Better late than never

Tired of living on a clock the entire week? Do you strongly feel that there should be more to life than being tied down by laptops, cell phones and desktop ‘weekly planners’?

Don’t worry. The sooner you fall behind; you’ll have more time to catch up! How this simple truth is often overlooked? Only those who have patience (or laziness) to react slowly will acquire the skill to procrastinate. Time and tide wait for none. Let them not. (No one took them seriously till the tsunami of 2004!)

Modern society has evolved into (and not inherited), a culture that brings us under time pressure. Several articles have been written on time management. But nobody has time to browse them as they are incarcerated in the web of time. We are in a society that is rich materially, but greatly impoverished in time. Once again it is time to think about time.

A misplaced fuse-wire or a tool will be found immediately after purchasing a new one. However, this is not true in the case of time. It’s mercurial. It has the power and magic to desert us irrespective of our mental state – conscious or unconscious. But what perplexes me is not its fleeting disappearance but its variable tempo.

Here’s a common experience. Whenever we look forward to a vacation, it approaches us at a snail’s pace, and the moment the vacation starts, it is spent very swiftly. Vagaries of time are difficult to fathom. But one has to find ways to outsmart its subtle ways of applying pressure in our routines.

One of the ways to handle this peril is to learn to procrastinate. I know, my views are contrary to what Lord Chesterfield said, “No idleness, no laziness, no procrastination, never put off till tomorrow what you can do to-day.” I wouldn’t like to comment on his anachronistic views. Life is not meant for attending to sundries on the same day. Life has to be unhurried and we have to have something to catch up tomorrow.

Recently, my son was on a holiday from US and I wanted to get one or two time management tips from him. He had many up his sleeve. Let me share the one on planning meals ahead of time. He advised cooking an extra portion of dinner which would serve for lunch the next day, or one could plan out for all the seven days at a time. Does his method appear to go one or two notches beyond Lord Chesterfield’s prescription? In reality: No.

Am I overstating my point? Nevertheless, I’ve decided to drive home my point of ‘time’. It is common knowledge that a restless man always lands up in a hypertension ward. He invariably marches towards ‘tension-peak’ as the doctor’s bill mounts. If you ask the doctor: “When I’ll be cured?” He would grant a grimace. He’d assure you saying, “Don’t worry. Time will cure everything”. Isn’t it ironical that time induces disease and cures it too! A greater irony is that the doctor earns the consultation fee for ‘time healing’.

Time has introduced ‘stress’ in many fields. It doesn’t spare the sportsmen too. Chess players come under time pressure. In one-day cricket the time pressure is enormous and of equal measure on players as well as spectators. I still remember the plight of an Indian spectator in the Sharjah cup who died of excitement in the stadium all due to application of ‘Duckworth Lewis Method of Calculation’.

Grandmaster Vishwanathan Anand never seems to come under time stress and always brings others into time pressure. He plays simultaneous chess with 40 odd players. He makes the first move on the first board and returns to it only after playing the remaining 39 boards. There is a lot to learn from this game plan. We must devote reasonable time to nibble at each task and then move on to the next. You can come back to the first one as many times as required until it's completed. In an increasingly competitive environment, the ability to procrastinate and yet achieve your targets keeps you in an enviable position.

Look at our politicians. Look at their unfailing health. Do they ever complain or come under ‘time pressure’. They seem to grow younger with age. All our seasoned politicians are either sexagenarians or septuagenarians. But making better choices in life frees up a lot of time for them I suppose.

What’s the secret of their health? (and w-e-a-l-t-h). Unarguably, their deft handling of time, I must say. They have mastered the art of delay and procrastination. Like a tribe, they all arrive late for any meeting, at least by hours. How adroitly they delayed the introduction of “Women’s’ Bill” in Parliament. Delay is an attribute for a politician and not a symptom. They know how to manage 9 to 5 and 5 to 9 equally well. (I mean they have a rare élan to manage well both home and office!!)

How many times has the rising sun greeted you? Seldom? Don’t worry. Vitamin D deficiency is not reported in the western world where sunlight is so rare, leave alone the sunrise. Then why worry? Relax and review. We cannot savor the present moment while plunging headlong into the next. We cannot find peace without pausing. Have always time by your side. Start chanting “Better late than never!!!”.

Tail Piece: John de Graaff is an editor of a book entitled: "Take Back Your Time". The book describes the essence of American time depravity and presents essays on time poverty by experts on workplace, family, health, and public policy issues. To address issues like this, the Simplicity Forum launched ‘Take Back Your Time Day’ on October 24, 2003—nine weeks before the end of the year, to symbolize the fact that Americans work nine weeks more each year than Europeans and Japanese. The organizers chose October 24 because the remaining weeks in the year symbolize the additional time that Americans work on job compared with their European brethren.

If we take back our time, what will we do with it? Well, our time is all we have and none of us know how much time we have remaining in our lives. Hence, let us "Take Back our Time" as much as we can. Don’t procrastinate. Join the forces on October 24 before somebody asks we Indians to “Give Back Your Time”.