I have shared my experiences in time management in a few articles. One of the important things I learned in this process is 'Writing down Goals'.

 

'Palest Ink is better than brightest memory'

'If you fail to plan, you plan to fail'

 

One of the important activity during the time management workshop was answer this question:

If you had only 6 months to live, what are the things you will do?

 

Though no one wants to die in next months, this question is very important because then we will focus on what is IMPORTANT in our life. We focus on our roles, our responsibilities than all the fantasies we want to indulge in.

 

Answering the above question is not so easy. One need to spend lot of hours or days before we can get a clear answer.

 

I also realized importance of writing down the goals. I spent lot of time and wrote down more than 300 goals both major and minor. After I wrote down those things I felt very happy and it actually helped me to realize some of them over next few months. Some of the goals are very long term. Part of everyday planning when we look at the goals again and again we are motivated to take action towards those goals.

 

Mind and Computer

Imagine your mind as a machine or a computer. A computer may have high capacity to process lot of tasks. But you will observe the computer slows down when it is given too many tasks to do. It gets confused which process should be executed first and when it is trying to process all the tasks it will go 'out of memory' and even crashes.

 

Though our mind is much more powerful than computer, taking this parallel, imagine our mind as the computer. When our mind is busy with so many things to do, it gets confused. It does know which is important and which is not. This confusion can result is chaos. So part of our planning, if we take some time to write down all the tasks to do, the image is now clear in our mind about what we are facing. Writing down provides an accurate list of things to do. These tasks are not running 'in memory' all the time and hence mind can focus on items on top of the list. Once mind is used to this practice it becomes efficient.

 

Illustrative example

Let me take an example on how our mind gets burdened when we try to remember everything instead of writing down.

Imagine you have a photo roll which needs to be developed and printed. It is at the back of your mind. Everytime you cross the photo studion on your way to office, you remind yourself - I must bring the roll sometime and get the development done. You forget the next day also and this scenario repeats. Your mind is not only burdened with the task of remembering 'Photo development' but it is in addition burdened with some 'guilt' feelings that you are not being efficient. This simple guilt feeling can bring down your efficiency and you may be forgetting more important things. Imagine you have more than 50 things to do and you keep every single task in your mind and it comes to your mind only when some other event in the external world reminds you of that, your mind will be under tremendous stress. Do like this type of adhoc task handling? Do you like being reminded by others what is important?

 

In turn when you start relying on a written down to-do list or goals and prioritize them, it is easier to handle the burden. Mind is not under stress to remember so many things and it can focus on things at hand. It not only improves your efficiency but also improves your effectiveness.

 

And I also found in my experience we are not always so busy as we 'imagine'.

 

I spent lot of time in writing down all major and minor goals. Examples of goals include:

Read book 'Autobiography of a Yogi'

Read book 'Bhagavad Gita'

Watch movie 'Lagaan'

Watch movie classic 'Les Miserables'

File Income Tax Returns

 

Like this the list was long and at one time it was 300 items. As I had the list, I found that I gradually found a way to fulfill them. I was able to fulfill some items which had been going on in my mind for more than 3 years. It improves my confidence in myself that I am in control of my life and I am contented. This simple aspect of planning has made a big difference in my life. And I always recommend this simple practice to everyone because I realized what it meant to me.

 

If you need specific help in doing something similar, I will be glad to be of help. Do write to me if you need help.