Top 9 Multitasking Masters

Think you're busy? Take a look at Guy Fieri's calendar. Or a U.S.Army general's. Or an in-demand teenage actor's. Or the CEO of a globally recognized company's.On the following pages, some of the busiest people on the planet explain how they get it all done.

- David Yellen

GUY FIERI

Chef, author, TV personality, Donkey Sauce maker

Have a great relationship with your attorney before you need to,” says Guy Fieri. “And with your accountant—don’t wait till you’re sitting in the middle of all kinds of questions to try to understand how your accounting system works.”

This isn’t how Fieri talks on Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives, or any other of his Emmy-winning TV shows. You won’t hear him like this if, on some lucky night, you happen to catch him at one of his more than 60 restaurants (he does pop in!), dishing out the most bewitching condiment to ever grace a sandwich, his signature Donkey Sauce. But Fieri didn’t become a celebrity chef superstar phenomenon—a career that now also includes running a winery and authoring a shelf-load of best-selling books—on tattoos and personality alone. He did it because he’s equally a nuts-and-bolts entrepreneur, and because he has a great relationship with his attorney and his accountant. “Fortunately,” he says, “I haven’t had my ass handed to me, because I’ve been pretty good about looking ahead.”

Looking ahead. To understand how a man can cook a bacon mac ’n’ cheeseburger in Vegas, host a TV show at a diner in the middle of Iowa, and sample his latest vintage in Sonoma at what seems like the same time, it’s important to understand what “looking ahead” means to him. It doesn’t mean just big-picture. It means tomorrow.