Prioritizing Time Allocation to Achieve Goals in Life [i]
Som Karamchetty
Overview:
People usually
complain that they did not or do not have time to do certain things. Older
people, like me, complain that we were not taught certain things when we were
children. We did not know what we did with all that time.
The reality is
that in most cases, people are not conscious of time as a resource that they
have to control its use or prioritize how much time they would like to allocate
to various tasks at hand. Time is not like flowing water that you could dam or
other capture in buckets and store for later use. It is more like sunshine; it
goes fast and cares little what you do.
Before the prioritization
exercise, people have to list the tasks way ahead of time. This means that a
plan is needed that sets strategic goals for life, analyzing the knowledges and
skills needed to achieve those goals, and setting priorities to executing those
tasks at each stage of life. Lacking such a plan and discipline to execute it,
we will waste our time by the minutes and hours in the days and the days and
months in our lives.
Specific skills
are prerequisites to pursue certain pursuits. This requires sequencing of
tasks. Therefore, it is best to schedule the accomplishment of some tasks in
early life in order to gain skills and capabilities in a progressive manner. It
means that certain tasks should be scheduled and performed during early life.
Thus, identification of skills and capabilities needed and the correct timing
in life for their acquisition, and then the scheduling of tasks to acquire
those capabilities and skills are essential for a highly successful and
enjoyable life. This leads to the prioritization of time allocation to tasks to
achieve goals in life. This sequence is
explained in the following sections.
Time is a
critical resource:
Whether it is a small chore or a major objective in life, it
takes time to accomplish it. In daily
life and in our professional careers, we allocate time either consciously or thoughtlessly.
But, unfortunately, we do not pay due attention to time and pay a huge price
for such disrespect for time. We treat it like we have all the time in the
world.
If we take an
incisive look at the life spans of people, we realize that it is indefinite. We
do not know when the supply of time we have will be switched of. As stated before, it is not a resource that
we can borrow from others or store for later use. Time can neither be bought
from others for our use nor can it be sold or given away for use by others.
Yes! One can donate blood and organs (even after death) but not time. Surely, we
can waste time in a variety of meaningless pursuits.
Resources
Critical to Life:
Other resources,
such as money, are also critical to life. But, these resources are both
storable and exchangeable. Our lives can be divided roughly into three phases.
During childhood and old age, we cannot accomplish any tasks to accumulate
resources needed to live a successful life. We do all our efforts only during
the middle span to earn resources to sustain life during that span and the latter
part of our lives. Another characteristic is that we have to assume that we
need resources for a long old age and a short span of life to earn and store
those resources. This characteristic is imposed by the uncertainty of one’s life
span.
Since time is critical to accomplishing
personal goals, prioritizing its allocation to tasks is critical to success in
life. Hence, we need to plan the allocation of this very critical resource. We
should set goals for the acquisition of these other resources so that the
resources can be traded during our life time as necessary. Then, for executing
the necessary tasks to the accomplishment of those goals, we can allocate time
on a prioritized basis.
Set Goals
at Each Stage of Life:
Inheritance
of Genes:
People inherit the
genes from their parents and this process decides certain basic bodily
attributes to start with. Genes play an important role in one’s life in terms
of certain abilities and disabilities one is endowed with. If one has good
abilities, one should thank the parents. It may be worthwhile compensating the
parents through some means for their donation of good genes. If one has bad
abilities, one should be nice to parents so that they may compensate in some
other way. A person can perhaps do nothing about having been given bad genes. Hopefully,
certain genomic treatments under current scientific research may help one in
the future. The important point is to make sure that we do not give bad genes
to our children if we know that they might get them from us.
Body growth
from age minus 10 months to year one or two:
From the time of
conception to the time of birth, mothers take full charge of the growth of a
child’s body. Thereafter during the first couple of years after birth, mother
and others who nurse the baby help them in terms of bodily growth. This is also
the time, when they can help the child in terms of their knowledge and skill
acquisition foundations.
Brain
growth:
It is important to
realize that brain growth is also in the hands of the parents, family, and the
environment in these early months and years. In other words, these people help
the child with strong and positive mental growth.
Early
Childhood Development (from age two to five years):
During this
period, a child begins to develop likes and dislikes. Children might develop
some attitudes that can be helpful or not to their positive growth. Parents,
guardians, family, relatives, friends, and the society influence the growth of
the child’s body and mind. Some children develop a strong interest in music,
games, reading, inquisitiveness, and other positive and beneficial knowledges
and skills.
