Chapter 44 Time, the Priceless Commodity.
People say land is limited and precious, but you can still reclaim more land from the sea. Can you re-live your 8th birthday or bring back yesterday? When time is gone, it is gone forever. All the money in the world will not buy back yesterday; that is howpriceless time is! „Lost time cannot be recovered. Benjamin Franklin said, „Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of.
The wastage of time is therefore most costly and atrocious, and the fact that it is invisible makes it even more elusive! Time is here, it must be seized and cherished. The reputable Malcolm Forbes said: „Theres never enough time unless you use it. Lord Chesterfield noted: „The less one has to do, the less time one finds to do it in. Even some 4,300 years ago, Ptahhotpe realised the importance of time when he suggested: ‘Follow your desire as long as you live; do not lessen the time of following desire, for the wasting of time is an abomination to the spirit.’
Many people think of success as a product of cunning, luck and legacy. These are mere excuses for failures. If we were to scrutinise the amount of time we spent each day that was strictly goal-achieving, income-earning and futurebuilding, we would be appalled! Alexander Woollcott commented, „There is no such thing in anyones life as an unimportant day. A lifetime consists of years, months, days and minutes. If each day of our lives is progressive and productive, success is certain. What happens in our lives is directly related to the way we spend our days! How we manage our minutes and hours spells the difference between success and failure.
I have personally seen some achievers, who learned and accomplished more in 5 years than others did in 15 years! They outmatched others in promotion, salary and reward. See? Time may mean nothing to a stone but it is everything to a living person. Its great value depends on what we do while it is flying away. The German writer Goethe wrote: „We have time enough if we will use it right. Napoleon 1 said widely, „Improve your opportunities. Every hour lost in youth is a chance of future misfortune.
You have as much time as the greatest or richest person on earth, you are on a par with him, isn't that most assuring? So do not overlook the importance of managing your life on an hourly and daily basis. If you are engrossed in the work you love, and you advance and enjoy every minute of the day, everyday of the year, you can imagine the level of your happiness and success. It will be enormous! Lord Chesterfield urged us: „Take care of the minutes and the hours will take care of themselves. I have better news for you, if you work an extra hour a day, strive to be more skilful and efficient, and do more in less time, you are even further ahead! In a way, you have created a 8-day week, and a 34-day month. The magnitude of your success will be even greater!
‘Nine tenth of wisdom is being wise in time Said the great ’Theodore Roosevelt. Time, like smoke or snowflake can disappear if you hesitate before action. The great Napoleon Hill rightly warned us: „Life is a checker-board, and the player opposite you is Time. If you hesitate before moving, or neglect to move promptly, your men will be wiped off the board by time. Paradoxically, time is what many of us need the most, yet use the worst. Mastery of time is therefore crucial for success and happiness. I will list here some tips for good time management:
1. Reduce wasted time to zero. Identify sources and incidents of wastage at school, at work and elsewhere, in the 24 hour context. Keep an audit of time in your diary with hourly slots, and record how you spent the week. Youll be surprised how much time you have frittered away! Find out where it went and why it did. Stop time-wasting activities like idling, watching non-beneficial TV programmes, and other fruitless pastimes. Instead, cultivate discipline, diligent habits and concentration. Invent some urgency for job-completion. Someone once said, „Nothing makes a person more productive than the last minute.
2. Control and master your time fully. Take creative and fruitful action always, instead of procrastinating. Plan specific job duties allowing reasonable time and deadlines. Set priorities. Retrieve information and perform tasks efficiently. Be tough with delays, distractions, negativism and politicking.
3. Use your time and other people’s time to your advantage. Add hours to your life by working smarter, by getting more done in less time. If you can do something worth $5 in 5 minutes why take an hour? For myself I always kill 2 birds with one stone. While the photocopier is warming up my computer is ticking away. As the soup is boiling, the frying pan is warming, my garlic is slicing… Add more value to your time by doing higher value activities, and contracting lowvalue work to others. Delegate work to subordinates and win their support. The better you make use of your time, the higher the price and reward you will get for it. Once you have mastered time, you will be amazed how much you have been missing, and how much you have hidden your potentials.
Now let us sum up this chapter: Time should not just be spent, it should be invested or used to some purpose, and utilised for high productivity. Try to accomplish more in less time. Away from work, time is for learning, family, friendship, social contribution, health, exercise, resting and revival. There are only about 25,000 days in ones life; at age 20 you have 18,000 days left, tomorrow it will be 17,999! By then, today will be yesterday, and gone. So I beg you, do not waste a single minute of your time, treasure every moment of your life, whatever you have now, is your little but valuable portion of the wonderful universe! Grow healthier, wealthier and happier by the minute, and you will soon be a force to be reckoned with in the world, a source of pride and joy to our Almighty Creator.
"The ability to concentrate and make optimum use of time is vital for anyone who wants to succeed in business, as well as in almost any field." - Lee Iacocca, of Chrysler, American industrialist.
"My guiding principle has been to avoid putting things off for tomorrow." - Duke of Wellington.
"I live today as if it were my last...I would not waste a single moment of this day..." - Og Mandino, success guru and writer.
"Everything comes to the man who hurries while waiting." - Edison.
"A man that is young in years may be old in hours, if he has lost no time." Bacon, 16th century statesman and philosopher.