Manage Time Live
Life King Size
Make 24 equal to 27
“Time stays long
enough for those who use it.”
Leonardo
Da Vinci
If you love life, do
not waste time,
for time is what the
life is made up of.
Bruce
Lee
On the basis of a
competitive examination, I was recommended for appointment against a Group ‘B’ gazetted
post by the Testing Agency. As soon the Personnel Department sent the select
list tussle started for getting retained in the Department; we-myself and one
of my friends; were too junior for making any impact but the competitive
examination had made us the senior most top two officials. It was God’s grace
that the competent authority disposed of the case for being retained in the
Department with simple three words “As per Merit”. This gave both of us great
relief and a confidence that merit has
its own place.
When selected for a
special pay post; the question of posting started; we were given the branch
considered the toughest, sensitive and full of arrears. We could not perform
for a week, had no previous experience of the profile, read the previous files,
set the papers in order, collected rule books, circulars, copies of
instructions and of course guidance from our boss. Submitted one case each next
Monday and to our pleasant surprise the files were received back in the same evening
duly approved by the competent authority as suggested by each of us. This
emboldened us. We made a plan to submit one major case before lunch and one
minor case after lunch each, every day, in addition to routine work; after
about three months, when boss came to our room and asked for list of the
pending cases both of us reported “Nil”; when he insisted we simply said “Sir,
really nothing is pending with the Branch every file is either under submission
or disposed of and gone to old records.” He was too, happy, and remarked the
work which he could not control for the two years has been brought upto date
just in three months.
Thus moral is, involve from the core of your heart with whatever you are
doing; be present physically and more importantly mentally on the job, ensure
self-denial for many good things and gossips, be organized, draw a plan of
action, execute it ruthlessly, draw the deadlines, review if need be and
carefully watch your performance. These are not just words, all this can be
achieved, with only one thing that is unshaken determination. It would be
productive, result oriented, would take lessor time; full of job satisfaction
and a motivator. There are thousand excuses for not doing a job and for doing a
job only “doing” is required. This is
the essence of time management.
The other name for
time management is self-imposed
discipline (SID). It means
discipline by one’s own choice not forced from outside, self-imposed
restriction, task, or situation deliberately created or accepted for yourself;
for example always reaching office in time. This type of discipline strengthens
one’s will power, requires practice, sacrifice of comfort and is real long
lasting; can be applied to any area of your life with advantage of having the
positive results. It is the first steps towards success all over. Honour,
respect and value your time it will reciprocate with a multiplying factor and His
Blessings too. In addition to making life smooth, a person becomes known by his
disciplined nature.
In fact, time management is attitude towards life.
It cannot be developed in a day or so. It is gift of God for some and others
can develop it. But those who do not acquire, lose many good things in life.
Right job at the right time can do wonders and wrong jobs at inappropriate time
can bring disasters. Time is a most valuable resource, but it cannot be
preserved so use it as miserly as one can, let every second should give some
return. Unless we develop an attitude to use the time purposefully or for
leisure we cannot make use of time management, tools and techniques.
People normally try
to find out tools for time management.
Their search is valid; man himself with the attitude and determination to be
successful is the biggest and the only tool available till now. If one falls in
that category he can certainly succeed. However some procedure and guidance can
always be obtained.
Use the time as tool
not as a couch.
John. F.
Kennedy
First identify the waste time in your daily routine; do not confuse it
with rest or leisure time and then the cause, lastly how to marshal it for
useful action. The reasons can be lack of focus while doing something, failure
to delegate to others, lack of effective communication, failure to look ahead,
interruptions-phone calls, gossip, sometimes even the boss; above all treating
the assignment a punishment instead of an instrument of satisfaction. Fatigue
and poor health also lead to waste time increase.
Next important thing
that the time devoted to real job tasks
must be made efficient. Normally everywhere real jobs are routine, special
and creative in addition to regular job duties which are substantive, require
proper and pre-homework, require to be done in time to ensure discharge of the
responsibilities and duties entrusted. Again the person entrusted with the job
is the most important to know the intricacies, procedures, coordination,
collections, secrecy, time required, repetitive or a new issue every time nature
of the job.
