Let us consider some characteristics of time. Number one it is the same for all -24 hours a day, sixty minutes per hour sixty seconds per minute-no more any less.

Number 2 it is free. You get time as a living being and for some years you are not even aware that time/life is passing. Go back in time and imagine you sleeping and crying for milk. Imagine your Kindergarten days. In school you had a time table which means the school managed your time.

In other words, the school decided what you will do when. In college you had more freedom and could choose to bunk some periods and do something else which was more interesting. Getting freedom brought you the responsibility to put your 24 hours to good use. I put it to you that most of you are still not managing your time and so time is being spent in an unplanned way. Notice the words spent and unplanned in the previous sentence. It appears that time is like money to be spent wisely and in a planned way. Working in a company we have seen budgets being made for the quarter and accounts being made year. Do we make similar plans for our time?

Let me put it to you that Time Management is Life Management and all of you will have to manage your lives apart from your careers.

How do we start? Deming gives us a circle called PDCA circle which asks us to PLAN-DO-CHECK-ACT and plan again. For time management I suggest we start by checking where our time is being spent now. Just as we write our daily accounts for money we should write an account of our day spent in the form of a diary. Allocate consciously 15 minutes at the end of the day or if you like at the beginning of the next day for this activity. You need not make it very detailed but I am sure you will find it useful to carry around a small pocket diary to jot down whenever you start an activity or end it.