Stop Time Management, Start Value Management
Questioner: Hello Sir. Sir, you have always said that having a rich overall personality is very important and therefore you lay stress on the importance of extracurricular activities in schools and colleges. But as a student, my problem is that I don't find time for extracurricular activities, and in fact, I see that as a general problem for a lot of people in campus.
We don't have enough time to engage ourselves in extracurricular activities and therefore student participation is not that great. Students are not participating, be it in sports or in dramatics or any other forms of extracurricular activities. What I experience is that there is a huge time pressure on us, and I just don't find time for everything. So, sir, please say something.
Acharya Prashant: This surprises me! I used to think that schools and colleges now are focusing much more on their extracurriculars than use to happen in my time . I am surprised by this question because the funds now are bigger, the campuses have more amenities; how is it that extracurriculars are not being promoted?
Because, you see, if I look at when I was in college, the late 90s, it would have been very difficult to find a squash court outside the IIT campus. One would need to travel five, ten, fifteen, I don't know how much, maybe twenty kms. A swimming pool again, not something you could very commonly find even in the capital of India. And even if there were pools, they were not necessarily accessible to students; even if they were accessible, they were not necessarily affordable.
So, things have changed—you have better libraries, more amenities, there are clubs, there is just so much. And if you are not making use of that, I suppose that would be because of priorities that you are setting, not because of the availability of resources. The priorities then depend so much on you.
My batch strength was three hundred fifty. Out of these three hundred fifty, I suppose three hundred twenty-five would have never stepped on the tennis court even once in those four years of B-tech. That's a choice that you make—the court is there, it's available; you don't want to step on the court, that's a choice that you make.
The swimming pool is there, three hundred out of three hundred fifty students never went to the pool. The Dramatics club was there, elocution, or debating, extemporary, or poetry composition recitation, photography club, dance, music, creative writing; but most students simply didn't participate. Now whether you participate or not depends on your zeal towards life, because obviously it takes a lot.
You have your regular load of academics and then after that you have to invest yourself in something else. Be it sports or dance, dramatics or some tech hobby, it requires a more careful and disciplined organization of your time. And if you are allowing, let's say two or three hours of the day to be taken away by social media, right? You go to bed at 11:00 pm in the night and then you finally fall asleep only at 1:30 am. We usually don't account for that time, right?
We say, “I had gone to bed.” The fact is you were awake, you were awake and conscious, and those two and a half hours have been deeply wasted. It's a huge waste and then we say we don't have time for extra-curriculars. You look at the number of views and likes etc. that a usual Instagram reel or YouTube short has—huge millions, not small millions. Sometimes the number of likes itself is in millions, and it's the young people who are watching those things. That time obviously should have been rightfully spent in doing something better.
So, if you say you have a shortage of time, is that real? Really a short of time? If you are short of time, who is watching all those reels and pushing the like button? Who's doing all that? You do that, right? Look at all the trash influencers and fifty million followers, eighty million followers; who is following them? And following somebody has costs and repercussions, right? Could you have not better spent that time on the tennis court, or the swimming pool, or in the library, or on the dance floor? I am asking you. And think of the cumulative time you accord to all the wasteful portfolios.
First of all, you don't have too much time. Ten hours you spend in the necessary biological activities of the day—sleeping, hygiene, food—at least ten hours goes towards that. And you cannot cut down on that, right? Food you have to take, bath you have to take, sleep you have to take, correct? So, ten hours goes towards that, in fact, more than ten hours sometimes; that much goes towards that. One or two hours go towards commuting in many cases, sometimes to workplace, sometimes to college; all the different kinds of commutes.
What are you left with? Twelve hours. Now of those twelve hours, you spend let's say six to eight hours in your classroom, is that so? And if we include the time between the classes, that often happens, right? Not all classes and just abut each other—sometimes you will have something from 9-10 AM and then the next one is at 12 noon; so, two hours you have to simply sit in the cafeteria and while away, does that happen?
So, effectively you are left with less than two hours or three hours for self-development—for your reading, for your internal growth, for your exploration or for just your solitary silence, when you can just be with, let’s say a tree and be with yourself. All that you are left with is just two or three hours. Now out of these two or three hours, if you devote two hours to Instagram, what are you left with? You are left with nothing.
