Like AKMA and Dennis (and probably everyone who posts with any degree of regularity — and my regularity is anything but), I too get asked about time, time, time, all the time. No one has time. I'm certainly no exception.

Which is why I thought it was pretty funny when Sandra Rosenzweig, the California Lawyer's technology editor, included me in her send recently to "the ten most efficient people I know." (Sandra, we need to see about getting you out more often.) She's doing a story on time management and wanted tips. When I got a little time, I sent her some. Here they are:

1. Pick the 1 or 2 devices you like best and consolidate your activities on them. If you can manage most aspects of your life with one or maybe two devices, you can do almost anything from almost anywhere and make efficient use of downtime. In my case they're a cell phone and a PowerBook. You could get away with a laptop alone, using Skype or Gizmo to handle the phone part, but WiFi penetration isn't yet ubiquitous and cheap enough to make that work well, and I spend too much time in the car to make the laptop my only means of audio communication. Key to this is getting a phone that is both full featured and easy enough to use that the features don't just languish. Aside from its traditional function, the features I use the most on my phone are email and the camera. With this system, I've never felt the need for a Blackberry or a Treo.
2. Get a Gmail account. If it makes sense, get several. Eliminating time once spent searching for and/or attempting to organize email is enormously helpful.
3. Try making all online communications (e.g., writing and responding to emails, blogging) a secondary priority, turning to them only when the day's "offline" communication tasks (meetings, calls, errands) are complete. Most online communications are meant to be asynchronous (i.e., unlike offline communications, the participants need not participate simultaneously). Take advantage. (Can you tell I'm not a big IM-er? This is why.)
4. Make your errands come to you rather than vice versa. E.g., four words that will change your life (if they have not already done so): home delivery dry cleaning.
5. Read The Support Economy, then do your best to help it along (both in the services you use and in those you may provide).

So that's how I find the occasional two minutes to blog. Tiny investment, immediate dividends. Speaking of which, thanks Sandra, for getting that bloggers who contribute to such pieces are genetically hardwired not to wait for the print production schedule to run its course before posting their bit; that's what the next two spare minutes are for.