Count Your Blessings

Has this ever happened to you? Your life seems stressful, your task list is growing, work is dreadful, your relationships are a challenge, and you are angry and dissatisfied. Then you get a wicked cold. As it hits you with its full force, you look back to those terrible times you were experiencing just days earlier and they don't seem so bad. All you want now is for the cold to go away. Just feeling "normal" would be a blessing - even with all of the frustrations that seemed to overwhelm you.

We take blessings for granted, as if they were our birthright, and we fixate on things that aggravate us. We miss out on much of the joy of daily life, unaware that our aggravation is a choice and that it arises from illusion.

"What do you mean," some might exclaim indignantly, "my overbearing boss is neither my choice nor an illusion." But our reaction to the situation is our choice. We can choose to loathe our boss, complain to our colleagues, and wallow in self-pity. The result? More stress, unhappiness and lack of vocational fulfilment.

Or we could choose to use the situation for personal advancement. We can seek options, such as entering into dialogue with our boss to find common ground, or find a new job or focus on aspects of work that we find rewarding. Take skilful action.

You might be able to review your life and see ways in which your choice of reactions to life has only increased your pain. You might also notice that much of the negative self-talk in our busy minds is based upon reactions to a reality that does not conform to our illusory expectations. It's even likely that we are not seeing the full reality, but instead viewing it through the constricted prism of our smaller self, or ego...

Make a list of your blessings right now. Friends, freedom, material abundance, mobility, yoga classes, recreational activities, books, spiritual pursuits and more. Everything is a blessing because it is the most profound of blessings just to be here. Just to experience the miracle of being.

With a constant sense of gratitude comes peace, contentment and the unfolding of a whole new world before our eyes...a world in which we live in awe of life. To cultivate gratitude, I invite you to say "thank you" to everyone and everything. For, all too soon, our time shall pass.

Putting Everything Together

Ritwik was telling his grandma how "everything" is going wrong everywhere. He has been facing problems with on-line classes by his School during lockdown, and if that is not enough, there are fights with his sister, and the constant fear of the pandemic. Looks like all the fun is gone from the life.

While listening to his complaints, the grandma was occupied in baking a cake. She asked Ritwik if he would like a snack, which of course he agreed. 

"Here, try some cooking oil", she offered. 

"Yuck" said Ritwik.

"How about a couple raw eggs?", she offered again.

 "Gross, Grandma!", he replied. 

"Would you like some flour then? Or maybe baking soda?", she asked. 

"Grandma, those are all yucky!", he said. 

"The cake is ready now, try it", she offered once more.

"This is really delicious grandma, like all your cakes", he was delighted.

Grandma said, "See, the ingredients taste bad if served alone all by themselves. But when they are put together in the right way and baked, they make a wonderfully delicious cake!" 

She continued, "It works the same way in life. When we encounter a difficult situation, we wonder why God would let us go through such testing times. But when He puts these events together in our life in proper order, they work wonders for us, and eventually make our life beautiful". 

So instead of complaining about our problems, let us trust Him with patience and wait for our cake to be fully baked.

What Is All This Stuff About Time Management?

Time Management is a vehicle to take you from wherever you are to wherever you want to go.

Like most working people, I have been trying to find a silver bullet on how to use my time in the best possible way. I realized early on that when I put my time to good use, I get good results, and when I just let it drift, I am not effective. I do not have the complete answer yet, but I have gathered a lot of useful pointers along the way. This post is a collections of all the ideas I have found and tried out to manage my time better. Try them, some of these may click for you.

Live in Present
Do not dwell too much on the past or future. Use your present moments well and you will create a fond memory for yourself with every passing moment. Also, the best way to counter worry about future is to do something about it today. Do learn from past mistakes and plan for future, but live life in present.

Keep a To Do List
Keep a checklist of tasks that you need to do today and tick off a task when it is done. This is a simple but very useful technique to get started with Time Management. Be careful not to load your list with a lots of task that you can not finish in the short run. A huge pending To Do list can de-motivate you at times.

Prioritize your tasks
There are tasks that needs to be done berfore others, so it is helpful to assign priority A, B, or C to each task. Work to complete all A tasks today. Then take up B tasks, and then C tasks if the time permits. Never take up a C task if an A task is pending. This is good to ensure that the time is devoted to urgent tasks first. Be very careful while assigning the priorities to the tasks, and keep your list to yourself. Do not put your marriage in danger by letting your spouse find out that you have marked a C priority against taking her to shopping.

Do it Now
What is the best time to complete any work? Next month? Next week? Tomorrow? None of the above. The only time you have to do anything is NOW. Doing anything now is better than thinking about doing something later. Great technique to build an action orientation. However, remember that there are always projects that can not all be done immediately without careful planning. In such cases, do the planning now! Also, avoid the pitfall of acting without thought when you overdo this.

Eat That Frog
We all avoid tasks that are difficult or unpleasant. (The big frog). Make a habit of taking up the most difficult task first thing in the morning. When you have handled the big frog already, other smaller frogs will no longer pose a challenge. Good suggestion, and works well most of the time. There are times when starting with an easy task helps you build momentum. So, need to apply judgement according to the situation.

Keep a Schedule
So far, by keeping lists, you were just telling yourself what you need to do in which order. Its time now to specify when to do it. Make a schedule for your day with the tasks you need to do in a diary or a tool like Outlook. You can also keep your meetings and appointments in your schedule. What's the advantage of all this work? You know right at the start of the day what you can accomplish during the day. You also know what to do at a given time, so you can say no to unnecessary interruptions that are time wasters. This is most discussed and practiced technique. You must give it a try to see what it can do it for you. Pitfalls to watch - do not become slave of your schedule. When required, make changes if they make sense. Remember that the schedule is for you, not the other way round. However, take your appointments and meetings very seriously. When you show respect for others' time, you gain their respect in return.

Do the Important
Most of our time goes into doing the urgent tasks, and we often neglect the important tasks as low priority. Tasks like repairing a broken car is done urgently, while getting the preventive maintenance done on the car may not be that high in priority. It is an important task, but not urgent. We often complain about fire-fighting all the time. We should react to the urgencies no doubt, but if we keep doing the important tasks in time, we can prevent them from becoming urgent. A careful plan today may save us from problems tomorrow. A good exercise may help us avoid health emergencies. An investment today may help avoid a financial crisis tomorrow. Develop a keen eye to recognize a task that has strategic importance and resolve to do them now. This one habit can change your entire life - from constant out-of-control fire fighting to a smooth, balanced routine with systematic plan in place. Sounds like I am smoking something? Try it out yourself and see the impact. To find out more on how to do it, read Stephen Covey.

Find out your Mission
What has my mission got to do with time management? Before you get down to spending time on the most important tasks in your life, you will need to ask the question, "What is most important for me?" And the most important tasks in your life are those that are connected with the mission of your life. It is not easy, but spending time on thinking about and discovering your mission statement gives you such an anchoring effect that the impact can just be experienced, can not be described. Contrary to popular belief, each and every one of us can have a mission statement that articulates what he or she is about.

Armed with all this knowledge, it may seem that managing time must be really simple stuff for me. Far from it, even with the understanding of the principles involved, it is tough to get the best out of my time on a day-to-day basis. Even after years of trying out, it is still an unsolved mystery for me. I hope I can find the answer before the time runs out for me :)