What makes one individual acquire infinite fame? Why most of us fail to touch the peaks of fame? What makes a few scale the peaks of glory, while many struggle to ascend the ladder at the very bottom rung of the ladder?
The answer is "Time sense."
The importance and the worth of Time are revealed from this old adage, "Time and tide will not wait for anybody." Even one of the greatest conquerors in the world Napoleon said, "I may lose my empire, but not my time."They say " nothing is more precious than time. And nothing is more extravagantly spent and wasted than time."
Kiran bedi used to say, "If we fail to utilize the time properly, the same time will resort to lathi charge on us.”
Thousands of years ago, Vedas said, "om, Kalayanamah: om Kala kalayanamah : Kalateetayanamah."
"How you utilize your time ", is the factor that shapes your life.
Time is a tough teacher. It treats a disciplined student with love and care. And punishes an undisciplined student severely. Here the student is man. All the above lines speak volumes about the importance of time and its proper utilization.
See how we are wasting our time.
It's said approximately one third of a man's life is being spent in sleep. In the remaining time one tenth goes towards our daily chores like eating, bathing etc. One sixth goes towards chit chatting, phone talk and attending social gatherings etc, amounting to a colossal wastage of 70 percent of our life. So we are left with 30 percent.
So, in this small amount of time left we have to do many things. It need not be stressed and emphasized, how much care one has to exercise while utilizing the Time.
Remember, only those who can utilize their time in a wise and productive way, can enjoy the fruits of success.
Crime and punishment.
Many of us think that they can do whatever they like with their time. They also think that no one is noticing them how they are wasting their time. I should say, it's a wrong way of thinking. It's a wrong notion to think that time wasters go unnoticed. In the realm of "Time", indiscriminate wastage of time is considered as a crime. Punishments vary depending upon the intensity of crime.
These are the punishable crimes.
Gossiping for hours together, indiscriminate use of cell or telephone, meaningless departmental meetings, meetings with no specific agenda, entertaining unsolicited phone calls to name a few.
What are the punishments?
When you fail to attend the job in right time, you will be gripped by the fear of missing the deadline. In order to meet the deadline, you rush. By doing the job in a hurry, you will be exposed to the risk of committing mistakes. In a bid to correct these mistakes you, commit more mistakes, thus adding more and more mistakes that results in losing the temper. you become restless. You will be affected by stress. You will have sleepless nights.
The things will not stop here. The above said evils will lead to more complicated ailments like heart problems and many psychic problems.
All this for not doing the things in right time? How can we avoid this? Is there a way out?
Yes, there is.
The golden rule.
Remember the famous saying of Kabir. Sant Kabir has written a couplet about 'Time Management' long long ago, which is relevant even now. The couplet goes like this:
"Kaal Kare So Aaj" means, the work which is scheduled for tomorrow, should be done today.
"Aaj Kare So Ab." means, the work scheduled for today should be done now.
This golden rule, if applied in full letter and spirit, the evils that arise due to faulty time management can be completely taken care of. If you are one of those, who aim to mould your life in to a life of your dreams, remember to follow the below given tips.
Identify your jobs which are absolutely necessary. For example, if you are to appear for a departmental examination in a week's time and the success in the examination is going to pave a way for a bright career, then make this job as your top priority. If it's necessary cut off yourself from TV viewing cut it off. Switch off your cell phone.
If you feel, you need more number of hours, get up an hour early in the morning.
Refrain from arguing with your friends or family members on unimportant issues like, 'Who will win the best actor award this year or who's going to be the next PM of India and likes of such which are not important for you right now.
Time wasted thus will eat away your time, which will never come back.
Keep the things in order. Orderliness saves lot of your time. Avoidance of clutter will increase your productivity. We see many examples in our homes, offices and even in industrial organizations. In my long experience in industries, I witnessed many accidents which were not only fatal but also lead to down time.
Down time in a major industry means, heavy loss of man-hours and revenue. Here I would like to quote one simple example that lead to a severe accident and a loss of several crores of rupees,
In ware houses and storage godowns, a carelessly placed iron rod, that was protruding and obstructing the aisle where the store staff move often, a fork lift while moving on the aisle, hit a protruding iron rod causing a collapse of the big pile of iron rods which fell on the nearby workers and killed several workers on the spot. The organization had to pay heavy amounts towards compensation. The warehouse was forced to shut down for clearing the way. This in turn led to a shutdown of the store for several days.
