Personal Development : Time, Planning, Repairs & Maintenance

These are just my thoughts, but some you may find something interesting in it. Please think over it. We may know many things, but still we always keeps procrastinating it. I have written this as I have heard many people coming back and saying they don’t have time to do things they like. These are my thoughts buy may be useful to someone else too.

Certain things in life needs periodic repairs and maintenance. To cite some examples , your CAR, your HOUSE, your personal laptop/desktop, your health etc.

Likewise there are certain other things in professional life that requires repair/ maintenance /or some kind of polishing, so that you always stay on top of it. But they are not always obvious. Some of them are

- Improving your communication skills
- Increasing your vocabulary
- Upgrading your technical skills
- Pursuing your hobby
- Increasing your knowledge/awareness etc… etc…

And then there are certain things that we are always short of…. one is TIME.

We all know TIME is one of the most precious things in life and yet we all are very miserable at managing it. Remember you can only manage it and not control it. You can only control which you own or which you create. In theory time is infinite. So, there should be abundant of it. But remember one thing, you know this, it’s not reversible. Once it has elapsed you cannot live it again. Think over it.

So, how do find that golden 25th hour every day.

To find the 25th hour you need to reflect back on your current daily activities. Analyze them and see where you are spending most of your time and is it really important. Even the 8 hours that you spent in the office, is it spent fruitfully. At the end of the day is the 8 precious hour that you spent was worth it. Just reflect back on your activities. Did you learn something? If yes did you make a point to NOTE IT. If you didn’t NOTED it then was the time you spent really worth it. Just ponder over it.

Some calculations of your daily activities where most of the time is spent. Let’s start (in no particular order though)

- Sleep (6.5 hours) [Remember you only require 6 good hours of sleep every day]. Some may thing it is 8, but it’s a myth.
  o To achive 6 hours of sleep and be in good health you can practice 15 minutes of daily meditation. So effectively you can    round it to 6.5 hours.
- Morning chores(2 hours) : Some may need to prepare breakfast and all other things.
- Office commuting (avg. to and fro 3 hours)
- Office Work (avg 9.5 hours)

Total Hours: 21 hours effective time which is spent irrespective of what you do. There may be some variations here and there.

Still you have 3 hours EXTRA. Where do these 3 hours go?

If you can find it, then you may get that golden 25th hour out of these 3 hours. Let’s discount 2 hours for contingencies, still you have 1 hour with you.

If you can’t find it then you are living a direction less life.

As you can see, the 25th Hour lies within the 24 hours of the day. It’s upto each one of us to find and make use of it.

Now what can you do with that 25th hour i.e. 1 hour extra of your life. Imagine the possibility.

Again some calculations

1 hour daily * 30 days = 30 hours every month
30 hours pm * 12 month = 360 hours every year.

360 hours every year seems very promising. Let’s add some contingencies, say, let’s be optimistic and say 50 % contingency.

Still you have 180 hours every year. That leaves with 30 minutes every day of extra time. That’s hell a lot of time, if you could manage it.

These may sound like a high talk [yes, it is, unless you apply these simple rules and rationalize your everyday living and stop procrastinating].

NOTE: I haven’t taken weekend, holidays and leaves into account. So, that leaves us with a lot of buffer time. You can meet family friends, relatives, other tasks, and yet have these 180 pure hours of joy every year. Do whatever you want to do with it.

So, how important is this 180 hours per year to you? Just think over it. You may use it the way you like

- 50 hours [pursue your hobby like drawing, crafting, learn dance, learn juggling, learn swimming, travelling hmm.. anything you like doing and you didn’t had time to do it.]
- 30 hours you can learn a new programming language or technology (i.e. you can get comfortable with it)
- 50 hours [improve existing skills]
- 20 hours [improve you communication skill]. Do some light reading.
- 30 hours [YOU DECIDE WHAT TO DO]?

So, if you had done this for one year you would have learnt a new programming language, upgraded existing skills, improved you communication etc..

If you had done this for two years.. imagine the level of personal development or growth which you may have attained…..

If you had done this for three years….. NOW I think I don’t need to mention this…

So, you still have TIME, as they say TIME is infinite. So, make judicious use of this precious thing. And never ever comeback saying “I don’t have time”. So, if you are RICH in TIME, everything else will be automatically taken care of, as those things may just be a byproduct of how you spend your time…

So, happy TIMING your TIME everyday.