Every moment of life is precious. Time is the essence of life. It is the wealth given to us by Nature. Everyday all of us get 24 hours; nothing less, nothing more. Now, it is up to us how we use it. People who know how to make the best use of every moment easily open the doors of success in their lives; and those who misuse time keep suffering the ignominy of failures one after the other. There is a saying that “spent time and spent words cannot come back”. Everybody is tied by the limits of time; even God respects the boundaries of time.
Work wins appreciation only when it gets completed in a requisite time frame. Beyond the time allotted, work loses all its utility however good may have been its quality. Just as falling of rains after the crops have dried up have no use; likewise, when the time is past the deadline the work loses its importance and value. When iron is hot it can be cast into whichever shape we want. Once it gets cold nothing can be made out of it, however much we may beat the same. In the same way, a person who has learnt to wisely harness his time and has understood how to cast himself according to the need of the time has actually learnt the true mantra of life.
Shakespeare wrote in one of his plays “I wasted time, and now doth time waste me”. It is true that a person who wastes even a little bit of time loses wonderful opportunities that he could have otherwise availed of by utilizing that time. All the great leaders have one thing in common. They wisely utilize every moment of their lives. When other people are busy squandering away time in self-indulgence and laziness, great men are busy conceptualizing plans for the future. There is no person in history who squandered away his time and still managed to achieve greatness.
Therefore, there is a dire need to manage time wisely. “Conscientious Time Management” refers to meticulous planning of time and sincere execution of this plan. This is the only mantra to attain success in any endeavor. A simple change in outlook and some modification in one’s daily routine can result in a big leap forward towards greater achievements. We discuss below a few simple methods for managing one’s time efficiently.
First of all, one needs to set one’s goal of life or that for the near future or at least for the week or even the day. This goal setting is essential to managing one’s time well, because goal gives a destination and vision to work toward. Accordingly, one can manage one’s priorities, time, and resources to get there. So if you have not yet set the goal, it’s time for setting one.
Secondly, one should prioritize one’s tasks. It not only increases our efficiency in work, but also gives us the dexterity of finishing the work on time. When we are not able to clearly comprehend which task should be done first and which later, we end up finishing unimportant tasks first. The important tasks which remain incomplete cause us embarrassment and we have to pay for them in one form or the other. While ascribing priorities we must take special care to find out which are the urgent tasks which should be completed immediately. Next, we must take up tasks which are important and whose deadlines are drawing near; and so on.
Thirdly, one should not procrastinate. When we put off tasks that we should be focusing on right now, we feel guilty that we haven’t started; we come to dread doing the task; and, eventually, dejection and disappointment overpowers us when we fail to complete the work on time.
Fourthly, one must be realistic in taking up the task. Many a time, we are unable to assess how much time is needed to finish a particular task. This improper assessment also affects its timely completion. Sometimes we agree to take up tasks beyond our capability and then are not able to devote sufficient time for it. This results in failure of timely completion of the task. Therefore, before taking up any task, we must assess the time and effort required for the completion of work.
Lastly, we must make a ‘to-do’ list of all the tasks we have on hand. If some tasks have to be taken up in the morning, then its plan should be made the previous night itself and work on it must start as the first thing in the morning. This would save time and there would be no undue haste while finishing the task. Prior to taking up the task, we must clearly know whether we are adequately equipped for it or not. We must assess whether requisite expertise is with us or not. If we do not know the way to complete the task, then it would take us time to develop expertise and then do it. In the tasks that we have the expertise we take much less time to finish. While making the plan we must bear this in mind that for the tasks that we will take up for the first time, we must assign more time and for the other tasks in practice, realistic time frames should be assigned.
Time management is an art, which like other arts gets perfected by continuous practice. If we follow the guidelines given above wholeheartedly then we will be able to achieve real success, not just in one sphere but in all spheres of life. We will be able to learn the true Art of Living.
Akhand Jyoti Magazine 2016 Jul-Aug