What is it about some days? They start calmly enough, then you end up feeling as though you've come out of one of those centrifugal-force rides you see at county fairs.

Take last Monday. I came into the office with a list in my head of what I needed to do before noon. At the end of the day, I accomplished only one of those items -- and just barely. In between, a score of distractions threw my focus enough to make me forget what else I needed to do. Before I knew it, it was a little after noon. And just as I was about to catch up, another distraction hit my cranial windshield.

I know what some people will say: I'm not planning my days right, which means I'm not setting my priorities in advance. More important, I'm not writing them down. I was never a great list-maker. I found that most of what I had on my list was wishful thinking anyway, so I quickly abandoned that strategy. Once, I even took a course in time management -- though I found I had no time for that, either, since every other minute I was on the phone with my office.

As part of the time-management seminar, I received a huge book with lots of neat forms to fill out, supposedly to help me track and prioritize my daily activities and to plan my business life way into the millennium (if I were so inclined). Forget that. The book was great the first couple of days, but the novelty quickly wore off. Who wants to lug a daily planner around? Then there was the lesson to write down my goals. I have two goals: to provide great service and to make lots of money, in that order. (If you reverse the order, you'll fail.) The upshot is, this seminar just wasn't for me.

Of course, there are many things on the market designed to keep me organized, including tons of software. I have a contact manager that is capable of incredible things, but I still can't get into the habit of recording notes on my computer. I guess it's an old reporter's habit: I always take notes in a notebook, and then transfer what I need into the contact manager -- except for when I'm distracted and I forget to record them.

Where was I? Oh yeah, distractions. No matter how well you plan your day, if you don't figure in an hour or two of distractions, you'll go nuts trying to accomplish the unattainable. Frustration will set in, and the negative-thinking part of your brain will kick into action.

A colleague of mine has every single moment of the day accounted for on his calendar. As a result, he never has time for anything other than what's on that calendar. This is good for getting what he needs done, but how good is it for a staff that needs instant feedback or hand-holding? (Hmmm. Maybe it is a good strategy after all.)

Oh, gotta go. Two people are waiting to ask me questions, and my son's on the phone looking for a lift to work.

George Giokas is the president and CEO of StaffWriters Plus, a specialty agency that places writers in temporary and permanent positions with corporate and other employers. It also provides editorial consulting work. His database includes 2,500 writers and editors specializing in more than 60 categories. His Web site is located at www.staffwriters.com, and you can E-mail him at george@staffwriters.com.