Can Time Be Really Managed: A Simple & Quick Tip to Stay Ahead And Achieve More Every Single Day Starting Today
In Search of TIME MANAGEMENT Tips Capture Your Today
One day randomly just look at
the time and then ask yourself – ‘What am I doing right now? Is it something
that will advance my life, something that I always wanted to do, or is it
something unproductive which will not help me in any way whatsoever?’
Be truthful to yourself. No one
is listening to your thoughts except you. If you can answer the question with
honesty you will understand the game of what people call Time Management!
To understand time management
let us first understand time.
What is time?
Without getting too scientific,
let us simply look at time based on the rotation of the earth around its axis.
The earth takes twenty-four hours to complete one rotation. This forms day and night.
We can say we have twelve hours of day and twelve hours of night to spend
before the cycle repeats.
Next, let us understand what is
management?
What is Management?
Google defines management as
“the process of dealing with or controlling things or people.”
As of now, we can’t control the
rotation of the earth. It is following its natural course since time
immemorial.
So the question is - Can
time be managed?
Time cannot be captured in
clocks and wristwatches. Time is continuously flowing. It cannot be tamed like
rivers as it does not have a physical form. As the earth rotates around its
axis and revolves around the earth, time keeps changing.
Our wristwatches can stop, they
can become slow or fast but they cannot capture time and store it for us. So,
anything that cannot be captured cannot be managed. Time cannot be managed.
What is the next best option?
The next best option is to
Manage
our actions in the time available to us.
In order to manage our actions, the first thing we should know is what is it that we want to do? What goals do
we want to achieve?
So the secret to time
management – if you still want to use the
phrase - is to decide what to do and then do what you
have decided to do. Allocate a time for the task and then ensure that you do
that task in that allocated time.
But the tragedy for most of us
is that it is easily said than done.
Why do we fail to achieve more?
Here are a few reasons:
1. We have too much on our
plate.
2. We think we can multitask and achieve more in a day.
3. We don’t know what we want
to achieve.
4. We spend too much time
watching television or on smartphones surfing social media sites.
5. We allow ourselves to feel
lazy and procrastinate.
The list can be ever going and
never-ending.
If You Want To Achieve More You Need to Empty Your Plate
Do Less to Achieve More:
Most of us know this but we
don’t follow through. If we have just one or two things to do, we question our
capability – ‘Only one or two things?
Obviously, I am capable of much more.’ We go ahead and prepare a shopping
list of our activities and then are not able to reach even halfway. Then we
wonder where did the time fly away?
Here’s what I would suggest.
Forget what your mind or heart
is saying. Stick to 3 – 5 tasks in a day. These are key tasks that you want to
complete. It should not be the day to day routine tasks. For example, going to
college or the office cannot be a task that you want to achieve in a day.
Completing your assignment or project can be the task that you want to achieve
today.
If you have a task that cannot
be completed in one day, spread it across a couple of days and then each day do
so much that will inch you closer to your task completion. Don’t get overambitious
and try to complete the task on the last day.
Time is not of the essence. Time
just is. Your task is of the essence. How much time or how many days would you like
to invest to complete your task? Are you going to take forever or are you
willing to schedule it and get it completed within a completion date?
There is a beautiful shloka in
Sanskrit that categorizes people in two, based on how they use their time. The
first kind of people are the intelligent ones and the second
kind of people are the fools.
“काव्यशास्त्र विनोदेन,कालो गच्छति धीमताम्।
व्यसनेन च मूर्खाणाम् ,निद्रया कलहेन वा।।“
Intelligent
people spend their time studying literature and philosophy, whereas
those who are foolish and uneducated spend their time in bad and unproductive habits
like sleep, quarrel or some kind of addiction.
I would also
like to add to the above meaning: ‘In
addition to the above qualities, intelligent people also focus on being a
creator rather than being just a consumer. They have ideas, and concepts that
they want to work on that can change the world. For them working on these ideas
is the priority. On the other hand, the fools kill their time doing unproductive
things like sleeping at irregular times, indulging in criticism and gossip that
provides cheap thrills.’
I trust you would have realized
by now that the problem is not time, the problem lies in not being able to
schedule the tasks that you want to achieve. People want to achieve a lot in a
little time that is where the problem of Time Management pops up. If you complete
the tasks one at a time or break them into small chunks and work on them one bit at
a time there never will be an issue with less time. All magnificent buildings
are raised when people working on them arrive daily to finish the task. They
never complain about not having enough time.
In Conclusion
We
all are visitors on planet earth having certain years to live that we calculate
using time. What we decide to do with this time on hand is a choice we all
have. Those who have found what they want to create or achieve, spend their
life fulfilling them while those who don’t, never have enough time to do things.
The problem is not with time, everybody has the same 24 hours. The fact is that
they don’t know what they want to do. Knowing and doing something worthwhile is
difficult, blaming and complaining are easy and these people seek the easy way
out.
I
would like to put a disclaimer here. There are genuine people out there too who are
also facing the challenge of balancing many tasks in their endeavour to achieve
their goals. They may find that a given number of working hours is not enough.
They don’t sit and complain. These creators are out there finding ways to
manage their tasks in the given hours – they
read books, attend seminars, take advice, think and act.
Managing
time is not a problem for them. Finding ways to do more in their time, whether
it’s through delegating or automating, is the choice they have made to
keep on moving ahead in life.
What
is your idea of managing your tasks and making maximum use of your time? Do
share your thoughts below.
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