Time Management Smarts

  Tempus Fugit, or Time Flies as expressed in Latin, is a saying that is still very relevant. As a matter of fact, it is very evident in our modern lives. We all too often feel the urgency of things, the rapid changes of our environment, and the all too fast mobility of people and work.
 
Just imagine yourself every morning, still sleepy and dreamy from the less than five hours of sleep. You are about to start your day with seemingly insurmountable tasks: there are bills waiting to be paid, reports to be submitted before 12 noon, calls to be made, a long grocery list for the weekends, a barbecue party, endless post-6 p.m. meetings, tasks, tasks, tasks… and even more tasks. You are an overworked and stressed out machine and you feel the weight on your shoulders. Your biggest enemy is not your boss, nor is it your children's math teacher; but TIME and the lack of it to finish all your duties and activities.
 
Likewise, the rapid flow of time is very much felt in highly urbanized and industrialized societies. Gadgets and modern tools, like cellular phones, microwave ovens, computers, and portable electronic organizers (PDAs) have made our lives easier and have given us the necessary advantage to lessen our time to work on certain tasks. The connectivity of people through mobile technology, as well as the vast and efficient transportation system in industrialized and currently developing countries, leads to faster communication and social linkages.

 

Changes like these have emphasized the importance of time management and a creation of a more organized and practical lifestyle. Time has therefore been measured and controlled through these developments, so we have to adjust according to the demands of our times. To picture this, just think of your life as a giant hourglass with golden grains of sand, the top-half running empty and inside the bottom-half, we are being drowned by so many commitments and labors.

 

We can say, that in our daily struggle towards our goals, time and the lack of it becomes our enemy.

 

But this should not be the case since time is also a human invention, a form of measurement in knowing our past or history. The narrative of time, or how we have organized our memories and our past experiences using the standards of time, is very important in knowing the development of human civilization as well as societies and cultures.
 
More than this, we can also influence the changes in time and space relationship. We can manage these changes and prepare ourselves for the tasks within the time being that we can foresee.

 

Time Management is an important skill and knowledge especially in organizing complicated social structures. In practical terms, we must recognize the importance of every moment and how each daily perception of second, minute, hour, etc, affects our survival and interaction with others in our rapidly changing environment. We could learn new things by knowing the importance of little changes that could affect larger phenomena --just as a particular second in a chemical change is very relevant to the result of a scientific experiment.

 

On a more practical note, a decision made within a matter of seconds or days can change a destiny of a person, more so, even a nation. The Millennium Celebration during the onset of the year 2000 was a major event and had inspired millions of people on what to expect and what to reflect as we marked two thousand years of human triumphs, defeats, and struggles. That celebration marked some of the most important achievements and even worries, as time is about to enter its historical leap.

 

The millennium bug made some of us anxious. It scared people with cataclysmic scenarios of technology going frenzy as the two zeros of the year 2000 enters into our state of mind, resulting in outdated computer technology.

We are now moving towards the future, when and where time is one factor that can influence our success or downfall. In this regard, we can contemplate some very important concepts and ideas about time. We do so on the following pages, beginning with Time Management and Your Life.