Time Management - Lesson Learned , Decades Ago

During my eventful tenure with one of the largest Indian corporate "Bajaj Auto Ltd", i learned the most rewarding lesson of my life."Utilization of Time ", and such a huge concept was explained in few minutes by  the Boss of my immediate Boss ( Mr DVP).

It dates back to late late eighties , ISO 9000 was a new but promising concept .Obviously it invaded  most of the growing and reputed companies of that time. A huge "System Awareness" program was initiated  by the Management, across the rank and file and i was selected the  coordinator of my dept, to formulate  and document the activities, pertaining to our department.

I was very much Excited initially , as any it happens with a new venture , but a disproportionate allocation of time triggered an alarm in the existing system and after an initial round of discussion , my boss recommended a review meeting with his boss, the Divisional Head to resolve this issue.

The purpose of the meeting was to find out , how i could do justice to my regular job as well as the developmental one like ISO 9000 with proper utilization of available time.

Please remember, window was still not invented by Mr Gate and we were too happy with Fox Pro and the gang. Although,exposure to computer though limited but was much ahead of time, in view of a visionary management.

Slightly deviating from the main topic , i must share with you that 'Prince Of Persia" was one of the most  favorite game, we used to play in the absence of our dept head.

Coming back to the topic :-

While surfing internet these days , surprisingly i find too many theories , too many solutions and too many articles written on "Time Management" focusing mostly on the extrinsic components of this issue , ignoring the decisive intrinsic factors.

Well ,what exactly transpired between me and the super boss - The conversation, i remember to the best of my memory  as follows :-

"DVP : Hi Abhijit , how are you?

AK   : Fine.Thanks.How are you sir ?

DVP : Excellent, but i have a serious problem !

Anticipating a huge firing, the reputation he enjoyed , i some how managed to raise my eyebrows with a question mark and he delivered the statement of my life :)

Abhijit, i am really excited to notice that, you are running short of time with some additional  assignments in hand, ( Courtesy my Boss ). May be you are the right person to suggest me , what do i do with so much of free time available. Look at my incoming Tray, its empty. Does it mean , my job is in danger?"

Perplexed and before i could answer , his Boss , the Plant Head entered the cabin with a big smile  and started thanking Mr DVP profusely.."how could you complete this project so quickly ? "

"Nothing special sir", i just delegated it to the right persons , i have recruited and groomed for this type of assignments, i did nothing sir, they actually did it."

Plant Head left after a minute or so and ..

Our meeting ended with the comment, i shall never forget 

" Abhijit, if you are running short of time,please understand that, there is something terribly wrong with your overall system. Pl, review it asap and reduce the clutters."

Believe me, i took it as a challenge and with no fancy modern "Time Management Tools" like GTD etc at my disposal and successfully reduced the junks with :-

1.Making regular notes on priorities and re-evaluating the daily schedule on continuous basis.

-Hourly schedule is still too ambitious an objective and i shall simply conclude that, it's all exaggerated by those people suffering from 'Too Busy Syndrome". A daily schedule is more than sufficient-

2.Taking immediate action on every task and re-entering the incomplete tasks at the bottom of next schedule, i mean the list of task for the following day.

-That's it ! Doing the same even today but instead of a dairy , its my blackberry now-

After a month, i happened to meet him in a planning meeting and with a confident smile, he asked me  ' So Abhijit , hope you have switched over to my party ..guys with disposable time.", i "just smiled back !"

Author : Abhijit Kar