Uday Lama:

I have never attended a talk programme on ‘time management’ so do not have any clue as to what the invitees discuss. At a guess it may have to do with getting the optimum results from work done over a stretch. This is as far as I can go and the limits to what I can surmise. Let me be clear about one thing and that is ‘time management’ leaves me both high and dry — and reactive. This has to do with its esoteric nature best left to business executives, high-ranking officials and entrepreneurs and those who have a deadline to beat. They are the only ones to benefit from dividing the day into work, play and recreation. And pray where does this leave me for I tend to fritter away the precious hours.

I have a habit of putting things off or call it procrastination. This gets on my nerves and leaves me in no mood to tackle the details of my personal life. So this is where a lecture or orientation in managing time would have made me a more efficient workhorse. In this fast paced, hectic life a career minded individual would have to bear the brunt of handling responsibilities not to speak of getting things done. Truly this calls for an effort in spending hours on end in working out a sweat — or of completing a task before being assigned another.

The matter of time which is divided into seconds, minutes and hours drives me crazy with its futility. It makes for an adrenaline high but there is no comfort and assurance from this knowledge. Perking up after a morning or afternoon mug of tea is all I can hope to accomplish before I set aside the pile of work and take my ease. Time management means an investment of energy over small matters that needs to be attended and can leave one exhausted. There is simply no getting away from it because it sticks like a burr. These seemingly innocuous details have a way of getting under the skin and spoiling what is an ordinary moment. It not only unnerves me but distracts my attention from more important matters. But there is no evading the displeasure, however unsettling it might be should one make it a point to commit to the aforesaid small matters.

I am not concerned about what will happen if I do not manage my work if at all. Perhaps I should take a lesson from the time management gurus who have succeeded in bringing themselves to the forefront of their private and public lives. But they have a mantra of their own which I woefully lack. The horizons of my life are limited by my perceptions and no more and no less.