Anyone who steals my time is stealing my life

Hi Friend,

The question that we should ask ourselves is whether we are focussing on things that are really important or are we trying to pretend that we are busy? 

Here is a wonderful extract on the importance of time management.

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• On one such occasion we talked about the difference between wasting time and spending time. 

• Bruce (Mr. Bruce Lee - the martial artist) was the first to speak.

• To spend time is to pass it in a specific manner he said. We are spending it during lessons just as we are spending it now in conversation.

• To waste time is to expend it thoughtlessly or carelessly. 

• We all have time to either spend or waste and it is our decision what to do with it. 

• But once passed, it is gone forever.

• Anyone who steals my time is stealing my life because they are taking my existence from me. 

• As I get older, I realize that time is the only thing I have left.

• So when someone comes to me with a project, I estimate the time it will take me to do it and then ask myself, Do I want to spend weeks or months of what little time I have on this project? Is it worth it or is it wasting my time? If I consider the project time-worthy I do it.

• I apply this same yardstick to my social relations. I will not permit people to steal my time. 

• I have limited my friends to those people with whom time passes happily. 

• There are moments in my life - necessary moments - when I don't do anything but what is my choice. 

• The choice of how I spend my time is mine, and it is not dictated by social convention.

• As he left us, Bruce turned to stirling and said, “Today you were the teacher. I realised for the first time how much time I had been wasting with certain people. I never before considered that they were taking my existence from me, but they were.”

• At that point in my life, I had many friends who were in the habit of dropping by to visit or telephoning me at whim.

• Because I am a writer and my office is in my house, they assumed I was available for talk or advice on any subject. 

• But after that conversation with Stirling and Bruce, I realised that instead of spending time with them I had been wasting it.

• I bought a large “Do Not Disturb” sign that I hung outside my office door and I installed a telephone answering machine. 

• To my surprise, my work output almost doubled.

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Thank you.

Source Book : Zen in the Martial Arts