CA JEETENDRA MISTRY
SERIES - TIME MANAGEMENT – PART 3
TIME MANAGEMENT – GDP
Goal, Direction and Process
In this series of Time Management, we understood the characteristics of Time, as it is not possible to define Time in words. In part – 2, we looked at definition and concept of Time Management.
Clock time is irrelevant, but Real time is mental. It exists between your ears, i.e. thoughts. One who manages oneself with respect to time, is real “Time Management”.
There are only three ways to spend time: Thoughts, Conversations and Actions. Any action is preceded by thought always and may need conversation, if anyone else is also involved. So we need to manage all 3 aspects and make our Time management a success.
Before we dwell in details with tools of Time Management, let us analyze few more aspects of it. These are called Process of Time Management. There are 3 parts of considerations and are narrated below – Goal, Direction and Process.
First is Goal, which is also Purpose of Time Management. I would narrate here one small story.
Newly educated MBA once went to sea-beach and saw one gentleman relaxing on hammog, hanged between 2 trees. He asked him, why don’t you use your time more productive way, than relaxing here? That gentleman asked him, why should he work, when he can spend nice time relaxing? MBA said that you are at sea beach and you see over there many boats doing fishing, so you may also do same kind of work at bigger way. Gentleman asked him, what next? He explained that once he starts fishing, he can earn more by storing them in cold-storage and sell fishes at later time at distant places and accumulate more wealth over period of time. The gentleman wanted to know what is ultimate purpose of accumulating more wealth? MBA said that he can relax and enjoy his wealth once he is thru. Gentleman asked him that whether he knows whose boats are doing fishing over there? Those were all his and he has big business of fishing overseas as well. He is now relaxing because his sons have taken charge of business and managing it well.
So like in above case, we should have 2 purposes of Time Management – “Joy of Doing” and “Sense of Fulfillment”. Whatever we do, we should enjoy the work itself, rather than to be dragged to do that work. Then only, we may reach another purpose, i.e. Sense of Fulfillment, which is satisfaction of doing such a work. If you can achieve both above objects in any of your career, that is fulfilling your purpose of Time Management. A underworld don may be successful in eyes of outside world by his power and wealth, but may not have “Sense of Fulfillment”. In Hindi, I call them as “Anand” and “Santosh” – 2 friends forever.
Another dimension is DIRECTION. If we want to travel to Sri Lanka by a ship, from Mumbai to Colombo, how shall we manage it? Whether shall we reach Colombo, if we start from Mumbai in direction of North? No, because Colombo is situated in South from Mumbai. Now assume that we start from Mumbai in South and also have information that it takes 15 hours to Colombo from Mumbai and you reach Cochin harbor in around 8 hours. Second check is to make sure that not only that you are right on way to Colombo, but you have a milestone to reach Cochin, within specified time. Similarly, we need to monitor 2 things- one is direction and another milestones. So we reach destination within appropriate time.
In life also, we need to follow timeless truths, known as universal principles, depicted by True North. True North is compass pointing direction to North and life based on such principles is always more satisfying as would serve both purposes mentioned above – joy of doing and sense of fulfillment. If we do not move in right direction, we never move near our pre-set worthy goals. Checking periodically with your mile-stones allow you to rectify your path, if missed.
Third Dimension is Process, i.e. how do you do it? Process is like journey and end-product is like destination. If you enjoy journey throughout, you would equally enjoy reaching destination too. It is said that Process is more important than Product, i.e. end-result. In Time Management, we will discuss in detail the whole Process such that we may not only enjoy the journey, but also the destination. In short, journey of life should be more satisfying and enjoyable than the final destination – death.
In Bhagwad geeta also, Lord shri Krishna insisted “Karmani ev adhikaarste, maa faleshu kadachan”, meaning you are free to chose your karma but not its results.
In short, GDP i.e. Gross Domestic product is viewed to look at development of a country, G-D-P i.e. Goal-Direction-Process is major parameter of Time Management.
In conclusion, we may say that
Time Management is not doing things faster..
is not doing things efficiently (i.e. getting more things done faster)
is not doing things under control.
is not doing things competently.
Time Management is doing things effectively.
is doing things with joy of doing.
is doing things with sense of fulfillment.
I would re-iterate about Time Management is in fact Life Leadership. How? As I had mentioned earlier that Life is a journey from Birth to Death. And we live life moment to moment from birth to death, so Time management becomes Life Management.
Again Management is always related to solution of some kind of issues or problems, or in other words, it is always a trouble-shooting exercise. Leadership is opportunities-oriented and not problem-oriented, so we may lead our life by grapping opportunities that come to us, at every moment.
Life is a journey from B to D, i.e. from Birth to Death, but in-between is C as per alphabets, which stands for Choice. If we make right choice at every juncture of opportunities, we may make it to successful living of life. Hence Time Management is Life Leadership.
JEETENDRA MISTRY
