Taming time: how top CFOs organize their day.

• Author: Parker, Robert A.
• Position: Includes related article on 12 tips to better organization

Today's CFO is pulled in many directions. The strategy on the horizon is now as important as the numbers, the detail underfoot. An inundation of e-mail overwhelms the avalanche of snail mail. And cellular phones reach out to touch you with tomorrow's problems before you solve today's.

Financial Executive talked to a number of CFOs about how they organize their business lives. How do they handle the glut of information? How do they set their priorities? When do they find time to think?

Their common organization tool is a calendar, whether electronic or a simple notebook, because their first guiding principle is to have a to-do list - and to know when an action needs to be taken, a decision needs to be made.

Best of all, say many, is an online calendar. "The computer drives everything I do," says Robert Harris, CFO of Advanced Network and Services, an Armonk, N.Y., non-profit organization that promotes education through the use of networking technology. Technology enables him to check a colleague's calendar to see when he or she is free for a meeting, to share spreadsheets and databases before the meeting and to circulate other documents electronically for review afterward. Knowing he can bring the latest version of a file to his desktop is a tremendous boon. "Without e-mail," Harris says, "I'd need three more people to help me."

But being organized clearly has a human side. Not unexpectedly, CFOs who are organized tend to have been in place a while. Today's penchant for changing companies does slow down an executive's sense of organization, at least until he adjusts to the new corporate culture. Likewise, CFOs who have been through revolutionary change, such as a restructure, are often less organized than those who have experienced evolutionary change.

The human touch also extends to the way these executives interact. "I like to talk to human beings, rather than to a voice-recorded message," says Michael Mardy, CFO at Keystone Foods, in Bala Cynwyd, Pa. He also relies heavily on his assistant. "She's an extension of my desk," he says. "She addresses the details, and we all know the devil is in the details. She's worth her weight in gold."

Besides relying on his assistant, Mardy also meets with his department heads two or three times a week. "I like to look someone in the eye. To see if they agree that a particular item should have a high priority, or if they think it doesn't need one because they know something I don't."

But despite his...