What a colossal loss of time and money. This loss could have been averted with a simple task of keeping the things in order.
If wasting your time is a crime, wasting other's time is a sacrilege.
Many of us take other person's time for granted. We reach a person's home and drag him for a conversation at an unearthly hour. Such people are insensitive to the other man's feelings. It never occurs to them that they are invading other person's privacy and robbing his precious time.
Respect the time, be punctual
Punctuality reminds me of a famous quote, "Take care of your seconds. The saved second puts you on the pedestal all your life."An individual's impeccable time management will enhance the prestige of an institution also.
Movie world is well known for its bad punctual ways. Though the colossal losses are crippling the industry and the producers are losing money in crores every year, none could stop or at least none could try to stop this evil.
Most of the super stars of the industry went up to the extremes of branding the quality of 'late coming' as a status symbol. Poor producers and the minor actors, who used to wait for hours on the sets, suffer in silence. Because Movie world is the realm of superstars. It runs on the whims and fancies of a few.
But this gloomy situation was brought under control to some extent by a Super star known as Amitabh Bachchan. Amitabh, who even in the days of struggle to enter the world of movies was a stickler to punctuality. While searching for his destiny, he used to visit many producers and directors of fame right on the dot given by the concerned producers and directors.
With the time, Amitabh has become an actor known for his highest standards in histrionics.
But his change of status never changed his habit of punctuality. When the gates of his bungalow opens and his car comes out, a neighbor used to set his time.
That is Amitabh and his time sense.
One cannot miss a unique quality in this super star. He never delivered lengthy lecture on the advantages of time management. Nor he ever told that one of the reasons for his superstardom is his time sense. What all he has done is, he has set an example.
Now the situation has undergone a metamorphosis, though to a great extent. At least the movie world started seeing a change. Any movie with Amitabh or a realty show, people involved right from clapper boy to the director would stick to punctuality.
Any number of virtues, sans Time sense is an exercise in futility.
Time is limited. There are only 24 hours in a day. It's the same 24 hours for a prince or a pauper. It's the same 24 hours for a commoner in the street or a Noble laureate. Those who realized this universal fact went on to scale new heights in their respective fields. And those who ignored stayed back remaining unheeded and unnoticed.Many non - entities have become immortal because of their time sense. Many virtuoso have become non - entities because of lack of time sense.
Michel Angelo churned out innumerable number of paintings, frescoes and sculptures in his life time. Though Leonardo da Vinci was equally virtuous, he could churn out very few paintings in his life time for obvious reasons.
Achievers are well versed with art of squeezing time from the existing 24 hours. That's the wisdom all of us have to acquire.
Imagine this for a while.
How valuable the time is can be understood from the following lines.
Say, Time is a friendly banker. This friendly banker deposits in to your account every day morning 86400 seconds. But wait, with the following conditions.
You should utilize the deposited amount in the best possible way so that every second is used for your betterment and as well as to the betterment of the society. In a nutshell, you should put your deposited amount in such a way, that it stands as a worthy investment for your life.
If you don’t use it, the unused amount of time will be deleted from your account. The unused amount will not be carried forward for tomorrow. It means the unutilsed time is lost forever. Now what would you do in such conditions?
Withdraw the entire amount and utilize for the best purposes.
It’s the same with all of us. Every one of us is rich, every morning by a good amount of time. If you do not know how to utilize it, you are the loser. So, beware. Live in the present. Use the precious time which has come in the form of ‘present’ to enrich your life. Know that the Time is a present given by god. That’s why it is known as ‘Present.’
If you are still not clear about the value of time the value of one precious year,
ask a student who failed in his exams.
Only a mother can tell the value of one month, who gave birth to a premature baby.
Only an editor of a weekly magazine can tell you the value of one week.
Only a person can tell you the value of one second, who just escaped an accident from a speeding car.
Only a person can tell the value of one millisecond, Ask an Olympic champ who missed his gold.