Twenty Four
Aaditya Ramdas presents some innovative techniques of time management for the IITian
Brush, classes, lunch, lab, sports, bath, dinner, competitions, meetings, workshops, assignments, lukkha, projects, games, ..., hostel, MB, Staff-C, department, SAC, hostel, LT, SOM, BJC, bed, ..., treats, birthdays, movies, phone, poker, gossip, night-outs, email, sleep, ..., 24 hours – just 24 hours.
Time management is all about being able to do justice to everything you want to fit in a day's work! It's becoming increasingly important in an IITian's life as he/she often wants to try his/her hand at several activities that can be time-consuming and tiring at the same time. We will try to capture several tips that have proven to work in practice for various people in a hope that you will find a few of them useful.
Sleep
Last in your day, but first out here. Without 6 good hours of sleep, you cannot expect to be active throughout the day. Of course, more than sleeping regularly, we must also learn to compromise on our sleep in times of need and catch up with it later on – flexibility in sleep timings can buy you invaluable time when you need it the most. However, try not to meddle around with it too often, since doing quality last-minute work and sticking to deadlines is an art that needs to be developed with care, not done for the first time before an endsem!
Food
We are the first to complain about mess food, but given the vast number of canteens and restaurants on campus as well as the variety of outlets that deliver food from outside, it would be crazy to not have at least 3 square meals a day. From busy-bodies to room-dwellers, food is of utmost importance, and if you seem to manage fine without, trust that you'll do much better with!Will power
This is something that should never leave your side. You must have the internal energy and belief that you can do it - you will find that there is no limit to the amount that an IITian can fit into a single day and that things will smoothly fall into place - they just require the right lubrication from your side to reduce the friction.Check It Out
Randy Pausch has a lot of very good principles and inspirational comments on time management and achieving your goals, which you can catch on a very famous video, the Last Lecture, which he gave several times till he passed away recently.Stop Reading, Start Doing
There is more than enough that one can find to read about time management and other inspirational stuff – movies, videos, books, websites and seniors’ fundaes. However, after getting a basic idea of some techniques used, you actually have to go out there and do it – start finding out what works for you and what doesn’t, and what your limits are and how much you can stretch them. So, yes, put down this InsIghT issue (okay, read the rest too) and get going – you’ll soon know how to be busy, seem free and stuff unimaginable amounts of work into twenty four hours. All the best!(Aaditya Ramdas is a fourth year student of the CSE Department. He can be contacted at aaditya.ramdas@iitb.ac.in)
