Here is an interesting approach that enhances the usual tasklist and calendar program to provide some help in actually managing and allocating your time. From the web site description:

My Timeboxing is a timeboxing application which allows you to allocate certain amount of time to each of your tasks, and then track your progress. It is very user friendly and easy to use.

Timeboxing is a new way how to rapidly increase your productivity and reduce time wasting. Simple schedule how long you would like to work on certain projects or tasks and then track your progress. You will be finally able to accomplish your plans.

You probably know that if you just want to do some certain actions, you will often not be able to do them all as planned, due to before unknown circumstances. Timeboxing is the solution. Just commit yourself to work on something for certain amount of time. The more you do – the better!

What’s interesting to me about this is that you can plot the tasks of your whole day out, with time estimates, and get a running total of the number of tasks you have accomplished, how many need to be completed, the amount of time you have worked on the tasks and how much time you have left, and your percentage of your estimating efficiency.

Here is another discussion about timeboxing from Dave Cheong. You don’t need software to do it!