TIME WASTING
It is not important what are you doing or in what activities you are involved. The most important item is what do you want to ACHIEVE. Many times we will find individuals are working day and night without any results because they make themselves busy in the activities without having a clear mission in front of them.

Most of us WASTE at least three hours daily. This waste of time is not done intentionally. If it is done intentionally then it is very easy to correct it. Unfortunately, this waste of time is caused due to our bad habits for example we will start one job and before finishing it we will move on to another priority. After some time we will come back to start the first job again. This way we will spend lot more time then really it requires. Some of the time wasters are:

· People drop in to see you without appointment

· Incomplete information and communication (after a discussion either over a phone or in a meeting, people do not know what needs to be done or when the tasks to be completed. In these circumstances people have to go BACK to the person again to acquire about the missing information. This is pure waste of time.)

· Do not look at the diary for the meetings or the commitments made with the people for certain items or not maintaining a diary at all.

· Cannot say NO. You MUST learn to say no sometimes. Otherwise you end up doing unnecessary work and leaving the important tasks.

· Cannot DELEGATE. You want to do everything yourself. A golden rule should be remembered that if anything can be done by some else (subordinates) then you should not be doing it.

· Answering telephone calls while in a meeting. If you spend 5 minutes on a telephone call in a meeting with 12 people then you have wasted 60 minute.

· Arriving at the meetings either too early or too late i.e. 1/2 hour.

· Receiving or making too many phones calls. Some people consider this activity as an indication of being very popular.

· Unnecessarily carrying on conversation for a long time and trying to cover all the world topics during the conversation.

· Do not assume, always make sure that both parties fully understand the requirements, information & actions. Many people always mention use your common sense. They do not know that common sense is a rare sense.

· Lack of concentration during the discussion and meetings asking people to repeat their views again. Very few people can listen to others views. Learn to differentiate between listening and hearing.

· Poor filing system.

· Unnecessary rest i.e. excessive rests on weekends.

· Unnecessary emotional discussion of political and sport events that have already happened i.e. why Pakistan lost the cricket match to England.

It should be clearly understood that wasting of time means you are spending time on the lesser important issues then your goals. In order to control and plan your time, it is imperative for you to keep on asking this question "HOW COULD MY TIME BE BETTER UTILIZED"? In order to answer this question, you must have your goals / objectives in front of you.

TWO KEY TIME MANAGEMENT PRINCIPLES
PERKINSONI'S principle states that every work will expand / spread as more and more time is spent on it. Therefore, it is important to have the goals to be very clear. If you decide to give an hour for a task then it will take only one hour. If you assign 4 hours for the task then it will take 4 hours to complete. Hence it is up to you to make an appropriate assessment how much time should be assigned for each task. You should neither over estimate nor under estimate the time for each task. In order to make a correct decision, we should follow the PARETO'S principle.

PARETO'S principle (80/20 rule) states that most of the results i.e. 80% can be achieved with only 20% of efforts. This principle has been tested for various situations and is found to be true for examples 20% of people have 80 % of wealth and 20 % of products account for 80% of the revenue. Therefore, we should always try to achieve 80% of the desired results with the 20% effort. In other words, we could complete a large number of important tasks by spending only20 % of time required. In most of the cases, 80% results are sufficient and acceptable to management. Therefore, you should spend only 20% of the total required time and assess that 80% results are acceptable or not. If you require 90% results then you may have to spend about 50% of the total time.

Habits play important role in Time Management
You may be aware of the most of the above mentioned time management techniques. Usually, people have a lot of knowledge but they do not implement it because of their habits. We have to develop good habits. Our future is based on our habitual work. Unless we could develop a habit to control and manage our time and give up the habits that waste time, we can not be sure of a successful life not only in this world but also in the hereafter.

SUMMARY
In order to develop good time management skills try to remember the following items:

1. Establish your long-term goals clearly in writing and determine their priority.

2. Keep an eagle eye on your goals. It is not important that you busy yourself day and night. The important issue is what results have you achieved with your efforts.

3. Keep record of your daily activities and analyze them to see where and how your time is spent.

4. Regularly make the daily, weekly, monthly and yearly plans.

5. In your daily plan do not forget to include the important tasks.

6. If you are spending time on minor items while you have a number of important activities outstanding this implies that you are wasting time.

7. Schedule the important tasks. Do not worry about the daily minor items. They will get done without much problem.

8. Keep at least an hour for the important tasks WITHOUT ANY INTERRUPTION.

9. Make an effort to give up at least ONE time waster per week.

10. Daily review your activities and make an assessment of your achievements. We should always remember that we will be asked about the effective utilization of time in the hereafter.

11. Maintain a diary with the following information together in one binder:
- 12 to 18 months appointment
- Telephone directory (A - Z)
- Weekly Schedules
- Annual Schedules
- Daily Plans
- Weekly Plans
- Annual Plans

12. Always use the 80 / 20 rule (Pareto's principle).