When I go into a visit with a school and speak directly with the recruitment team, one of the most common frustrations I hear is the lack of time to get all of their work and tasks completed. So, I am sharing some of the ideas and tactics I've collected over the years.
If you know much about personality types, you may recognize my Myers-Briggs type, ENFP. For the purposes of this article, let me share that ENFP's aren't the most focused of all the types - in fact, they may be the least focused. So I have had to use many of these tactics over the years to get projects completed and accomplished.
Let's start with the elephant in the room: How can I get through ALL of the email I receive every day? Well, while this concept is certainly not new, it is one that can dramatically improve the number of tasks you complete in a day.
TIP 1: Limit the time you allow yourself to check email. Sounds crazy, right? But constantly checking your email interrupts your other, many times more important tasks.
Instead of checking your email several times each hour (or as is the case for most of you reading this - many, many times each hour), schedule two or three one-hour blocks to check email each day.
Before I left my last position in higher ed, I was receiving 125 emails/day. I was spending four and five hours of my time just replying to emails.
If you start at 8, then set aside an hour at 8:30 or 9:00 to check email. 
Then close your email program and turn off new mail notifications (or the tease to get you inside of your email). Check it again at 3:00, and spend an hour responding to messages.
The best example of someone using this method was a former client of mine, named Bob. Bob was clear with his prospects when he first met them over the phone or in person. He told you
TIP 2: Instead of hitting reply to the email from your colleague on campus, just call or walk over to her/his office to discuss the situation. Especially for those few colleagues you know that are prone to over-email. (And if you don't know any, then you may be that colleague...) Just implementing this tactic may save you 10-15 emails each day.
In case you missed it, here is a BONUS TIP: See these four terms to stop using with your emails to prospective students. It may increase your response rate, and limit the amount of emails you have to send before they engage.
Here's a tip to help you build a better strategy for your day.
TIP 3: Spend the first 20-30 minutes of your day looking at your tasks you need to accomplish. Make a To-Do list. Now at this point, some of you may say to yourself, 
"Duh. I've been using to do lists my entire adult life." That's all well and good, but this is a little different. This is to be a realistic to-do list that you will complete for the day. Don't include email or any meetings you have on your calendar. Instead, include one item that is large in scale; that needs to have more than an hour to do. It may be completing performance evaluations, updating your department's strategic plan, reviewing incomplete applications for the prospects interested in your online business program.
Then, add two or three other, smaller and yet important tasks that must be completed for the day. The key here is to limit your list to 3-4 items to be completed in the day.
This is an activity to help you focus, set your goals for the given day and those tasks that you never have the time to do. You know, the ones you end up taking home, or coming in early and leaving late for...
Also, as an alternative, I know some folks who create the to do list at the end of their day rather than at the beginning. That way, when they come in the next morning, they can jump to it. It also helps them clear their mind when they leave work, and focus their thoughts on family or other personal activities faster. The key is starting the day with your list so you can focus your energy accordingly.
Our next two tips are critical. They are the tips that tie this all together.
TIP 4: Don't multitask. This may be the fourth tip, but it is most likely the most valuable one I can give. Yes, I buried down here, but it is a very important one - so keep reading!
Do you have any idea how much time we lose each day for interruptions? It's probably more than you're thinking in your head right now. According to Basex Research, we lose 2.1 hours everyday from interruptions. Why is it that large? Well, mainly because of the time it takes us to re-focus. On average, it takes us 25 minutes to regain focus and recollect our thoughts from where we left off.
Do you know who is most likely to cause us to lose focus? Ourselves - by checking that email that just came in, by clicking on the link to the article in that email - which by the way, led us to that other link for the article we liked better. And of course, that led to another link that was related. Six clicks, and 45 minutes later, we're ready to get back to it. So shut down that email!
TIP 5: Use your calendar more effectively - To totally commit to the first four tips - you must actually insert those two, one-hour daily blocks of time for your email into your calendar. Block 8:30-9:30, and 3-4. I know, I know. In our meeting-crazy world it seems impossible. But, you will never accomplish this without committing to it. If you don't block that time, then something else will take it, and now you are right back to squeezing in those few minutes each hour, throughout the day, checking email.
Change is easy. Maintaining the change in our lives, though, is what is hard. Almost all of us start our new year with a resolution, but within a week, or maybe a month, we stop.
Taking this time, and putting it in blocks in your calendar will help prevent you from having the other "spur of the moment" tasks consuming your day.
In addition to blocking the time for email, block the 60-90 minutes of time to work on that large project in your to do list (See Tip 3).
Also, if you need to commit a lot of time for phone calls to prospects, then insert it into your calendar. Give yourself an hour for every 10 calls you need to make. This will limit your interruptions. If you like to send emails after a call or voice mail, do them collectively after all calls are made - unless you can send them through your CRM without having to get into your email program. (You don't want to open Outlook or Gmail and get distracted.)