Mind it! On making a strategy for a plan to prepare a time management process to begin my work - 29 October 2014

[2] Mind it! a diary of vagrant journeys within the mind.

On making a strategy for a plan to prepare a time management process to begin my work

I usually think that I am unable to get all my work done in the time that it should be completed. I plan to do my work within the time that it should be done, but then I turn around, and find that the time has a-gone by, and there is nothing left. So, I take the smart road. I start planning my work. And usually I find that I have planned all my work very meticulously. Very soon, I reach the same milestone – that all the time has gone by while I was planning to do my work, and there is no time left to actually do the work that I was planning to work on...

Now, I have begun planning the time that I am going to work on how to plan perfectly. Very soon, I guess that I will be able to divide my day perfectly into exact working hours to (1) learn how to plan, (2) read very good planning strategies, (3) understand the best planning strategies and (4) start making a time-table to make good plans. This way, I will probably be preparing the best plan and a superb schedule on how to begin my work.

I am sure that you are now wondering as to why I am not just getting to my work and start finishing it, instead of planning my work. That is very silly. That is not the way of a super manager or an efficient worker. You have to have a time schedule, to-do lists, a perfect plan and a list of team members to delegate the various portions of the plan and monitor and supervise them while they begin to start the work that you were supposed to complete in the first place.

Very soon, I have begun to realise that I am never getting around to actually beginning my work. I have therefore made a good plan on visiting the best book stores and surf the e-marketing web pages to look for the most excellent authors and books on time management, planning work and knowing my best psychological barriers in planning my work. I have also prepared a good strategy to purchase such books. I go to the best book stores, look for the books and check the prices and look around if there are good sales. The best books are very costly. But, I am very intelligent. So, I write down the title of the book, or take a photograph with my cell phone, and get back to the house and surf 2-3 different e-marketing sites. At least one of them is bound to have a sale on these books. Of course, during festivals, New Year or Christmas or other times, they do have a super sale. I could wait for those times.

This usually takes about a month of careful surfing, keeping notes, checking my notebook, preparing a checklist of the books that I want to purchase, and marking out my e-calendar of the best super sale times. Finally, I am able to pick up the 4-5 really costly and most useful and most absolutely necessary got-to-have books that will help me understand my inner self, recognise my time schedules and the inherent problems that they have. One of these books is bound to help me understand the gap between my energy levels, my problems with my aerobics and thereby make it very clear that I probably need to take up yoga or meditation because I am too stressed out by thinking of my plans.

One of these excellent books instructed me that it is because of a bad sleeping pattern that had accumulated over several years that my sleep was putting off my insomnia and preventing me from picking up on strategic mistakes in my planning. Therefore, my bad planning was hijacking my strategies and time management and preventing me from doing any good work. So, I had to develop a strategy of my sleepless hours, and I had to prepare a strategy for my good sleep hours. Of course, some wise people had told me to do good reading during my sleepless hours, so I have an excellent collection of books and magazines, newspapers and web printouts to read up and catch up on whenever I cannot sleep. But, I seem to be always on the internet or watching news channels on the TV when I am awake, so I am not able to pick up my exact sleepless hours.

But the plan that seems to really work is when I am actually sleeping. The book advised me that our mind is the bestest when we are sleeping, and that since there are no distractions, and before we pass on to deep sleep, we are able to plan our next day in a most effective manner. So, I keep a diary, some pens and pencils, a couple of torches and candles and matches to be ready when the idea strikes. Of course, I can easily switch on the lights in the room and make decent notes, or not switch off the lights through the night, and be able to write down the thoughts whenever they come. But then, I would not be sleeping, would I?

I wait until I am fast asleep and I have begun to delve deeply into my dreams. And, suddenly I wake up. It’s usually because of a mosquito or a humid draft or just an unpleasant dream, or most usually, it is due to hearing my own loud snoring. I switch on the torch, pick up the diary and start writing down a list of to-do items that I should work on, immediately on waking up, or for the morrow. This list gets my mind to work on various other related actions, and I keep waking up again and again to keep writing and writing and writing. Finally I am happy that I have washed off all the points of distraction within my mind and I have written them away. Now, I can actually get to sleep well. Almost, of course!

