The David’s reasoning for not scheduling flexible tasks was simple: Don’t lose the HAVE TO DO TODAY amid the PLAN TO DO TODAY.

Time Management for Dummies by Jeffrey J. Mayer (who also wrote a book about ACT which I highly recommend for anyone using Windows, but use the version that works with ACT for Palm) said that we ought to schedule EVERYTHING. The theory there is that if you don’t plan WHEN you will do it, you probably WON’T do it.

So how have I dealt with these two reasonable but contradictory ideals?

Here’s what I have come up with:

1) things that HAVE to be done TODAY get scheduled in my calendar with a time attached.

2) things I want to do today get scheduled w/o a time attached (this is possible in ACT but I don’t know if it is possibe in Palm Datebook).

When I schedule new NEXT ACTION I put in when I want to do it, but w/o a time. That way I can look down the calendar and see the HAVE TO DO TODAY items and the other items.

Best of both, at least so far.