TIME  MANAGEMENT

It can be observed that art of dividing a day into various slots of smaller value and doing different  activities in each slot was well known to Indian Civilization from Vedic and Puranic times.
Arya Chanakya while suggesting time schedule to the King that can be easily adapted by CEO’s of today, has divided the day into 16 slots of one and half hour each. It is interesting to observe that in the e-world of today we keep the sessions for one and half hour.

I’m all-powerful Time,  that destroys all things – Shri Bhagavad Gita

As the sub-text implies ‘time’ is the most powerful of all elements that Nature has bestowed on humanity. Significance of time has been expressed in many ways across all Ages and Civilizations. While some of them have been explicit in their references some of them are subtle.  In as much as it carries a negative label “as a destroyer”, it also carries the positive reputation of a “healer” – the adage goes “ time heals”.  Such is the reputation and  power of Time.

It is worth mentioning here that the ancient civilizations especially from the Asian continent had a fine understanding of “time”.  With such clear understanding, development of day calendars, movement of planets within the constellation, prediction of solar and lunar eclipses on a day to day basis was possible. Asian, Indian and Chinese civilizations had developed fine astronomical calendars depicting the time

The current Paradigm:

The current management thinking has credited “time’ as one of the key determinants of success. “Time, timing ‘ is a secret weapon that leverages other factors of success. It acts like a catalyst in ensuring that other factors of success work in sync and produce the desired results.   It is long recognized that ‘time’ is a key competitor for every business organization.

Traditionally,  business success is defined as ‘ provision of most value at lowest of costs.  With “time” having  been recognized as a key success factor in the armoury of a successful organization, no wonder, then, the  current management thought  has added the ‘time dimension’  to  the above  definition.  ‘Providing most value for the lowest cost in the least amount of time’  is the new mantra.   Accordingly, the corporates have started redefining their success strategies with provision of time bound services.

Current management literature is full of benefits that accrue to a time based competitor or supplier– benefits varying from  reduced inventory ,  lower transaction costs , reduced cycle times and so on.  Being a time based competitor is a win-win situation to both the customer and the provider. While customers perceive this as a significant ‘value-add’ to the product or service,  the supplier or provider of services enjoy less order cancellations,  satisfied customers which gets reflected in the  repeat orders. No wonder Time Management has become an important component of current management vocabulary. The celebrated management thinker and writer Peter Drucker had written a lot on the role of time management in success of individuals.

These instruments of time management varies from time planners, schedulers, project management tools, trackers, personal calendars, scheduler,  to-do-list  and a whole host of others.  It must be mentioned here that multiple variants have emerged and one of them is even called “life planning tools”.  Such life planning tools include result area forms, goal tabs, goal forms, metrics and goal progress tracking formats and what not. These tools are  designed to keep the users focussed on achieving their goals.

Ironically all these solutions focus on individuals suggesting "Do-it-Yourselves" solutions, training programs etc.  The place ‘time management’ occupies in our day to day life is unmatched by any other concern.  Warfare and other destructive activities too have not spared the time dimension from its own operating vocabulary.

Inventions such as air travel, telephony, mobile phones, internet, search engines etc have been focussing and attacking the time.

Arya Chanakya in his treatise on Political Economics, has referred to the subject in the context of how the time should be spent by the king or CEO. He has divided the day in sixteen periods of one and half hour each. It is amazing to observe that even today the period of one and half hour is considered as optimum period for effective session. He has given a schedule for a king to follow that covers topics such as discussions with key ministers, open session with the public at large i.e. target customers, review of achievements. stress management etc.