The most dangerous habit of people is to postpone what can be done today. Most human beings, particularly in our country, have a very peculiar habit. Ask them to get something done, and pat comes the reply"I will do it tomorrow".
We never cultivate the habit of doing everything, right now. We are restricted by our laziness, which seems to be so overwhelming. We actually do not realize our mistakes, until it is very late. We do not have the habit of even looking back at what had not been done. This is even more dangerous
Even if we follow some basic steps, today can be far utilized. It is in our interest to follow these small steps.
The first and foremost thing is to have a clear plan for the day. It is very important that we note down the details of what needs to be done by the end of the day, be that work, personal or official..For example, it is so easily possible to use net banking to transfer money from one account to another. Most males do not do this in time, and incur the wrath of their wives. It is plain and simple. We often look back at past events and scratch our head and say, " If my memory serves me right, I did the transfer two days ago".
The actual reality is that we had done the transfer at all. We would presume it to be done. It is the classic case of not noting down the most important things to be done on one particular day.
Similarly, we have the habit of not taking anything seriously, affecting our morale and our motivation. This often happens at work. In most private organizations, we are expected to simply take on the initiative and get the job done. In fact, many bosses assign a single job to more than one person, with the sole objective of ensuring that the job will get done through joint planning and teamwork, of teamwork.
Ultimately, this turns out to be the "somebody, nobody" game. The boss had given the work to two people, the two somebody people. Either of them "thought" the other will do it. But "nobody" did it. This is exactly what happens, when we do not communicate to the other person, when we do not understand the task on hand. Unless we have the habit of doing something NOW, this habit cannot be developed. Sometimes the task is as mundane as sending an email to the head of another plant, asking for an appointment for the boss. Even this, we do not do, thinking that it can be done tomorrow. For instance, let us imagine the plant head takes a flight to Germany and does not entertain calls in that country. The poor boss will be left fretting and fuming, because of our non-performance. The plant head would be back only after six days, and then the whole plan of the boss is put under hold.
This is the price of our indecision,our tendency to postpone what can be done today. Sometimes intranet facilities at work, are allowed to be accessed from our homes. Yet, we do not spare the couple of minutes to work at night for the job.
Thirdly, if we try to find out where out time goes, and cut down on unwanted or unimportant communication, we will have a lot of time at hand. During the day, we do spend, quite unconsciously, quite a bit of time, in relating to many people outside our own department, and this leads to waste of time. At least a portion of this can be easily avoided, and we can make up for the loss through hard work in the evening. But this leaves us tired. So, the communication at work, should always be work-related. Outside work, there is nothing wrong in developing relationships.
Fourthly, it is wise to maintain a very accurate account of what was accomplished and not accomplished. Dairies can be very useful. Once this habit is formed, we will know where we lack, in terms of discipline.
Fifthly, if we are are senior managerial positions, we should always assume that our job is a 24 X 7 one, with a Sunday, on which day, we need to work for at least eight hours. Nothing comes free. Packing our day with enormous amount of activity can indeed solve the problem, and we will notice a difference, as when we become obsessed with work, we would have done maximum during the day.
Sixth in the order of "to do'things, is to reflect, at around bed time, the things we did, and how we could have done things differently. We refuse to do these things, because of laziness. This self-audit, will lead to more success. In fact,those in the retail trade, for example, come up with innovation, that is simply very good. It becomes obvious, from whatever they say, that their hard work and reflection at the end of the day, taught them new ways in innovation.
Seventh in the order is the ability to adapt to the latest technologies. For example, the most communication technologies now allow us to communicate with videos of some important thing. This often leads to increased understanding and the time taken to complete a task is now very minimum. Use of System Applied Products (SAP), is now increasing like never before.
If one is quick in learning these advanced technologies, he or she can easily do much more during the course of the day and at the end of the day.
Years ago, when I studied at the world-famous Loyola College, Chennai, and I was staying in the hostel, there was one person who said" reduce your sleeping hours". There is no other way in which you can easily succeed in the examination.
This is exactly true even today. Whenever I have reduced my sleeping hours, I have found that I was bale to achieve more. In fact, there are many like me, who count a day as starting at 6 AM today, and ending at 6 AM tomorrow. This leads to more productivity, as we are always prepared for more productivity.
Hence, let us make the most of today. There is no tomorrow, at any point in time.