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Lining Up Your Ducks: Prioritize!
The Inventory System
Another variation of the ABC approach—the inventory sys-
tem—is primarily results-oriented. Rather than having A, B, C 35
values drive your activity, the inventory approach assumes that
you learn the most by reviewing how you handled the day, then
applying what you learned to the next day’s behavior. It argues
that post-activity analysis represents a more realistic, behavior-
changing, feedback-oriented approach to dealing with life than
does value-seeking.
Evaluating the relative productivity of each day’s activities is
central to this system. It’s important to establish at the begin-
ning what you hope to accomplish, then compare that with
what you actually accomplish, to get an idea of how successful
your current methods are and what kinds of changes would
improve current practices.
While this method is not, in itself, a time-saving measure, it
can generate time-saving behavioral changes. As you discover
what activities are more productive and efficient, the theory
goes, you’ll begin to adjust your behavior accordingly. And as
you do so, you’ll start to shave wasted minutes off your sched-
ule. Behavior modification is a significant time management
strategy. If you practice the inventory system with the intention
of altering your behavior according to what you learn from it,
the result will almost certainly be time better spent.

The Payoff System

“What’s the payoff?” Stephanie Winston, author of Getting
Organized (New York: Warner Books, 1991, revised), asserts
that this is the essential question to ask yourself when you
begin to prioritize.
The payoff approach certainly fits well into a long tradition
of viewing time as a sort of currency. “Time is money,” declared
Benjamin Franklin over 200 years ago, when the leisurely pace
of rural America still dominated life. Now, with the flood of infor-