It is at this
stage, some children develop naughty and behavioral problems. They may be
asking for more of everything and exhibit a complete lack of discipline. If parents
treat a child like a precious toy and surrender to their whims, they would
create an expensive doll that is only good for the shelf for life.
Childhood
through Adolescence and Teens:
This is the period
when children get an opportunity to gain basic knowledge through education and
develop attitudes and a variety of life skills. But, it is also the period when
they can go astray and acquire a variety of bad habits that inhibit their
capabilities to play an acceptable, a respected, and a productive life in the
society. Some children exhibit their gained attitudes, knowledges, and skills
very soon and if they are negative, there is potential for quick correction.
If, on the other hand, such negative skills are kept latent, (or ignored,
excused, and hidden by parents) they could lead to a rough and dangerous life
for the young person.
Youth:
This is the period
when people gain their educational qualifications that lead to good careers.
They realize that 1. Money is needed to satisfy their needs and wants; 2. Money
comes only by doing jobs, and 3. Jobs would require appropriate knowledges, skills,
abilities, and attitude. Such realization leads to prioritizing the allocation
of time to the right tasks on their list.
Thus, in all these
stages, a child has to learn and start practicing the allocation of time to
various tasks they are pursuing. Unfortunately, in most cases, children as well
as youth pay no attention to time and even think that they have a huge amount
of time ahead of them to dispense with it as they like. In some instances, even
parents encourage the acquisition of bad usage of time by saying, “He is still
young and he has plenty of time to learn.”
Good arborists
know that the growth of a tree can be shaped when it is still a plantlet. They
pay good attention to the growth of the tree from the time of selection of the
seeds, the soil, the environment, the orientation, the use of fertilizers,
application of pesticides, training the growth (as well as pruning) of the
branches, and so on. Once the tree becomes mature, there is not much corrective
action they can do even if the tree is deficient in some respects. In the worst
case, the tree becomes used as firewood or mulch.
To turn a tree
into an espalier, its branches have to be properly restrained and guided while
it is still tender. In a similar manner, if a child wants to be a gymnast,
their muscles and tendons have to be trained while they are still young and
pliable. For a future singer, the vocal chords need the training very early in
life. For a future writer, the brain has to be conditioned in childhood for
good reading, comprehension, and writing.
Youth can learn
from this analogy and focus on the right things that should be done at the
right time and by prioritizing the allocation of time to critical tasks.
Good
retirement life and savings:
People like to
retire at some point in time and lead or continue to lead a good life as
seniors. But, if one waits till that time, it will be too late. There must be a
plan and saving of funds necessary for that planned life. If there is neither a
plan nor savings, one will drag oneself into retirement and life could be a
real burden and no enjoyable retirement. Hence, planning for retirement should
be made while one is pursuing an active career and earning income.
Paying back
debts – supporting parents:
It is obvious that
one can pay off debts when one is earning income. It is likely that people have
borrowed funds to pay for college in their youth when they had little income.
These types of loans are obvious but not the unwritten ones. The funds spent by
parents beyond their means are such unwritten debts. It is possible that some
parents had forsaken saving funds for their own retirement but spent such sums
on the education of their children. People may not consider such expenses by
parents as debts that they should be obligated to pay back. In some cases,
people may consider it their moral obligation to pay back to their parents in
the time of need by the parents. In some countries, it is a legal requirement
for people to support their old age parents if the latter need financial help.
Happy life
– having a good family – supporting family:
In the above
sections, we discussed saving for the future, investing in children’s growth,
and paying back the debts that one owes. Now comes, the present life – the middle
stage. One likes a good family life once they take up a job, get married, and
have a job or run a business. During this stage, one will have income and
expenses and hence developing a budget is useful. Actually, a responsible
person will consider a budget as a necessity. It is important to realize that a
budget depends on the way one plans one’s lifestyle.
As described in
the earlier sections, income, expenses, and choice of lifestyle depend on the
upbringing during childhood and the abilities gained during adulthood.
Unfortunately, some people become addicted to the past lifestyle (e.g. children
of rich parents) rather than reassess the lifestyle they can actually afford
based on their own income, which itself is dictated by their capabilities. It
is important to recognize that lifestyle determines the expenses. If income is
greater than expenses plus forecasted savings for the future, that lifestyle is
appropriate. On the other hand, when expenses are greater than the income, one
gets into debt, assuming that some other source will lend funds. Such a
situation will have bad consequences for later stages of life. Expecting
miracles to happen and angels to deliver riches should be left to the dreams!
