Acharya Prashant addresses a question about time management and work-life balance, explaining that these concepts are often misunderstood. He begins by asking who the manager is in 'time management.' The spiritual question, he says, is not about managing time but about knowing the manager, the doer, which is the self or the ego. Management is a secondary concern; first, one must know the manager. He elaborates that you will invest your time where your values lie. Your time follows your values. The ego (aham) is what gives priority and value to things, and consequently, it dedicates time to those very things. Therefore, time management is essentially value management. Since these values belong to the self, value management becomes self-management. For the self to manage itself, it requires self-knowledge. Thus, Acharya Prashant concludes that time management is nothing but self-knowledge. People struggle with managing time because they attempt to do so without knowing themselves, lacking the courage for introspection. They make excuses for wasted time, claiming it slipped away, but in reality, their time is spent exactly where they subconsciously want it to be. They want to indulge in pleasures without feeling guilty. The first principle of Vedanta, he points out, is to accept responsibility for one's actions. To understand your true values, you should document where your time goes. This record will reveal your identity, as you are where your time is spent. Ultimately, the highest form of time management is to become oblivious to time. This happens when one is immersed in love for something timeless. When you value that which is beyond time, the passage of time becomes irrelevant. He advises against living a scattered life with fragmented values, which leads to a chaotic use of time and a to-do list with no central theme. By consolidating your life around one supreme value, time is no longer divided and the need to 'manage' it dissolves.