It is irritatingly true that no manner how hard we try, time wins the day, and we tend to lose, lagging behind with at least two of our target tasks for the day.

You may ask yourself - should anyone be so absolutely time bound that life starts losing its spontaneity? Is it fair to your soul? Let’s see what the experts on time management have to say about keeping one’s sanity while getting things done on time.

"I am definitely going to take a course on time management... just as soon as I can work it into my schedule."

Louis E Boone

"You will never find time for anything. If you want time, you must make it.”

Charles Buxton

"Figuring out what we need to do is not the challenge. The challenge is figuring out when to do it.”

Peter Turla

"This is the key to time management - to see the value of every moment."

Menachem Mendel Schneerson

“Everything requires time. It is the only truly universal condition. All work takes place in time and uses up time. Yet most people take for granted this unique, irreplaceable, and necessary resource. Nothing else, perhaps, distinguishes effective executives as much as their tender loving care of time.”

Peter F. Drucker

According to the experts, there is no exit route, no simple formula. We are relentlessly time bound and must race with time. In that case, a few timely “remedies” might refresh our jaded minds. Most people would not realize that the block is actually in the mind, not a fault of time at all. It’s the lack of commitment to change. Furthermore, most people do not realize that whatever they procrastinated over would have actually taken a very short time to complete and be done with once and for all! It’s the first step that is the worst, and good old fashioned words like motivation do bring visible benefits to the individual and the environment, motivating others as they go along – in short, just get on with it!

Take the case of a very un-spiritual person who got so affected by a colleague who had “gone spiritual” that she too, feeling left out, suddenly found time to delve into such matters much to the amazement of everyone around. There is always time to do the things you really want to do – if you so want to.

A unique way to find out whether you really have time or no is to pressurize yourself just once or twice with an “unrealistic” to-do list and a set time for it. You would be shocked to find that everything you did in four hours was done in 1.5 hours. In short, have goals and ensure that the timing is right. For example, you could start your journey at the peak of traffic which would foil the plan entirely.

Pleasant distractions are exactly that! Identify your pleasant distractions, even if it were checking your messages constantly, that eats into the minutes and breaks the spell of the work mindset. A lot of self-control is needed here to stick to the priority tasks.

Another simple measure is keeping things in their right places, whether it is data or personal effects.

“Kill off” the smaller targets quickly and break the larger ones into components to take the effect of boredom out of the task. The sickness of procrastination is most often a lack of interest in the activity so taking a short break or moving to another activity for a brief time helps to re-adjust the mind.

Taking the trouble to learn skills that matter, for example, Apps that make life easier, definitely helps in harvesting more time for the better things in life. Knowing that there are Apps out there that are excellent and procrastinating about finding out and using them is a common time waster.

Take adequate rest. Most people who hardly have time practically “burn the candle at both ends”. This pathetic state only results in poor efficiency.

Most people instinctively know their high productivity time of the day. This is the time when maximum output could be had, and it is wise to make the best use of it.

We could try out which works for us by conscious and deliberate practice.

Created: March 14th, 2016