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Understanding
The Concept Of Time
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We live in our own Time Cages
In the article Concepts of
Time Management I mentioned the farmer, the jailbird and the
couple in love. It may have been difficult to figure out the
differences behind the same concept of time applied to three
different situations. In order to clarify it, I would like to
introduce you to two people.
Right, now that you've been introduced to one another let me tell you a little more about these two fine gentlemen. Ben lives in
the city. He works as a Market Analyst for a firm called @$#& Oops!
For privacy reasons, Ben has asked me not to reveal the name of his
company. Well, I guess that's ok with us, Ben. We aren't too
nosy, are we? So getting on with Ben, Ben loves his job and he is
one of the best in his field.
He has an office on the 56th floor of one of those skyscrapers down
town. In fact, even if he takes an elevator, it would take him a
good 2 minutes to reach his floor. I need not say that Ben has a
very busy life. He does a lot of running around, he does market
surveys, he doesn't do it directly; he has people to do the dirty
work for him. But still he does a lot of running around and he is on
his toes all day long. No he is not a ballet dancer; that was just a
figure of speech that I used to tell you how busy he is. So let's
take a closer look at Ben's life without appearing nosy.
Ding-a-ling-a-ling! That's Ben's alarm clock gone off at 6 in the
morning and Ben is up already. Just look at him, though he is in his
… well … underwear, he still looks as large as life and as right as
rain. What makes a man all perked up more than a good night's sleep?
There, Ben is already out of the bathroom and he has put on a
tracksuit. At half past six, he is already in his car and heading
for the gym.
I forgot to tell you that Ben is one hell of a looker and is very
conscious about his trim body. And in order to keep it that way he
works out in the gym every single day and that too for an hour. So
that means at quarter to eight he is on his way back home. It is a
fifteen minute drive from his apartment to the gym. At 8.15 he has
showered and dressed and is going down the elevator holding his
morning paper in his hand. His office is only a ten minute drive
from his apartment but at this rush hour, the traffic just crawls.
So Ben chooses to use his electric razor in the car while he is
driving, dangerous though it may seem. Did you really think a man
could have a shave and a shower in just 15 minutes? Well, think
again. And so the traffic crawls on and Ben reaches his office at
ten minutes to nine.
There is hardly time for him to grab a bite to eat, so what he does
is that he runs to the cafeteria and gets a sandwich and coffee. The
coffee he manages to gulp down but the sandwich remains in its
wrapper as he notices an interesting article in the newspaper that
was still tucked away under his arm. He reads it in the elevator on
his way up and reaches his office just in time for his secretary to
tell him that there is important meeting for him with the Board
Members within half an hour. Ben suddenly realizes that the meeting
is about some projects that he had done but the paper work was in no
way complete.
There is something like a whirlwind in the office as Ben and his
secretary strain themselves to get things done and finally just in
the nick of time, Ben is able to walk into the board room with the
necessary documents with which Ben is in no way satisfied. It
happens with most last minute jobs you know.
The meeting goes on till noon, you know how people love to talk, and
Ben leaves the room with a lot of praises and even more new
assignments. He has had one more coffee, but the sandwich that he
had ordered is now fit for the waste bin. And mind you this is the
third time this week that Ben missed breakfast. Just before noon Ben
gets a seemingly endless number of calls from this agent and then
that. Oh yes his secretary had been screening the calls, you should
see the number of calls that she didn't send his way.
At last by half past two Ben leaves his office and makes a beeline
to the cafeteria. Just as he takes a big bite out of his monster
burger, his cell phone beeps. He answers the call to find out that
it is from a very important client whom he had been trying to fix an
appointment with.
The client had agreed to an appointment, which was to be held
immediately. Out rushes Ben and into the waste bin goes his burger.
The meeting turned out better than he expected and a beaming Ben
returns to his office and sits down to a host of pending paper work
which keeps him occupied till seven in the evening. At half past
seven he remembers his date with Kellie and though he rushes to the
spot, he reaches there half an hour late and goes home without
meeting Kellie and with an empty stomach and a weary body. So much
for working out and being health conscious!
Now that you are acquainted with Ben I would like you to meet Bob.
Bob lives in the country. He has a farm. It is not a very big farm;
it is one of those medium sized farms from which you can get enough
produce to make both ends meet. Bob is up at when the cock crows at
five in the morning. As soon as he is up, he goes to his dairy and
milks his three cows. I must add that Bob does not walk, he ambles.
Having milked the cows he heads back to the farm and sits down with
his morning paper. He chats leisurely with his wife who is going
about her daily business. Around 8 he hops into his tractor and
drives to the nearby dairy to deliver the milk. There he meets a
couple of his friends and spends a good half hour exchanging news
with them. He gets back to the farm at nine and has a relaxed
breakfast.
When breakfast is over, he puts on his straw-hat and taking his dog
along starts his daily excursion among his cornfields. His corn has
a couple a weeks to go before harvest and now there is nothing much
to do but walk around inspecting the rat traps. At eleven he is back
at the farm and settles down to listen to his radio playing some old
favorite tunes. He has lunch at 1 and then settles down in his
favorite chair for an afternoon siesta. In the evening he again goes
to milk his cows, gives them some fresh feed and has one more walk
around the farm.
After dinner by seven, by eight he is in bed and the lights are out.
Let's admit it, Bobs life is so leisurely that we feel like
screaming when we watch the pace at which he gets along. He is happy
and contented and the only clock in his farm stopped ticking a few
years ago. We cannot even draw a parallel line between the lives of
bob and Ben. They are two worlds apart. The point I was trying to
drive home is that it is our life style that decides how much time
we have for each thing. The way we live and what we do decides how
we spend our time and how much time we have to spend. We choose our
lifestyles and that decides what we do with our time and that is why
I said that we live in our own Time cages.
(Psst…I do not think there are many Bobs alive in the world today.)
So what kind of life do you live? We - that is most of us - live in
a world of jet airplanes, fast cars, computers, PDAs, cell phones
and instant messaging, elevators and escalators, fast trains and a
thousand more contraptions and machines that are all intended to
save time and do things faster.
Yeah, yeah we talk about convenience, but the fact is that all these
machines were the result of man's endeavor to get things done
faster. And the result is that life moves so fast that we could get
dizzy if we were to take a minute break and just look around at all
the people whizzing around in the daily business called life.
Twenty-four hours is hardly enough for us to finish a day's work.
And so what most working people do is that they start compromising
on the other seemingly not so important thing like eating and
getting eight hours sleep in the night. And so we have such a large
number of people suffering from stress related diseases like ulcers,
high blood pressure and heart problems.
We cannot do much about the life style that we have chosen. It's is
simply impossible that we suddenly decide to take a break, quit the
job, go to the country and live like Bob on his farm. For one thing,
there are not that many farms in the country and for a second thing,
most of us would die like fishes out of water if we were to settle
down in the country. After all, how many of us know how to milk a
cow?
What does that mean, are we all doomed o suffer as ulcer patients
and blood pressure patients? Far from it; if we are able to manage
our time effectively we ca live a city life that is as enjoyable and
comfortable as Bob's life in the country. And that is the purpose of
this book.
But that is not all. The main purpose of this book is to help you
manage your time better so that you can become more productive and
bring a lot of organizing into your life. You will be surprised to
find out how much one can do provided one has the time for it and
one can have the time only if ones time is organized and managed
well.
So if you must build yourself a Time cage, go ahead and do so but
make sure you make it big enough so that you have time for every
thing and do not feel all cramped and cluttered in a single celled
prison.
