TIME MANAGEMENT

God is said to have control over all the five virtues, we don’t have as we are common human being so of course we need to adjust and mange with what we have. In this corporate world one thing that is most important is time both in personal and professional aspect.

I have written personal before professional because we were human being before and became professional afterwards. So, what does it means, we should take care of all personal issues first and then professional issues. My reply is “NO”. You may be thinking this is irony. No, not , why not to understand this we have to see this topic from finance perspective. Finance perspective because we all became professional after being gifted a life of human being from God with only one aim to earn money to lead a better human life.

Lets take a simple example to understand this. I hope we all must have withdrawn money from bank either by going to bank or through ATM. Lets try to remember what is written in the statement slip , I hope many of you would have remembered ,the term used by bank for our withdrawal is “drawings”.

Let me define drawing “ When the income earned from business is used for personal purpose it is called drawing”. So, in a businessman language you are not supposed to use business earnings for personal use.I hope I would have made my point clear by now, I meant to say we should be thankful to our profession for being so grateful to us that we are able to do what we are not supposed to do.

Let we all say “BIG THANKS” to our profession today, if we have not done that before.

You all must be thinking , the statement is still irony how does it follow the same rhythm. We have professional issue to prevent us from any personal issue, so now it follows the rhythm . But blindly following this line also lead to very worst personal issue. So, what to do?

We need to manage time , so that both professional and personal life augment each other rather than being a speed breaker to each other.So, from now whatever I am going to say will be generic, i. e. for both personal and professional life.

When we talk of Time Management we should also think like a good manager , what will be the issues we will be facing when we are implementing Time Management. Some issues are:

• How to create time?
• What about losing momentum in between of implementation?
• How to organize time to maximize our productivity?

So, we need to find answer of all these issues, but first let us know what is Time Management.

Definition of Time Management depends on the kind of lifestyle we have chosen to live. So, lets try to define Time Management by asking few questions to our self, if we answer this question by being impartial at the end of last question we all would know what is Time Management I assure you all of that.

So, lets ask the following questions to ourself, I will also provide Hints to answer these question if possible use that:-

• What are we doing?

[Hint: This has to be answered with respect to responsibilities]

• What are we supposed to be doing?

[Hint: Follow the hint of the first question]

• What should we be doing differently?

[Hint: So that the answer of the previous two question matches 100 percent]

• How do we start changing?

[Hint: This question has to be answered by me so read below]

Actually, it is the last question from where actually Time Management starts .But the previous questions are necessary to understand why we need to answer the last question. One should always do that first which is in his control. Out of all the thing which is in our control we should prioritize our responsibilities in three categories-“Got to do’s”,” Ought to do’s”, “Like to do’s”. It follows the priorities respectively in the order in which it is written. In the worst day we should at least complete “Got to do’s”. In best day all the three and in a fair enough day we should at least complete the first two. Now the question is what to put in “Got to do’s” because it matters the most .From professional aspect the activity which is actually leading to loss of money and from personal aspect the activity which is actually breaking/hurting the relationship which we don’t want to break/hurt.Rest all activities according to our lifestyle will fall in the other two category.

So, In short Time Management is what scout says ”Be Prepared”.

Now , after knowing what is Time Management ,it’s the time to take up issues one by one. The most toughest of them is” How to create Time?”

The biggest problem is that time is a constant not a variable, so creating time actually means saving time. There are different ways of creating time but all are related to the task and duties one face on a daily basis. Following are the ways:

• Someone else does it for me

In business it is called outsourcing and delegating and in personal life it’s called “Jim’s Mowing” or the chores children’s do for pocket money.

Juniors are suggested not to practice this.

• I still do it, but I do it as efficiently as possible.

This is gentleman’s way of doing a thing. Seven P’s method invented by British SAS embrace this method” Prior Planning and Preparation Prevents Piss Poor Performance”

In personal life this method is not suggested.

• It just doesn’t get done

Warning : Don’t practice this in professional life.

Practice this as much as possible in personal life if one wants to breakup, it really works believe me.

• It’s to sleep less

Follow this method if small duration investment has long duration profit, the same rule is true for both personal and professional life.

• Are you hooked on Adrenaline?

Follow this in extreme condition, as this is an addiction.

The next issue is “What about losing momentum in between of implementation?”

When this happens try to find the reason why our wave of euphoria might come crashing down on us.

The best way of doing this is to review, across the world one will find good manager time their reviews when the business is going through the low. Now the question is what to review. Just review why one has lost momentum .In professional life there are qualified persons to do this for the organization. But in personal basis even if we are able to answer why we have lost the interest to carry the momentum, I think this issue can be solved. If one agree on what the problem is, one will also agree that he/she could have taken steps to counter them before they exert their subversive influence on the implementation.

Now we have reached to the root of the issue “what has prevented one to take those steps” is the real reason of losing momentum, rectify that and you are back on the stage of successful and happy life.

One more issue is yet to be discussed” How to organize time to maximize our productivity?”

Actually this issue exist only in professional life , in personal life no such issues come because no matter how one spends time with their beloved one’s they always enjoy it.

For this we have to understand the foundation structure , we all know that for foundation to be strong base, it’s base has to be wide which narrows up as it goes up. Same way one has to create blocks of three kinds depending upon the time at which one is most energetic, for some of them it is of course early working hours for some it is late working hours. Following are the types of blocks:

• Large Blocks-Your day’s Foundation

This should be ideally 20% of your effective working hours and by following Pareto’s law you should do 80% of your work in this period.

Also this should be uninterrupted period if possible. All important and difficult part of the job should be done during this period.

• Medium Blocks(Grouping Blocks)-Multitasking isn’t always the best option

The duration of this block depends on the kind of job one do. Generally the work which doesn’t get affected even if one gets interrupted and one can again start from where one has left it those work should be done in this period.

• Small Blocks-The new items and low priority tasks to be handled

This block should come at the end of the day. Low priority task should be done here and also the new things should be started here , so that one can identify problems and put that in the Large Block for the next day.

After discussing all the aspects of Time Management according to me ,how to practice this is the one last thing left. There are different ways for doing this some people make “To do List” , some people remember this in their mind itself. So, it depends on how one is used to remember things. Whatever the method one follows, one most important line I want to tell is

“Taking Time To Manage Time Is Definitely Time Well Spent”