Paying back
to society – paying taxes and charity:
Most societies
assist people who are driven to poverty. In that sense, the society acts as a
shock absorber that gives funds to the dispossessed. Usually, such funds are
barely sufficient to lead a minimal survival level existence and not a lavish
lifestyle. In order to provide such assistance to poor people, the society
collects taxes and runs charities. Consequently, people living in societies
will be required to pay taxes and may be expected to support charities.
Despite all the
capabilities and strengths, people can run into rough times when their income is
drastically disrupted for a variety of reasons including long term ill health
or the death of an earning member of the family. Insurance schemes of various
types are made available to assist people to overcome such situations and lead
a reasonable (planned) lifestyle. To take advantage of such schemes, one has to
opt in and pay insurance premiums while they are earning income.
The idea is that
people will have good times and bad times and by pooling their resources in
some planned ways, those who are endowed with resources can help those deprived
at the times of the latter’s need.
Good next
life or next destination – good deeds in this life and religious activities:
Some people
believe that when their life on earth ends, they will be reborn in another life
or that they go to heaven or hell. It is here that religions come in and make
suggestions about the necessity to do good deeds in this life to either find a
better next life or to book a prepaid ticket to heaven rather than be dropped
into the hell. Of course, these deeds cost money and/or time.
Prioritization
in the Allocation of Time to Accomplish Goals:
In the previous
sections, I listed various types of tasks that one has to do during each stage
of their life. As tasks take the time available in a day, in a week, and a
year. In this section, I will discuss prioritized allocation of time.
Children are not
able to earn the resources needed but their time is being expended. In other
words, neither the choice of goals nor conscious allocation of time to
accomplish the selected goals is within their current capability. It is done by
the parents, teachers, and the society. Hence, it falls upon parents to
allocate a part of their time to ensure that the activities necessary for the
proper growth of the children are performed. As a mark of their love for
children, parents should take responsibility to do prioritized allocation of
time to the growth of children’s physical, mental, and spiritual growth.
As children begin
to express some independence, that is the best time for parents to teach them
the lessons about the primacy of time and the need for prioritizing their time
allocation. This exercise may be easier if examples of the activities that some
highly successful people had undertaken in their childhood and the benefits
they accrued are explained to them in the form of reading exercises or showing
videos to the children.
During
adolescence, children are attracted by some activities that appear to be fun
and enjoyable. They may be inclined to give undue priority to such activities
and allocate time quite unconsciously or unintentionally. Very soon, addicted
to such activities, adolescents forsake the ability to do prioritization of
time allocation to necessary and useful activities. They move into activities
like driftwood in a fast flowing stream of water. Parents, teachers,
counselors, and coaches may be able to help the children to get back to
becoming conscious of their ability and capability to control the
prioritization.
If they forget the
concept of prioritization of allocation of time to tasks, young adults drift
into doing whatever comes in their way rather than pursuing activities that are
relevant and necessary to achieve the current and future goals. Hence, during
this stage of life, youth have to put their tasks together and begin prioritizing
them as they allocate time to doing the selected and ranked tasks.
Once prioritized
allocation of time becomes a habit in childhood, people will continue to do
that during their youth and adult life and they will utilize time in the best
manner. I observed many colleagues who had been very conscious of how they were
utilizing their time and were specifically avoiding useless pursuits by
minimizing the time periods they were involved in trivial pursuits.
Conclusion:
Once the habit of
recognizing the tasks pertinent to a particular stage of life, ranking them,
and prioritizing time allocation to the tasks becomes natural, people will
begin to identify and accomplish the goals. Such accomplishment is highly likely
to make them feel happy and enjoy the tasks rather than see them as burden.
They start visualizing a life’s journey that they actually planned, which in
turn leads a highly positive outlook on life.
During their
sunset days, they will be very happy that they accomplished successfully all
that they planned and will be looking forward to their ensuing journey.
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[i] The
writer is not a specialist in the topical area. This write up is based on his
thoughts and opinions. Comments are welcome. He plans to write the development
of a Life Plan and details of Tasks for each stage of life at a later time. Obviously,
that task is not in his priorities now!
