Pearls of Wisdom: Time management is the route to success

For success, happiness, contentment and prosperity-managing time is vital. It’s how you treat your time and how you develop organizational skills that will determine your life

Early to bed, early to rise

Getting up early in the morning is truly a bonus. Not only does it help you to get more work done during the day but also it also sets the tone and pace of your whole day. When this early start is invigorated by your personal appointment with God, you will truly find your day transformed!

Start early! Spend your earliest working hours in silent prayer or meditation. Give time to your parents/spouse/children. Get to work before time. Organize your desk. Check your schedule for the day. Hand your day over to God’s care and begin your work. You will be amazed by what you can achieve!

Organize your life in day-tight compartments

Draw a circle to represent a 24-hour period. Into this circle, chalk out all the work that you think you can achieve, conveniently, comfortably, without stress. Forget all the rest. It will have to wait for tomorrow. True, there may be a lot of work that you have to do. But there is a limit to what you can accomplish today. Therefore, put a cap on it! When the day is over, plan for the next 24 hours.

Set your priorities

Ask yourself what is important for you and for your work. Devote time to those activities. It is very important to eliminate non-essentials from your life-activities which are neither important nor useful.

Don’t force yourself to hurry

“The truly wise ones, are never in a rush to do their work,” says the poet, Subrahmanya Bharati. “They work slowly, silently, like the seed that sprouts into life.”

Isn’t that an amazing image-the seed that sprouts into new life! You cannot put it on Fast – Forward mode; nor can you put it in slow motion. When you hurry, you cannot keep your mind calm and focused. Modern lifestyle, culture and work force us to hurry, hurry, all the time! Of course, we need to be quick and efficient in all that we do-but hurry is wasteful!

Do one thing at a time

Don’t fritter away your energies attempting to do too many things-chances are, that you will not do justice to any one of them.

  • Don’t talk on the phone while you are writing a report.
  • Don’t read while you are eating.
  • Don’t SMS when someone is talking to you.
  • Don’t talk on the cellphone when you are driving! You are jeopardising your life and others’ lives!

When you do too many things at a time, the vital power of your mind is scattered, and your mind is distracted, and your work will not be the best that you can do!

Ask yourself what is important for you and for your work. Devote time to those activities. It is very important to eliminate non-essentials from your life

How can you optimize your time?

Reduce clutter! Keep your workspace clean and well laid out. Reduce clutter! Clear your mind too, of all the accumulated clutter of negative feelings, needless information and useless thoughts. Therefore, avoid distractions. You don’t have to check your e-mail every fifteen minutes.

Learn to delegate

You are not indispensable to every task that needs to be done. Trust your colleagues and subordinates: delegate work to them. Identify, plan and review. Identify your long-term and short term goals. Plan your work and then work your plan. Review your activities every day, to see what you have lapsed from your schedule.

“Take time to live because life has so much to give!” proclaims a poster, which depicts a little girl, strolling happily in a beautiful garden, clutching a bunch of flowers.

Do you take time to live or are you simply filling your time with work?

By Dada JP Vaswani