Time Management for Higher Productivity

Let me start this month’s mailer with a short story about a boy and his dad. Here it is:

A man came home from work late, tired and irritated, to find his 7-year old son waiting for him at the door.
'Daddy, may I ask you a question?'
 'Yeah sure, what it is?' replied the man.
 'Daddy, how much do you make an hour?'
 'That's none of your business. Why do you ask such a thing?' the man said angrily.
 'I just want to know. Please tell me, how much do you make an hour?'
 'If you must know, I make $50 an hour.'
 'Oh,' the little boy replied, with his head down. He made some calculations on his fingers and said,  'May I please borrow $20?'
The father was furious, 'If the only reason you asked that is so you can borrow some money to buy a silly toy or some other nonsense, then you go straight to your room and sleep. I don't work hard everyday for such childish silly things.'
The little boy’s heart was broken. He quietly went to his room with tears in his eyes and shut the door.

The man sat down and started to get even angrier about the little boy's questions. How dare he ask such questions only to get some money?
After about an hour or so, the man had calmed down and started to think:
Maybe there was something he really needed to buy with that $20 and he really didn't ask for money very often. The man went to the door of the little boy's room and opened the door slowly.

'Are you asleep, son?' He asked.
'No daddy, I'm awake,' replied the boy.
'I've been thinking, maybe I was too hard on you earlier' said the man. 'It's been a long day and I took out my aggravation on you. Here's the $20 you asked for.'

The little boy sat straight up, smiling. 'Oh, thank you daddy!' he yelled. Then, reaching under his pillow he pulled out some crumpled up currency notes and coins.

The man saw that the boy already had money and started to get angry again.
'Why do you want more money if you already have some?' the father grumbled.

'Because I didn't have enough, but now I do,' the little boy replied.
'Daddy, I have $50 now. Can I buy an hour of your time? Please come home early tomorrow. I would like to have dinner with you.'
The father was crushed. He was speechless. He was humbled beyond his imagination. He put his arms around his little son with moist eyes, and he begged for his forgiveness.

This may be just a story but carries a great message for all of us. Why it happens? Because we are not able to manage our time well. Most of us are working hard in life. But we should not let time slip through our fingers without having spent some time with those who really matter to us, those close to our hearts. Our family that consists of our children, wife, parents and even siblings also deserve some time of ours. Our ancestors very rightly divided the 24 hrs in three equal parts. The first 8 hours are for self and we use that for about 6 to 7 hours for sleep and 1 to 2 hours for physical exercise, meditation and other morning routines. The second lot of 8 hours is for dedicated work and 3^rd set of 8 hours is for family, friends and society. 

This exact division may not be possible but the moral of the story is that we got to create a ‘Work Life Balance’ and for that we got to manage our 24 hours of time very efficiently. This is one resource that God has divided equally to all human beings, be it the CEO or a student, a politician or a policeman, a housewife or a maid. This is one resource that you can’t buy, borrow, steal or lend.  Time is one resource which once gone, never comes back. In fact they say ‘Time Is Money in Essence’. Despite that we all waste time. And then we say that we are short of time and a lot many things, we fail to do in time or they keep pending at home as well as at office and then the mental pressure starts building and causes stress followed by a lot many health problems

The fact is that most of us are leading a life full of pressures. Pressure for performance, pressure for promotion, pressure of peers, family, relatives and society at times. The pressure further increases when we find ourselves rushing against time to meet some targets. Time has no pity on our pathetic condition. Time is flying. So the only thing we can do is to manage our time well. We should waste less time on doing things that we have to do so that we have more time to do the things we want to do.

A lot many people work late in the offices. Sometimes it may be essential to incorporate last minute changes in a project report that needs to be submitted to the client next day morning. But wasting time during the day in gossip and spending extra hours during the evening, may create a great impression on some bosses but then you are proving to be less efficient person. Ask yourself: Who is more efficient? A person who finishes his/her job in eight hours or the one who finishes in 10 hours? According to me all those people who sit late in the office need mentoring by their bosses provided the bosses understand what I just said.

Don’t try to attempt to do each and everything yourself. That is a sure recipe for disaster. Learn to delegate. Learn to say ‘No” to a job that doesn’t belong to you at all, doesn’t interest you and it is not going to do any good for you even in the long term. And also dump a lot many superfluous activities with least priorities and don’t find even a mention in your ‘To Do List’. Be firm to say ‘No’ politely with a smile on your face to a lot many invitations that may not be of interest to you. You don’t have to be goodie- goodie all the time with all the people if you want a stress free life.

Some long and unnecessary meetings could be a great time waster. Keep your meetings short, crisp and to the point. You may refer to my monthly mailer of May, 2013 on this topic once again to reduce wastage of time due to meetings. These days unsolicited e-mails, phone calls from unknown and unscrupulous salesmen and social networking sites like Facebook have become great sources of time wastage. Unsubscribe from all those websites who keep sending you daily/weekly mailers about the launch of their latest products. You may get some relief from Bank Loan/Credit card callers if your register on the NDNC (National Do Not Call) registry by calling 1909 or visit www.ndnc.in for more details.

I am not against the social networking platforms like Twitter, Facebook or LinkenIn. But use them with great care and judiciously. There are people who spend hours and hours on these sites. You got to be disciplined while using these tools to get benefit from them and don’t let them become the master and you become a slave and your time usage and priority is dictated by them. Another big time waster is the addiction to the Idiot Box, the hundreds of channels on your TV can kill all the time at your disposal. One has to instill self discipline and use the remote of your TV judiciously and in fact ruthlessly to keep your TV in the off position most of the time.

Follow the basic ‘ABC of Communications’ principle in all your communications. It could be on phone, Facebook, an e-mail, a report or minutes of the meetings. ABC stands for ‘Accuracy, Brevity and Clarity’ in all your communications.  Use bullet points, wherever possible instead of using descriptive language. Sometimes you may be called to speak to an audience. Here also remember that long speeches become boring and are wastage of time of the speaker and the listeners too. An advice by Winston S. Churchill is very appropriate here. He said - "A good speech should be like a woman's skirt: long enough to cover the subject and short enough to create interest".

In nutshell, pay attention to accomplishment rather than activity. Be quick in taking decisions in life. Remember that too much analysis causes paralysis of organizations. Don’t procrastinate. It is a sure recipe of wastage of time and ultimate failure. Respect every minute at your disposal and make best use of it. Time is literally flying.