It has been a long time since I wrote a new blog post. I got too busy at work and did not find time to write. Is this a good enough excuse? Of course NOT!
If I have to list the reasons for not writing, it is not just one. It is a culmination of many, the “lack of time”, “inertia to write” topping the list.
I was reading an article in ACM Communications that kindled my thoughts on “time management”. I derived some of the viewpoints from this article and added my thoughts & views as well.
Lack of “time” is a symptom and not the problem. The real problem is “commitment”. It would be incorrect to say that “I don’t have time for this” instead it it would be more appropriate to say that “I don’t find time to do this”. It seems like a subtle change in verbiage but actually it shows the deep-rooted intent. It is not just an issue with time-management, instead it is about commitment-management! Time is one of the resources need for commitment-management. But commitment is one of the pre-requisite for managing time.
We all experience missed or forgotten commitments every now and then. I committed to myself that I will write at least one post every week. But when my paid-job required more of my time, I could not keep up with my personal commitments and started slipping and forgetting them. When the work piles up, the non-revenue generating commitments are the first one to experience time-cuts.
I think we should run our life like how we would run an organization. Just like an organizations have mission statement, we should have our personal mission statement that includes our profession, heath, hobbies and other interests. Ideally, we should write down our mission statement, map them to activities, allocate time to each activity and track their individual progress. Once we know the mission statement and the set of activities that are important, then we can prioritize our time and focus on important stuff rather than urgent stuff. Many a times, we find ourselves overwhelmed with urgent but unimportant requests that consumes all our time.
Stephen Covey tells an engaging story about a time-management seminar leader who did a demonstration involving placing rocks, then gravel, sand and water into a large glass jar. After his students struggled with getting all these items successfully into the jar, he asked, “What is the point about time management?”. He got answers that there is always more room to fit more things in your schedule if they are small or liquid enough, and you may therefore have more capacity to set things done than you think. He said, “No! The point is that if you don’t put the big rocks in the beginning, you cant get them in at all”.
In essence, we should refer to our goals and aspirations in life, see if our day to day activities are aligned with the mission statement and use that as a guidance to set aside some time for the important tasks.
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