Time management - # 1

My Time management tactics: # 1:
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Treat each phase of work like a test match innings; Get a role model! Usually, when someone comes up to me and says watching test cricket is the best way to kill time, I tell them to go jump in the lake.

Let me be frank, I love test cricket; And more than sometimes, that helps - in more than one way. The work I do is driven by motivation from within - research, just like test cricket; It is exacting, just like test cricket; I chose it because I love it more than the apparently glittering corporate jobs - Just like Rahul Sharad Dravid chose by preference, Test cricket over any other form of cricket.

Let me admit, research can get me lazy on a few days. It can get me frustrated. It can make me feel awkward when I flounder (- we're all allowed to)!

I treat each half hour of work as an over to be faced in a test match. Yes, you got me right, Rahul Dravid is my hero for a long time.

And during that half hour, I focus on just what I am doing - reading a research paper/doing something/whatever. Unless utterly required I would not distract myself from what I am doing - I used to force myself to doing this.

And take a break after that half hour - five minutes or so...... in six sessions it would be lunch time.

And the innings continues from there. There is a tea time for me at 3:00 PM. At the end of the day - I call it stumps. he he! When I am tired, I recollect some of Dravid's epic innings..... and it gets me pepped up again!

Dravid used to say, when he is beaten by a ball, he puts it behind and focuses on the next ball, lest he shouldn't be there batting.

That's true in any work place or for that matter, in life.

More on putting awkward moments behind and moving on, next post!

Happy working!