Essence and Importance of Time

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Time is the most misused resource known to man. “Time is free, but it’s priceless. You can’t own it, but you can use it. You can’t keep it, but you can spend it. And once it’s lost you can never get it back.” It often takes the misuse of time to realize the true value of it. When asked “What is the biggest mistake we make in life?” the Buddha replied, “The biggest mistake is you think you have time.

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” Everybody has the equal opportunity of time in their life. We all have 24 hours in a day, 60 minutes in an hour and 60 seconds in a minute. According to a recent study, the average person lives 79 years. We spend 33 years of our life in bed, which is over a third of our life! We spend 13 years of our life working, yet many people want to leave their current jobs because they are not satisfied. We spend 11 years in front of a screen, 6 years doing chores, and 4 ½ years eating and drinking.

We spend 1 ½ years in education, 1 ½ years in child care, and 1 year commuting. That leaves us with 7 years.

The most remarkable feature of time is its preciousness. Its value is unfathomable and its power is inestimable. Its potential is something which we cannot calculate. A minute is enough to win a victory. A second is enough to make you the richest man in the world. A fraction of a second can make a difference between life and death. Every moment brings with it thousands of golden opportunities.

Every minute is a store-house of ‘chances’. Therefore, we must not allow such precious time to slip away. If we do so, we allow those golden opportunities and chances to slip away too. A good analogy to use with time is to imagine you wake up every day with $86,400 in your bank account, and at the end of 24 hours it is all gone whether you used it or not.

The next day you get another $86,400. So many people would waste it on cheap stuff that would last only a very short time. Then there are others that make sure they are putting that money towards a worthwhile investment that would last a life time. Every day has 86,400 seconds which are deposited into your life account. At the end of the day, once they are all gone, you get a new 86,400 seconds. We would never waste it if it was money, so we need to stop wasting it when it comes to time.

Until and unless we set up a time-table for ourselves and make a general division of time for the various tasks and jobs at our hand, time will keep slipping away with its golden opportunities unnoticed. Unplanned living is the surest way to kill time. Those individuals who plan beforehand, seldom fail. They are able to start their work on time and are able to complete it in time. Having worked out every minute of the allotted time, they do not hurry. Planning and proper implementation of that always brings in success. Those who plan their living and activities seldom face heartaches, mental tensions and worries. A careful glance into the life history of successful men and women all over the world will reveal the basic truth that success is the outcome of planned utilisation of time.

Sometimes we think that other people are wasting our time, but it is really us giving them the permission to do that. To understand what people’s views were on time I conducted a variety of interviews and surveys. Being a senior, I wanted to see what other Seniors’ perspectives were on time and how confident they felt with their time management. I accomplished this through a five-question survey on Survey Monkey. The first question asked was: “What do you regard as the most valuable resource?” Out of the thirty responses, 65% answered time, 10% said money, 10% said water and 15% of the seniors said something else. These responses were somewhat surprising in my eyes. With time, you can accomplish anything; these other options can always be regained, but not time. The second survey question was: “How often do you find yourself running out of time?” Everyone but one person answered that they were running out of time at some point or other. These were rather expected results because deadlines are always close and time is short. The third survey question was: “How well do you time manage?” The answers given were also rather expected. All participants but two stated that they could use some type of improvement when it comes to time management. Time management is a very important tool for every aspect of our life and without it our lives become a complete mess.

Therefore, if we want to succeed in life we ought to chalk out what we are going to do with the minutes, hours, days, months and years at our disposal. This is the first step to success. Secondly, work must never be postponed; tomorrow’ may never materialise. We can only be sure of the present’ which in our hands. Postponement and laziness are the ropes which strangle time. Thus, time can create us or destroy us. It all depends on how we utilise time.

The next question on the survey was: “If time was money would you treat it differently?” 60% of the respondents said that it was likely that they would treat time differently if it was money. The other 40% of the people said that that it was unlikely. This was a little bit surprising to me because of the number of people that said they wouldn’t treat it differently if it was money. We are conscious of the passing time and its importance. We have developed clocks and watches to indicate its flow. We have invented dates, days and years to indicate and measure it in our own way, but it is really indivisible and immeasurable. Time is said to be a wise counselor. Passage of time allows an individual to grow. This growth gives experience. Experience helps decision making. Time reminds you to act and to act wisely. The wisest make use of the time fruitfully. It is said that the wisest grieve the most at the loss of time.

The next question I asked in all interviews was: “In your eyes, what is more valuable, money or time? This question has a pretty obvious answer and everyone answered with the same answer, time. The interviewees said they thought time is more valuable because you can always gain more money but not more time.

If someone is struggling with time management and needs a few tactics, it would be a good idea to talk to someone successful and experienced and they could give a few key tips. From here on, the interviews had different questions from each other due to the difference of professions. In the business owners’ interviews, the next question I asked was: “How has good time management contributed to your business success?” All three business owners gave quite different answers on this one. The first owner, Tony Hewins, CEO of Equipment Assets, had more of a management perspective on the question, which you could tell through his answer. He said that, “Good time management has led to us being very open- minded, which has made us flexible.” He continued, “By simplifying things, it clears up all the monotonous work so you can focus more on the big picture.” (Hewins 16) This shows that his tactic of simplifying things had a direct result in his business because they could focus on the big picture and their main goals. The second business owner, Joe Cavatio, Operations manager of Western Global, had a more operational approach to this question as could be seen through his answer. He stated, “Good time management has really brought down costs. When efficiencies were brought in that saved time, they could charge less to their customers and better compete with their competitors.” Different tactics, like being lean, have saved this business weeks’ worth of work and have allowed them to better compete in the marketplace. This is another example of how time management can affect the efficiency of businesses.