My Dear Readers

From the king to a pauper, everybody has only 24 hours in a day and 168 hours in a week. Unless we get the best out of our time, we cannot get the best out of our life. Life leadership is time leadership.

With almost one -third of a day lost in sleep and rest, another minimum of three hours on the daily routine chores of brushing the teeth, potty and bath, coffee and breakfast, the newspaper, then the lunch, snacks and dinner, add to that the time required for urban travel and traffic jams, with all this can we miss the T V time ? So, what is left of a day of 24 hours? whatever may be the leftover hours, they will obviously be consumed by the day-to-day work life urgencies, deadlines and other emergencies. The casualty is ‘what is important’ never gets done. Urgency will always prevail over what is important. While urgency acts on you, it is you who has to act on what is important. Most of us keep yielding to the day-to-day urgencies, and as a result, the future is orphaned in the process. After all, it is only in acting upon what is important the future is built.

Let us do a hypothetical calculation of the minimum time required to do justice to what is important. An hour a day of exercise - physical need : another hour for reading and contemplation- intellectual need : one hour dedicated quality time for the family-emotional need; one more hour beyond the day-to-day urgencies for futuristic professional growth - to be ready for the future before the future arrives; and an hour for meditation and other spiritual practices- spiritual need. That’s five hours a day for seven days, which is thirty-five hours in a week. Of the 168 hours that constitute a week, 35 hours is a mere 21%.That’s why it is always easier to discipline ourselves over a week and do what’s important than to struggle to fit all the stuff into 24 hours. The very thought of 24 hours creates an artificial sense of urgency.

So , choose what you think is the best day of your week (an attitudinal issue) to organize the week (a skill). Shift from daily planning to weekly organizing. The biorhythm of every human being is different and hence we all have different peak hours. Peak hours are the time slots when you feel you are in the zone. The body, mind, intellect and emotional personalities feel completely integrated, enabling you to be at your best. Anything that is done during peak hours produce enhanced results. So observe what are your peak hours and assign your most important activities to these time slots.

With just these two internal shifts, weekly organizing and doing what is important during the peak hours, you will experientially realize that time management is not clock management but it is life leadership. Where your time goes, there your future comes.