Mastering time.

• Author: Bonham, Nicole A.
• Position: Time management habits of prominent Alaskans

Is your life out of control? Maybe there's help.

If Georgia O'Keefe couldn't paint each day until she knew her drawers were properly organized and neat-a rumored assertion made by an acquaintance who'd read it somewhere but had lost the proper reference-then imagine the artistic famine that would ensue upon her witnessing the chaotic glory that is my desk.

Honeyed Oak. Roll-top. All the nooks and crannies necessary to bring order to what is by nature disorderly. An expensive salve that didn't work.

The concepts of drawer organizing and space tidying seem logical. But what happens between the logic and the day's end? In no short measure, confusion. Havoc. I'd go so far as to even suggest bedlam on a particularly bad day.

I take solace in knowing I'm not alone in my plight. And I continue to fight the good fight, occasionally filing those faxes and story ideas. I'll push the stray paper clips and errant notes into orderly piles. And I've learned to take pleasure in even the smallest of my successes: a phone call returned promptly. A phone book found in its proper place.

Frankly, it's all about control. And I'd like some. So would most Americans.

BUYING SOME TIME

Lynn Bartlett has it. Discipline. Calm under pressure. The ability to say "No" to superficial demands on already taxed schedules. And she should. Bartlett, a 48-year-old single mother of two, has spent 20 years through six political administrations and five governors at the state Capitol, scheduling the time of some of Alaska's busiest leaders. She currently works as executive assistant to Lt. Gov. Fran Ulmer.

An active player in major fisheries issues involving Alaska and Canada, also rural in-state situations like the Denali Commission, Ulmer is a woman whose time is desired by many. Her daily to-do list could be frightening for the faint of heart. But the aplomb at which she moves through the days, her calm and grace in the public eye, all speak of a woman who is well organized.

And that's where Bartlett comes in, notebook in hand, to help guide the governor's right-hand deputy to serve her office with efficiency and effect. A full-time scheduler and front-end manager is not a resource available for the general workaday Joe or Josephine, but Bartlett's running tenure has given her some tools-tricks of the trade-that she doesn't mind sharing with the rest of us.

"The joke is that nothing is confirmed until it's over. The lieutenant governor's schedule is extremely fluid. You have to respond to the issues of the day besides having the set schedule," according to Bartlett.

"Even...