There is also another strategy. It is popularly known as ‘minimalism’. This strategy is actually quite silly. The idea is that one should make small lists – about 3 or 5 or 10 items only in the morning or noon or evening or night, and as far as I am concerned, about 2 similar stages during the night after midnight. Start with these small lists, and try to do the first one on each list. Once you have ticked off the first item, go to an absolutely different list of entirely opposite themes. Take up a very different task and complete that one. Jump off to another thematic area, and complete another task. This helps you complete about 5-7-10 tasks in a day. This is quite silly, believe me. Who benefits by completing their work without a plan?

The entire idea is to plan your work properly with a very efficient strategy, after learning how to do it by reading it up on the best books that you should take all the time you have in selecting very carefully before you decide the best time of the day to do some good thinking about it all. Its very simple, really. Mind it!

Published at - http://intellectualpost.com/mind-it-a-diary-of-vagrant-journeys-within-the-mind-2/

YANTRA and the inspiration for perfection in planning - 16 August 2008

YANTRA and the inspiration for perfection in planning in our work and our lives. 
Bharat Bhushan - 16 August 2008

As one knows, the word YANTRA is the Sanskrit word for an instrument and it represents the perfection in geometrical design. The symmetry is immaculate and the placing of such a perfect design is considered sacred in supplicating or in worship to deities. The perfection in geometrical design is deemed to be latent in the ability to create miracles where none existed before. Thus, is our universe. There is perfection in design out there.

The perfection is made more perfect, a cliche if there ever was one, it is more perfect when there is repetition and the design never fails. So, can we, as humans aspire to such perfection in our lives, have and attain symmetry and ensure that each time that we repeat an action, we do it with the same perfection, again and again and again? We have enabled the construction and manufacture of machines that can repeat the same action again and again. Similarly, we can plan and predicate the action of a planned object for a particular time and we never fail. A simple example would be the planning of TV programmes for various channels through out the world, and transmitting them through the air waves. A planned programme will be telecast as we had hoped it would be, on such and such channel at the proper time and for the exact duration.

Two persons with two different TV sets at two different cities will not get separate programmes for the same channel on the same day and at the same time. How does this happen? How did we create such perfect output? Let us take another example, with reference to the magical place that is India. This is an enormous nation, and is the world's largest multi-party democracy that changes its governments with most elections. If you look at the long-distance train reservation system, most Indians with the same surnames, booking at the same second over the internet and at every railway terminal, and asking for the same journey, for the same day and for the same train, will get different tickets for each one of them. How did this happen? How did such a large nation, at most times seemingly non-functional, how did this nation create such perfect management?

The secret is in the planning and the understanding of the symbolic perfection of geometrical figures. As an ancient land, and with ancient knowledge systems, much of traditional knowledge is hidden within myths, spiritual and religious symbols and, superstition and fear. We are usually misplaced in our knowledge, in our understanding and in our fears. The YANTRA was traditionally used as an aid in meditation and contemplation. The geometrically perfect design was recognised as a proper medium to convey our prayers and thoughts to the grand almighty. There are various theories and these include the implications in spiritual thought, astrology and palmistry, magic and sorcery. Even in ancient thought, the YANTRA was not accorded any fearsome place in the aspects of spiritual knowledge. It has been corrupted by fake godmen and fake posturing.

In prayer, traditionally, from ancient times, through the great myths such as the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, the YANTRA is a place-holder, or a medium to dedicate a deity within its design while offering prayers. The geometry and its perfect design was recognised to be able to seek out the powers of the Grand Geometrician to convey the powers of the entire Universe. This phenomenon has been recognised over hundreds of years and has been known over all the continents of Earth.

It is meant to destroy evil and help one to avoid errors. Thus, it would be with planning in our work and our lives. Perfect planning. Can it be possible? Humans are prone to errors. But, humans are also the only persistent species that learns from its mistakes and shares its knowledge. And in today's world, we share our knowledge, almost immediately, across the world. We should therefore know that we will commit errors when we plan, and we should be ready to accept them and to learn from them. Once done, we should share our knowledge to make others perfect.