we are lost in a world where all ideas, news and information look the same. We cannot differentiate, we cannot prioritize, and we cannot make good choices."

Businesses need to keep perspectives fresh or risk failure. Products may come and go, or they may have stood the test of time. Businesses that look at things from their customers' perspectives, rather than resisting change because "we've always done it this way," are more likely to be around for another generation of customers.

Let me give you an example. At our envelope company, our motto is "To be in business forever." The advent of email and paperless transactions certainly has impacted our customers in the ways they do business. Traditional correspondence and billing envelopes have declined. In response, what did we glean from our customers years ago? They advised us to focus on advertising mail, and we invested heavily in that direction. Today, direct mail (advertising mail) is on the rise and coexists and complements the internet.

The Japanese have a saying: You can't see the whole sky through a bamboo tube. In other words, look at the whole picture. Don't be too quick to judge. It's all in how you look at things. As the saying goes, all that glitters is not gold.

Staying with the precious metal theme, you also need to look for the silver lining. Problems will arise, plans will fall apart, and your parade will get rained on. But if you look hard enough -- not just through the bamboo tube -- you just might be able to find a blue sky.

Are you having trouble seeing the silver lining? Feeling burned out can negatively affect your life as well as your career. These techniques can help you regain your perspective and your passion:

-- Fill in the blanks: "In my life, I was once (blank) and now I (blank)." You'll find the answers very enlightening.

-- Reflect on the past. Figure out when you were happiest and what got you the most down. How does your perspective change when you compare your current situation with previous challenges?

-- List five or six principles that guide you in life, and decide whether they are values you truly live by or merely talk about.

-- Try writing a page or two on what you would like to do with the rest of your life. Don't worry about grammar, practicalities or priorities. Just create that dream list.

-- Record your thoughts, feelings and hopes, or tell them to a trusted friend. With someone to witness them, you'll feel responsible for making some changes.

Albert Einstein explained perspective in the simplest terms when he was asked for an explanation of his theory of relativity that would be meaningful to lay people. He wrote: "An hour sitting with a pretty girl on a park bench passes like a minute, but a minute sitting on a hot stove seems like an hour."

Mackay's Moral: When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at often change.