Those two or three hours was all that you had, and approximately everything from there has been just wasted or looted away. But we don't look at it like that, we say, “Oh, I gave it only two hours out of my twenty-four hours. You didn't give it two hours out of twenty-four hours, you gave it two hours out of the only two hours that you had. So, you gave it two out of two hours, now what are you left with? Not only have you wasted time, you also have accumulated some filth here (pointing towards the head); and then it feels as if we genuinely are victims of time pressure. It does feel.
You talk to anybody, and you would sincerely say, “You know, I am short of time. I want to do a lot of good things in life, but I feel short of time. Here is my reading list—these are the books I want to really finish off this year 2023, and its already March, and I have not even finished one of these ten books. Where is the time?”
“These are the places that I want to visit as a young person, I never find the time to go there.” “I want to hit the Gym. I mean yes, join there and deposited the fee and the membership was for six months, and all I did was six days and even the membership has gone waste. “That happens right? “There is no time.” The fact is that there is time.
So, remember this very clearly—time management is actually value management. If you know the value of something, you will give time to it. If you find you are not giving time to something, that simply means that you are according a higher value to something else.
When you accord a higher value to something else, then obviously your time will flow towards that thing. Your time is where your value is. You understand value? The importance you give to something, and it's a very definite thing. The more important you really consider something; the more time will flow towards it. Whether you plan it or not, whether you want it or not; it will just happen.
So, if you are not able to give time to something, let's say to the library or to the swimming pool; that simply means that you do not consider them important. Maybe you are paying some lip service. Formally, orally you are declaring, “Oh! I find the library very important. Oh! I wanted to learn the flute this year;” that's just a superficial declaration. Internally, you love some vulgar reel much more than the flute, and that's why you would spend time on that little video or the long video, whatever it is I don't know, rather than the flute.
Would you remember this? Time follows your values. So, if you are not giving time to something, it directly means you are not giving value to that thing. And if you are giving time to something that means—now you may keep cursing that thing, you may keep saying, “Oh! it's such a wasteful thing, I didn't want to but somehow accidentally, mistakenly, I ended up giving time to it, I never wanted to”—you are lying. The thing is, you really do gave a lot of importance to that thing and that's the only reason why you gave so much time to it.
Your time profile is a clear representation of your mental profile, your value profile. If you want to know who you are, that's an experiment I used to do with my students many years back. I would say, “Just write down where your typical day goes. Show me the time distribution and that time distribution will tell you who you are.”
You are where you are spending your time—that's your identity, that's your name, that's your personality.
If you want to know who a person is, just see where he or she spends his time. If you want to know who you are, just see where you are spending your time and that will very clearly tell you who you are. Beyond your words, beyond your declarations, beyond your intentions, beyond your presumptions and pretensions, that will show you the mirror—just see where your time goes.
Do that objectively, because if you will just think, you will say, “No, no, no. I don't waste my time.” Write it down—8:30 am to 10 am this is what I really did. You will be surprised at the kind of time that is available to you, but is wasted, frittered away. You will be surprised. You will say, “But the productive time in the entire twenty-four hours cycle is just two hours, though I feel occupied the entire day.” Now feeling is such a deception. You will continue to feel busy and occupied, whereas the fact is that you have just wasted your time.
And when somebody will come to talk sense to you or to scold you a little, you will feel victimized. You will say, “All the day, I have been doing constructive work. All the day I have been so busy, look how tired I am, even this little thumb is paining. Why is the thumb really paining? (showing the act of swiping up on down on the mobile screen) Every single muscle in the body is paining, especially this thumb; and this fellow is accusing me of wasting my time.” That feeling will definitely arise.
Never live by your feelings, that's one mark of a wise human being. He or she learns to dissociate himself, herself from the feelings. That does not mean that you have to trample or destroy your feelings. No! That simply means that you have to know the truth of your feelings. Feelings deceive, feelings can come from anywhere. Be objective. Want to know yourself, make a proper table. Make a proper table for let's say, ten to fifteen consecutive days and then you will be ashamed at the kind of wastage you are inflicting on yourself.
You will say, “My God, this is what I am doing to my life. Only two hours of productive thing any day, and the rest of it can't even see where that flies away. I am just wasting it all.” Try that, would you? Make a proper table of where your time is really going. And don't lie, don’t lie at least not to yourself. Sometimes it's okay to lie to others, but it's never, never okay to lie to yourself.
