Understanding Time

Day 231 / 366

When I was in school, I loved participating in competitive exams like science or cyber Olympiads, partially because I was really good at them. One year when I was the school topper in one of those exams, as a prize I got this book about productivity and time management. I still have that book with me, and It had this one chapter that has since changed the way I look at time.

We all frequently complain about having too much stuff to do and to little time to do it. What we are not aware of, however, is the amount of time that we unknowingly waste.

For instance, if you are a student, you might think that you spend 4–5 hours a day after school doing self-study. But did you really study for that amount of time? The book suggested this exercise — next time you sit to study, keep a stopwatch with you. Anytime you reach out for your phone, get up to chat with someone for a minute, or take a small break to grab a snack, pause the stopwatch.

When I did this back then, I found out that if I sat down to study for an hour, I had actually just studied for 30 minutes. The rest of the time was wasted on little things like this.

Time management is much more about stopping time wastage. If you are mindful of these little things that chip away at your time and do focused work, you can easily double the amount of stuff you can achieve in the same amount of time.