Catch Time By Forelock
By: Dr. Rajendra Kumar Bhola
To believe a business impossible is the way to make it to. How many feasible projects have miscarried thorough despondency and been strangled in their birth by a cowardly imagination and untimely creation.
Many lead a hurried and harried life simply because they are beaten by the clock. Instead of catching time by forelock, they vainly try to grasp it when it has flown by.
They find a lot of important chores staring at them making them irritable and uncomfortable. “We are chronically short of time,” they lament.
They are procrastinators, adept in the art of postponing things. Their motto seems to be: ‘why does to-day what can be put off till tomorrow?’
The habit can be broken. You must in the first place stop telling yourself that you are short of time. Compare yourself with a person who is never hurried on this account. Both of you have the same amount of time in a day 24hours. It is the difference in your respective approaches to the utilization of it that makes you an expert in dilly-dallying.
You must acknowledge that you are not short of time but you are unorganized. You have to straighten our priorities. ‘P’ has done with remarkable success. Always pressed for time, he found that there were several unutilized spells of time that could be spent profitably. Just before leaving for work, he found ten million, a spell which he started using for quiet relaxation. In a like fashion, he found two spells of 20 minutes each in the evening. This time he used it for checking his children’s work.
This is just to give you an idea of how time, the most precious but wantonly spent commodity, can be profitably used. You may adopt any technique but the important thing is to see that you recognize your time. This will be a step towards overcoming procrastination.
The greatest tragedy in life is the waste of time and talent. The talent is wasted because men and women never wake up, so that they can use their abilities and capabilities in an optimum measure. There is story of a boy who was unable to lift even a weight of fifty pounds but lifted one hundred pounds in a hypnotised condition. Where did the extra energy come from?
Every individual has certain talent abilities in him and it is for him to bring them out. Sir Julian Huxley, once said, “The greater part of our possibilities; whether physical or spiritual, intellectual or aesthetic, are in all probabilities unrealized.”
It is a proven fact of life that we do well in those things which we like doing. What are the things that gave you the real pleasure? Is it engineering or medicine, writing poem or painting a picture? Try to fix in your mind firmly, the great and splendid thing you would like to do. Picture in your mind the able, earnest and useful person you desire to be.
Develop the power of positive thinking. Never fear the future. What was the power that made Churchill, a dull boy at school to become the wartime Prime Minister? What was the power which made Gandhi, a blundering youth, to become the Saint of the Century? What was that power which made lone boy to become the most popular President of United States? Determination! It was determination, positive thinking combined with proper devotion and use of mine.
Tell yourself that a procrastinator is an expert in inventing excuses. He does it unconsciously, “I will do it in the early morning when I am fresh.” “I need complete relaxation to write letters” “I will finish this only after consulting so and so” are some of the excuses you unconsciously use to put off a thing for tomorrow.
There is a grain of truth in the excuses but not enough to warrant you to postpone the task. You have to black out this habit. You will find taking jobs in hand instead of your hands being full with them.
Another common factor contributing to your procrastination is your slavery to your moods. Often you say to yourself, “I am not in a mood to do it now. I will take it up tomorrow.”
Moods must be mastered. If you leave yourself to the mercy of moods, you vacillate. Moods are whimsical masters.
There is one sure way of fighting moods. Reminds yourself that to be called a moody person is unflattering. He is very moody,” is not a compliment. It means he is undependable and unreliable. Do you like to be called so? Do the right thing at the right time and you will be the lord of your moods.
Many men have overcome the habit by writing the chores down and then sticking to the schedule as far as possible. But chronic procrastinators dismiss the idea with, “Okay, I will write them down tomorrow.” If you decide to undertake it, do it right now.
Jot down at least some important thing you have wanted to do and then get doing them as per your schedule entered in the diary. Do not hedge the task. Do not let moods get upper hand. Plunge straight into the task.
Once the initial inertia is overcome, you will relish your accomplishment and you will want to do more. There is an immense emotional satisfaction in accomplishing a job. It is the reward, which spurs you to achieve more.
It may sound rather strange but it is a fact that you have no definite idea of how much time various cores take. Also, perhaps, you do not know that you postpone some chores simply because you have mistaken notion of time these will take. Have a fairly accurate idea of time it takes you to write a letter, dusting your room and preparing notes etc. this will enable you not to shun them as any unused spell of time will be used in doing something which you know can be done in that period.
Another common cause of procrastination is you want to tell yourself: it is humanly impossible to run life on such a tight schedule. Life cannot be capsule in rigid timetable. There is an element of truth in it. But the answer to this argument is: life without organization is utter chaos. Moreover timetables can be altered or cast a fresh.
The rewards of keeping it up-to-date are many. You finish your jobs quickly and on time. You are not haunted by the spectre of an undone or half-fished chore. Your mind becomes clear and not cluttered. Your leisure will be free from disturbing thoughts.
