Time is Life !

If you squander your time, you waste your life; as it is the stuff life is made of. – Albert Einstein

‘Time is money’—right?

Wrong. Money lost can be re-earned but the time wasted can never be returned.  People say times come and go but actually time never comes and goes, rather people come and go; time is eternity. God created time before people. Time is currency of life passing through seconds, minutes, hours, days, months and years.

Time factor makes a lot of difference between the poor and the rich. The poor spends his time in futile activities while the rich invests it in his dreams which will come true once the investment of time & energy gets matured. Whatever we become in life is what we use our time to accomplish. Time is the only asset equally given to every person on the earth. H Jackson Brown once said, “Don’t say you don’t have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Michelangelo, Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Leonardo Da Vinci, Abraham Lincoln and Albert Einstein.”

 To succeed in life, we must learn to manage our time effectively.  Time is very precious & valuable asset and has some characteristics:  time cannot be stored, time cannot be stopped, time cannot be stretched and time cannot be managed too. We can manage our actions & behavior but not time. Stephen Covey defines a matrix in his bestselling book ‘Seven Habits of Highly Effective People’.               

 Time Management Matrix:

The two factors that define an activity are urgency and importance. Urgency means it requires immediate attention. Urgent matters are usually visible. They press on us; they insist on action. Paying mobile bill by due date is an urgent activity.

Importance, on the other hand, has to do with results. If something is important, it contributes to your mission, your values and your high priority goals. For example, reading might not be urgent but it is important.

We react to urgent matters even if those are not important. Whereas important matters that are not urgent require more initiative, ownership & drive. Being in quadrant 1 brings - stress, burnout, firefighting, focus on the immediate & crisis management. There are some unnecessary things calling for our attention in this busy world. Those things are known as time wasters. These distractions or time wasters include: long calls, visitors, attending unscheduled meetings/parties, long hours of sleep, lack of self discipline, laziness, lack of planning, procrastination, gossips, lack of priorities, unclear objectives etc. These fall in quadrant 3 & 4. Spending more time in these quadrants would lead to a mediocre life. While spending time in quadrant 2 would mean long term perspective, discipline, control, balance & visionary life. We must have clarity on our goals and press on the activities which are important (Q-2) to turn our dreams into reality.

Strategies to manage your time better:

§ Increase your time awareness. Get to know where is it going? Failing to plan is actually planning to fail; so plan your work and be organized.

§ Prioritize your tasks and learn to say no to time wasters. Most important things should never be sacrificed on the cost least important ones.

§ Learn to utilize smaller chunks of time. I would suggest never leave your place without a book in your hand. I have found out that if we use smaller chunks of time (waiting time); we can read 25 pages every day which equals to 750 pages a month and this means 36 books (considering 250 pages in each book) in a year with no extra time.   

§ Use tools like post-it notes, to do lists, calendar, diary, reminders etc.

Time is life; live it.