The Truth About Time Management

Furiously scribbling lines with sweaty palms, lines that barely even resemble the bar graph. Not even using a scale to draw lines, or switching to a pencil for the graph. Basically bypassing all the tactics for the “presentation” of the answer sheet. Stress building up. Still four 4-marker questions to be completed, rather even be attempted. The answer sheets are yet to be tied together. And damn. Not even 2 minutes are left for each of them. There just isn’t sufficient time. DARN IT!

Nerve-racking? Heck yes it is. This was me in my class 7 term 1 maths exam. Many would account this to not enough practice and poor time management. I agree with not enough practice. Poor time management, not so much. Because if you look at it, there isn’t any such thing as time management. Pretty unorthodox huh!

Time is constantly flowing no matter what you are doing or what you will do and when you will do it. It was, is and will continue to pass without giving a damn about how you use it. At the end of a day, both Elon Musk and Rahul Gandhi would have spent 24 hours, doesn’t matter what or how much of it they did.

With me till here? Shockers ahead 🤯😲 

What do you do in time management? According to Oxford dictionary, time management is the ability to use one’s time effectively or productively, especially at work. Essentially, you decide what things you will give your time to, in the order of priority.

But how do you manage time when it does not wait or pause for anyone and continues to pass without any consideration? The answer is – You don’t. You don’t manage time.

It is actually your energy that you are managing. What you are actually doing is deciding where to put your energy, in priority order. You are deciding where to focus your energy, because that is what is in your control and it is what will exhaust, say, at the end of a day. 

So it is crucially important for us to figure out how we utilise our energy, and at the same time, try and increase it. 

Let’s look at a scenario – There are 24 hours (the time) in a day, out of which we can work for 20 hours at the max (you know, unless you’re a superhuman or a robotic humanoid who needs no sleep but charging maybe 🤔). If you’re lethargic, dull and inactive you’ll be able to utilise only  a small portion of your productive hours. On the other hand if you’re super energetic or chirpy on some day, you may even outdo the healthy amount of working hours (16 -18 hours, maybe even 20 or more in some cases). 

So you see what’s happening here? Apparently, your time has increased. But in actuality it is your energy that has increased and allowed you to do more. My physics practical teacher used to say something like this – things only seem apparent and what you are seeing need not be true. Guess he was right.

Now I could give you a laundry list on how to improve on time manag- ugh! old habits 🙄 – I meant energy management but I’m pretty sure that you already have enough of them. 

Though, what I do want to give you is a heads up. Energy management is beyond sticking to time tables. It’s more about what things deserve your attention and what don’t. You need to be firm as to what occupies your mind. Not all things are worth your attention and you must remember that. The more unworthy things you’ll remove, the more energy you’ll have for things worth it, for the things that matter to you. Here’s one of my favourite quotes by a great author, L. Ron Hubbard, “Man’s worst difficulty is his inability to tell the important from the unimportant.”

P.S. I am absolutely in sync with the idea of time management but i believe it’s name is quite misleading. 

So let’s start calling things and concepts – like time management – for what they really are – to energy management. 

I really appreciate my dad for bringing this in my awareness. He is the one who literally spoon-fed me this and many more, non-conformist concepts so that I could see things for myself, and not for their apparentness or how it has been passed to us through everyone we know.