Time in your Time Outs

Time is not unlike a bank when a sum of Rs.86, 400 is credited to your account every midnight and for every rupee you do not invest wisely, you lose it. At the end of the day, any unspent balance is immediately struck off and you can never use them again. Ever

On your mark!

It is almost silly writing this as the only thing people have in common is the fact that they are all different! It is because of this that any advice on time management is not going to suit everybody. This is because everybody has different pressures and priorities, so the idea of this is to tell you how to be more comfortable with the time you have. While everyone will have their own relationship with managing their time, some things in this task are universal. There are 86,400 seconds in your day, no more and very importantly, no less. How you use it is up to you. It is not unlike a bank when a sum of Rs.86,400 is credited to your account every midnight and for every rupee you do not invest wisely, you lose it. At the end of the day, any unspent balance is immediately struck off and you can never use them again. Ever.

Get set!

In the wise expenditure of this generous balance, you need first to plan how you will invest the funds. But having an idea is not enough! You need action! You need to be aware of what is expected of you in the day, and the responsibility on you to deliver it or provide for it. There will be many things to distract your attention, but consider, when you are counting high denomination notes, have you noticed with what concentration you do it? How you refuse to let yourself be distracted? Do that when you are planning your day, and count each second you have and plan what you intend doing with it. Plan in the disturbances, pad out the figures for any eventuality and you're on your way! However you might like to remember that planning is all very well, but unless you start implementing that plan, everything will remain on the drawing board. Get real! Do not live in the realm of `what- I - would -like-to-do', that many of us succumb to, but stick to the `what-I-can-do-I-will'. The little pad-out I suggest is like buying a trouser for a growing boy who will, in time, grow into it! One of the most effective ways of getting yourself paced properly is to plan your whole day, starting with the moment your eyes open and ending with the action of lying down to sleep! In this way you can allocate quality time to the home so that you can have a fruitful existence both at home and work!

Go!

Getting to "Go" means getting your act together so that you can manage all you have to in the time you have. In this day and age, it has become the norm for employers to get a `buy-in' from the employee, where the employee agrees to a timeline. As an employee, it is smart to under-promise and end up over- delivering! In this way you will not only always be on time, but often deliver before you are expected to! Nothing brings more joy than a before-schedule delivery of work. It also helps you incase there are unscheduled glitches around which you will need to maneuver. Break every task into small do-able chunks, so that you end up doing the unexpected! In case delays are inevitable, even though its not your fault, remember to alert those concerned with a fresh timeline for delivery. This will lend verisimilitude to your degree and efficiency of commitment.

Pass on the baton

The world does not begin with you and certainly doesn't end with you! The most stressed among us seem to be convinced that the entire corporate edifice would crumble if they were not around! Think again! You are dispensable and a smart operator will delegate! Many of us, myself included, have felt that when a job needs to be done quickly and well, one should do it oneself.

I used to make excuses saying that I'd have to redo everything anyway. Actually, I learned my lesson when a smart boss once told me, "Why shouldn't I relax if you are there to do the work for which I pay you?" I realised that there was a whole office-full of people who were being paid to make my burden lighter, and I began to let them do what they were trained to. What I didn't like, I got them to do again, and again, till they got it right. Today they don't need to be told what I want, they anticipate my requirements since I have empowered people to take ownership of their output, and to become accountable for their timelines.

Take the inside lane

When you want to stay ahead of your deadlines, its best to take the inside lane as soon as possible. To do this you have to overcome the major obstacles first. At work, allocate degrees of importance to the tasks ahead of you and get them done first. This is much like the modern-day parable in which a teacher walked into a room with a big bottle and a number of bags. He placed the bottle on the table and took out some large pebbles and filled the bottle with them and asked if there was room for anything more. Everybody said there wasn't, so he opened another bag and began putting in smaller pebbles that filled space between the bigger ones. He then asked if anything more could go in and the students said it couldn't because there was no space, so he opened another bag and emptied the gravel inside it into the bottle. He again asked if anything more could fit in, this time the students were wary and said there might be, and so the teacher opened yet another bag and began to empty the sand it contained into the bottle. Being fine-grained, the sand filled every nook and cranny. Having emptied the whole bag, the bottle looked totally full, so he asked them again whether anything else could fit in. This time the students knew nothing could and they said so. At this, the teacher bent down, took from the last bag a bottle of water and emptied its contents into the large bottle. It all fit in. Then he said, "This exercise is to show how you should plan. Nobody can get in as much as I have in the reverse order, remember to always get the larger stones in first, otherwise there will never be space for them!" Like this we should deal with the urgent things first, the important things next and then the little tasks that are not time critical, last. In this way you can get a lot more done than if you work without prioritising.

Breasting the tape

It may do wonders for you if you are seen slaving away after office hours, it may pay dividends to get in before the boss and be seen to be working when he gets in, but nothing will help if you still don't get your work done! Being a work-hog may get you kudos in the beginning but if the standard of output is below par, and it will be if you are exhausted, you will make the list of the `old unreliables'. You need to rest and refresh yourself to output a high standard of work. If you keep sacrificing your R&R time your work will become shoddy. You must stop coming over as the eager beaver, volunteering for every job in the office. At first you might get them, but as your standard slips, fewer jobs will come your way! Try saying "NO". If you can't, practice in front of a mirror and get the modulation right. Don't make it sound rude, make it conciliating and leave the door open for more time to do it in if they still want you to do it. Bosses understand this especially, if you tell them that rush jobs at the end of a tiring day would not make for an ideal output and will do them no justice either. You don't have to say something like " Sorry, I wasn't paid to do this." You might try saying something like, "I don't think I'd be able to give it my full, undivided attention at this time." Get the tonality right, the inflection right and no one will think the worse of you. The best is that you will have achieved that rarity among the rare, an ideal work-life balance!

Standing on the winners block

Getting things right is made easier with getting things done on time, and making a plan really helps; the only thing is that we must yank ourselves up by the bootstraps and get out of the rut of doing things the way we have always done. On the other hand if it has worked well in the past, stick with it, but remember to factor in time for yourself, your family and relaxation. If you get the big stones in, you'll be able to get a whole lot more standing with you on the winner's block!

S.RAMANUJACHARYA

professor1@sify.com