DR. WALLACE: I'm a busy high school student, and sometimes I believe my eyes are bigger than my feet and my hands! By this, I mean there are more things that I wish to do and accomplish in any given week that I am able to keep up with fully. I find that I often start working on a project, then receive a phone call, text or direction from a family member and I lose momentum. Then inevitably, I need to start something else and I find it hard to get back to the first thing I was doing.

Add multiple later layers of the same type of situation and by late in the week, I've only completed a couple of things I wanted to accomplish, and I've got several others in various "stalled" states that are hard to reengage quickly and fully. How can I keep up with so much when it seems like there are never enough hours in the day? — I Start and Stop Too Often, via email

I START AND STOP TOO OFTEN: It sounds to me that you need to apply a combination of planning time and prioritization. Take the 10 to 15 things you feel you must accomplish in any given week and rank them in groups of importance. If you have 15 items, break them into three groups of five. Rank each item within the group, and then when you begin working, expect the occasional interruption, but instead of drifting too far away, make notes on whatever the interrupting item was, and re-categorize it into context with everything else you need to do that particular week. Then immediately return to the highest priority item and work on it until you complete it fully. Then go to the second item in the first group, then the third and so forth.

By approaching things this way, you'll be sure to get the most important items done each week, no matter what. If a few of your lower-level items do not get accomplished, perhaps you can find time on the weekend to at least address them in a cursory manner.

The key to time management is advanced planning, prioritization and having the fortitude to stick with your game plan daily to the utmost of your ability to do so.

SOMETIMES MY SMALL PROBLEMS GROW INTO BIG ONES

DR. WALLACE: How can I avoid letting small problems turn into big ones that I have to deal with later in a much more difficult way?

Because I'm busy just like everyone else, I'll often dismiss small problems that come up from time to time. Some of the small problems go nowhere, but some of them gather momentum and become big headaches for me within a matter of days or even over a week.

How can I deal with this to avoid future problems? — I Don't Need More Headaches, via email

I DON'T NEED MORE HEADACHES: Whenever you notice something has become a minor problem, do your best to nip it in the bud. Take a few minutes to deal with it right away, rather than allowing it to lie dormant and perhaps fester.

To begin with, make a list of all of the problems you've dismissed in the past and separate them into two categories: those that went away on their own, and those that developed into bigger problems. Just knowing this should help you going forward as to what items can be dangerous.

Other things you can do to deal with problems are to discuss them with a person or individual who may be affected very early on. Addressing a situation verbally with someone tends to ameliorate most future problems.

It's a lack of communication and having another person, institution or group misunderstand the situation while receiving only silence from you in the interim that can at times cause these bigger future problems.

Finally, see if there are any of your smaller issues that you can delegate to someone to assist you with. Perhaps you may have a sibling, a friend, a parent, a teacher or someone else you are on good terms with who can assist you occasionally with minor things. This is another strategy to avoid allowing silence to prevail when something small first arises.

Dr. Robert Wallace welcomes questions from readers. Although he is unable to reply to all of them individually, he will answer as many as possible in this column. Email him at [email protected]. To find out more about Dr. Robert Wallace and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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