Time Management Quiz

Can you benefit from better time management? Take this quiz to find out.

1. Do you find yourself watching television or listening to the radio because you can't find enough time to write?
   
   
2. Do you find yourself constantly harassed by last-minute chores that seem to eat away at your free time?
   
   
3. Do you find yourself saying, "If only I had half an hour (an hour, a day, a weekend, or some other specific time period), I could accomplish a lot of writing"?
   
   
4. If you listed everything you're committed to do every week--cleaning, laundry, home maintenance, shopping, cooking, personal (church, PTA, etc.)--and realistically estimated how long each would take, would these routine commitments take all your "spare" time and more besides, so that you put off some and ignore others?
   
   
5. If your answer to question 4 above is "yes," do you still consider each chore as necessary, even though you keep putting it off? Do you carry such chores over from week to week rather than admit some could be skipped completely, without personal suffering or a sense of loss? Do you try to do all chores yourself rather than delegating them to other members of your family?
   
   
6. Do you really need as much sleeping time as you routinely get, to feel alert and fully rested when you wake up?
   
   
7. Do you feel obligated to talk to someone on the phone regardless of the time or circumstances?
   
   
8. Do you feel that you must see one task to completion before starting another, even if there are periods when you find yourself to be non-productive?
   
   
9. Do you tell yourself that you will be ready to write as soon as you can buy an electric typewriter, a word processor, or a computer?
   
   
10. Do you accept invitations to parties and events you neither wish nor need to attend because you feel that the experience might help your writing?
    
    
11. Do you feel put upon by others because you routinely agree to do something for them that they could just as easily do for themselves?
    
    
12. Do you tell yourself that you will start writing as soon as you convert a room or a special space into a permanent work area?

How to score:

Give yourself one point for each "yes" answer. If you have one to three "yeses," you are doing a better-than-average job of time management. Four to five "yes" answers show that you have made an effort to manage your time but are having problems. More than five "yeses" means that you have been keeping yourself from being productive as a writer.