“He who every morning plans the transaction of the day
and follows out that plan, carries a thread that will guide him through the
maze of the most busy life. But where no plan is laid, where the disposal of
time is surrendered merely to the chance of incidence, chaos will soon reign.” – Victor
Hugo
However, certain tips for time management can be given;
use computer with latest software, technology and all digital platforms, stay
focused, do the best but do not try to be a perfectionist or an innovator every
time as there is always scope for improvement, set realistic goals, create a
friendship with your work and enjoy what you do, eliminate activities that are
not necessary to achieve a goal, reduce rather eliminate all physical visits
use phone as much as possible, thus optimize effort. Don’t waste time on the
projects still to be tied-up. Fix deadlines and achieve them; marshalling all
that you can do to reach.
“Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work in hand.
The Sun’s ray do not burn until brought to a focus.”
Alexander Graham Bell
Stress is a killer of efficiency, productivity, interest
and output.
Try to be stress free: accept some dust levels in life; do not make better the
enemy of best; make a beginning, handle one task at a time, easier one the
first, develop intimacy with circumstances, environment, surroundings,
colleagues and finally the work- do it with interest, involvement,
understanding, sense of achievement. Always remember once you have accepted an
assignment it for you and your family, you earn your livelihood and your house
runs as you earn. Every work, job, or task is for your own welfare and
happiness so do it yourself with resources completely under your own control;
resources under the control of somebody else are seldom available at the time
of your need. These things would add speed to performance and delivery. Always
understand that hard work done is a reward in
itself; it never
goes waste; it pays back; pays back amply without fail, the only question is
sooner or later, cash or kind, goodness or elimination of sorrows, with your
knowledge or without your knowing, His
ways differ according to our needs.
Important and Urgent are the two terms which I thought
were more or less the same till my first training Superintendent explained in
the class. The whole distinction is summed up by Dr J. Roscoe Miller when he said: "I
have two kinds of problems: the urgent and the important. The urgent are not
important, and the important are never urgent."
One must know
clearly the difference between important
and urgent; necessary to organize and be efficient. For example it is
common endeavor to marry one’s daughter to a well settled, good earning and a
handsome as if made for each other person and all of us prepare daughter making
her that capable. It is an important goal and a task of life. It cannot be
achieved in a day or so, it is long term, requires hard work, investment, care,
sacrifice of comforts and even necessities, it is projection of one’s
personality and character. On the other hand urgent task do not require such a
behavior for example, if CEO directs you to reach his chamber immediately, you
have no choice you have to attend: tells you to deliver a case to Directors
Secretariat; you delivered; the task is over. Nothing important it was just
urgent and urgency was the CEO not the contents of the job.
Important activities have an outcome that leads to us
achieving our goals, whether these are professional, personal, social and even
national, they relate to substantive duties and responsibilities. Urgent
activities need immediate attention; sometimes they are emergencies and are normally
associated with achieving goals relating to somebody else. They are often the
ones, we have to concentrate on and they demand attention because the
consequences of not dealing with them are immediate and may have negativity
associated with them.
"Most of us spend too much time on what is urgent,
and not enough time on what is important."
- Steven Covey
Another issue which is of importance in the matter of
time-management is cause and effect. Choose those activities first which give
the maximum effect: for example if 20% of customers give you 80% of the sales
than one must concentrate on such customers, it is a fountain of success and an
encouragement to take care of others also.
Faith in one’s effort and of success is another important
ingredient of time management. More the faith lesser the time and lesser the
faith more the time. Faith is sum total of use of strengths, taking care of weaknesses,
skill, knowledge, experience, hard work and timely action. Have faith, He would
be with you and be a winner.
Can anyone make 24 equal to 27? Arithmetically NO.
Fact is, if need be, all of us do it in our daily life; get up one hour earlier
than the routine and sleep a hour later, mathematically one has 26 hours,
another one hour is added by the speed of the work due to uninterrupted
environment and concentration.
"Don't be fooled by the calendar. There are only as
many days in the year as you make use of. One man gets only a week's value out
of a year while another man gets a full year's value out of a week."
-- Charles Richards
Time Management has a beautiful chapter that is “Taking
Rest”; it
is the most productive time physically and mentally too; a cup of beverage adds
to alertness of body and sharpens the brain, sometimes it is mine of creativity
and innovation. Do take rest when needed; do not make it an excuse to waste
time. “Take rest; a field that has rest
gives bountiful crop.” -Ovid
"There are two days in the year that we cannot do
anything, yesterday and tomorrow"
~ Mahatma Gandhi
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