If everyone is given the same amount of time in a day, how do some people manage to squeeze more out of the same time?
Swami Narasimhananda
Nobody seems to have time these days. Everyone is busy and I mean everyone, even the small kid in playschool. And, that kid tells it in so many words that she is busy! Teenagers are busy expanding their network on the Internet and calling their buddies to discuss phenomenal problems like the latest fashion trends and the latest posts on their friends’ social networking websites! Adults are busy running errands in their homes and running errands for their workplaces, of course the latter they do in the illusion that they are important people indispensable to their offices. Even retired people are busy thinking about their good old days and how everything has gone so wrong in this universe! So, everyone is busy, but is everyone great or the top in one’s field?
If we study closely the daily routines of people who are great in their fields, we find that they have time for almost everything and are able to accommodate emergencies too. Since, everyone is given the same amount of time in a day, how do these people manage to squeeze more out of the same time? To understand this, we need to do an experiment. We need to see if we can make time for an emergency situation. What do we do when some close friend or relative is seriously ill and we have to rush them to the hospital, and probably stay there for attending on them? And that leads to a surprising finding that no matter how busy we are in our everyday lives, we always find time for emergencies and somehow still manage our daily routine. This sets us thinking: how much of our planned routine is really planned?
Why are we able to make time for emergencies? Because, we have an intense desire to face them; these emergencies are mostly of ‘do or die’ situations. This means that if we have a strong desire to do something, we will have time for it. This also explains why most people spend so much time on emails, phone calls, messaging, and social networking websites. They do this because they feel appreciated, loved, and connected. Some countries have a strict policy on how many times employees can check their personal emails in a day. This means that managing time is about knowing what to desire and what not to desire. Goalsetting and working and desiring to achieve them help to evolve a stress-free time management.
An assessment of one’s daily routine and the amount of time spent on daily chores gives one a clear understanding of the amount of time that can be used for other activities. Very few people, if at all, work more than ten hours a day. Here, work means the actual work and does not include the time taken to commute to and fro the office. An average person spends many hours in travel and waiting. These hours can be used purposefully for listening to talks, audiobooks, or other purposes. Socialising and browsing the Internet also need to be done with discipline. This frees up much time for one to pursue a hobby or even learn a new language. It is again another interesting point that highly successful people keep themselves engaged in purposeful activities whereas the average person is wasting one’s time and is not even aware of that.
Ironical though it might seem, proper and enough rest of the mind and the body enables one to use time more effectively because such a body and mind have much less disturbance within. While engaged in any activity, one should free oneself from interruptions to that activity in the form of phone calls, emails, mobile phone notifications, and other such distractions. For most of the phone calls one receives, it is perfectly alright if one attends to them a little later. There are many software and applications that help one to keep away from distractions while doing work.
The art of saying ‘no’ to some requests and not taking up some assignments has to be cultivated
keeping in mind one’s goals. This practice alone would free up a considerable amount of time for one to pursue
meaningful activities. In sum, time management is mind management.
(The columnist is a monk of the Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission and the editor of Prabuddha Bharata)
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