Want to Get Organized? It’s About Time : Lifestyle: Most of us suffer ‘hurry sickness’: trying to get too much done in too little time. And time-management cures don’t always work.

In a rush? And still falling behind? You are not alone. Sixty-two percent of American workers said in a recent survey that they frequently or always feel pressed to accomplish everything they have to do.

The mellowed-out were definitely in the minority: A mere 5% said they rarely or never feel rushed. “Hurry sickness” is what Anne McGee-Cooper, a Texas-based time-management consultant, calls it. Although epidemic, she says, there are antidotes--if the stress doesn’t get to you first.

“Hurry sickness happens when your sole solution to time management is to try to get more things done in the same amount of time,” says McGee-Cooper, author with Duane Trammell of “Time Management for Unmanageable People: The Guilt-Free Way to Organize, Energize and Maximize Your Life” (Bantam).

“In the computer world, it’s called ‘thrashing,’ ” she says. “So much information is entered that the computer is stuck in the sort mode--trying to decide among many things that need to be done--without being able to move into actually doing anything.”

Unchecked, hurry sickness can trigger various physical symptoms--shallow breathing, for one. Because it impedes the flow of oxygenated blood to the brain, it leads to fuzzy thinking and forgetfulness, making you fall even further behind. “It’s another case of when you need to slow down to go faster,” McGee-Cooper says.

But, obviously, the time-honored prescriptions put forward by time-management experts don’t always mean a cure. Especially if you fall into what McGee-Cooper calls a divergent or “right-brain thinker” category, or are someone who thinks about time in a flexible “poly-chronic” rather than a rigid, “mono-chronic” fashion.

“Don’t ask about how I manage my time,” says free-lance writer Cindy Castleman, “but rather, ask me how much money I’ve wasted on time-management books.”

Castleman is a typical example of the person who finds it difficult to conform to old-style rules for systems and schedules: “I hate filing. I like putting things in piles--I like the physicality of piles, and having everything all out in the open, where I can see it.”

“And,” she says, “I can find everything I need.”

Back in the early 1970s when McGee-Cooper was going for a doctorate at Columbia University in “creative problem-solving and the politics of change,” she began to notice that a lot of people defied all time-management dogma--and were succeeding. Many of them had messy desks, rarely finished one task before moving on and worked from multiple to-do lists. They even, she noted, handled papers many times, ignoring a prime time-management commandment--”never handle a piece of paper more than once”--from Alan Lakein’s much-reprinted 1973 book, “How to Get Control of Your Time and Your Life” (Signet).

“It began to occur to me,” says McGee-Cooper, “that maybe the classic rules didn’t work for everyone. . . . Left-brain people are ‘convergent thinkers.’ They like using unchanging logical systems based on abstract thinking and memory, repetition, conformity to standards. None of this comes easily to right-brain people.”

But failure at managing time properly may not be merely a right-brain/left-brain issue. What author Dru Scott dubs “the secret pleasures of mismanaging time” are detailed in her classic 1980 book “How to Put More Time in Your Life” (Signet).

The psychology behind the incurable procrastinator, the chronic document-misplacer or list-loser, the person who is always late--even to pleasurable outings--is more complex than most people realize. And tardiness often brings hidden benefits to the guilty party.

The satisfaction of defying authority or thumbing one’s nose at the status quo, for example. “Some of us mismanage time to get attention or gain a sense of power,” Scott writes. “Mismanaging time can also serve as a way to avoid unpleasant tasks or shirk personal responsibility. It can also be used to resist change, sidestep new feelings, avoid feeling close to others, and deal with the age-old fear of feeling ‘too good.’ ”

But many people, even if optimistic about the future, are too nose-to-the-grindstone to focus on it, continually bogged down in getting the laundry folded, the car repaired, the bills sent out, the kids fed, the letters done--in other words, stuck on a to-do list.

Being unclear about where your life is leading is another reason daily time is mismanaged. “Planning is bringing the future into the present so that you can do something about it right now,” Lakein writes in his book.

But time-management experts agree that lists must address more than chores. Loren Hulber, president of Day-Timers Inc., which makes calendars and date books, says, “Every individual needs to set down the beliefs and goals that are most meaningful to them. List what are professional goals, what are your dreams for your family, your community, as well as personal development goals for expanding your life. Once you have those established, you can begin to set out your priorities.

“If people don’t have a life plan,” says Hulber, “then life is happening to them, instead of them happening to life.”