Self Time Management : Respect to GOD

Self Time Management : Respect to God

"Time and Tide wait for none" - this line underlines the very essence of time and time management. Lord Krishna in Shrimad Bhagwat Geeta describes himself as Kaal i.e. Time in lines "प्रह्लादश्चास्मि दैत्यानां, कालः कलयतामहम्" of Shloka 10.30 and "कालोऽस्मि लोकक्षयकृत्प्रवृद्धो" of shloka 11.32. So time itself is as important and holy as Almighty God. Acharya Chanakya says that even a moment can not be brought back on cost of precious pearls. Therefore wasting of time is a big blunder. "आयुष: क्षण एकोपि सर्वरत्नैर्न लभ्यते । नीयते तद् वृथा येन प्रामाद: सुमहानहो ।।"  Narad Ji in Narada Samhita says "क्षणार्धमपि व्यर्थं न नेयम्"  i.e. even a fraction of second should not be wasted. This is the level of importance of Time in our traditions. It is rightly said that killing time kills oneself. Therefore when Time Management is discussed, it implies Self Time management i.e managing self for maximum utilization of time. Time can not be managed, we may manage ourselves only. Time Management is an art, a skill which is to be learnt, exercised and mastered upon. Here are some practical tips for the same, with each tip beginning from letters of TIME, which may be beneficial for all including students, social workers, working professionals & home makers.

Taming Social Media Usage

The most effective mechanism of time management is Taming your Mobile or social media usage. At least for your most critical 2-3 tasks, Do deep work keeping complete distance from mobile or social media usage. One best way to tame social media usage is to fix some daily time slots for social media usage including checking and responding mails or WhatsApp messages. Some more effective ways of limiting the social media or mobile usage may be Keeping social media apps away from home screen, keeping notifications of social media Off, Reserving a weekly bigger timeslot for checking social media (say, Fridays between 6 and 8 pm), Not keeping data ON every time, spending at least one hour on a Screen-Free hobby such as Shakha, Yoga Class, Walking etc and  leaving phone away from bed when u go for sleep.

Integrating time blocks with breaks

One effective strategy of efficient and result-oriented usage of time is to take breaks to make. Adopt any method such as 50-10-50....i.e. taking last 10 minutes of every hour as break after continuous sitting of 50 minutes. Working in Time Blocks supported and energized by breaks will increase your efficiency.'

Monitoring your daily activity schedule 

The basic supporting mechanism of time management is monitoring or scanning of your daily activity schedule. Note one hour block such as 9-10 AM, 10-11 AM etc on your diary and after every one hour, note activities done by you in that hour with complete honesty. Doing this thing even for one week, will let you know that which are the biggest time killers for you or in which things, you take more time as compared to planned one etc. It will help in further improvement of your planning. Scanning and Planning should go hand in hand.

Enumerating activities of next day

Famous Pareto 20-80 Formula says that 80% of our activities yield 20% of our results and vice versa. It means majority of our day long activities are not that much productive as some of the selected 20% activities are. The biggest crux of time management is to identify those 20% Prime Activities of the day. We need to enumerate and list most critical three works of the day and be assertive to accomplish those tasks with priority. These activities may be your one hour physical exercises including yoga, Surya namaskar, meditation etc or other official tasks. So on previous night, all tasks to be completed on next day should be enumerated on paper with clear identification of three most critical tasks of the day. Warren Buffet Rule or the quadrant time-management system also talks about splitting your activities into four quadrants based on their urgency and importance  with their respective 4D actions such as  Urgent as well as Important (DO), Urgent but not important (Delegate to someone), Not urgent but important (DEFER), Not Urgent - Not important (DROP)

Working on these mechanisms will gradually teach us importance of time and soon we will start realizing that our most of the tasks are getting accomplished and we are not running short of time for all types of works.