How do I value other people’s time?

Developing a personal sense of time includes developing a personal sense of the value of other people’s time. 

How do I rate as a consultant of other people’s working capital of time? 

To discover my attitude to other people’s time, I will complete the following exercise. If a statement describes my attitude or behaviour I will put Yes if not, Check No. I will tell the truth.

Attitudes and behaviours to other people’s time

I took upon the time of those who work for me as an extension of my own, to do with as I please.

I frequently interrupt meetings in their offices, as I have first priority on their time.

I regard job descriptions – that each position in an organization has its own proper duties, responsibilities and authority – as a bureaucratic nonsense.

When telephoning anyone I never check to see if my call is an unwanted interruption at that particular moment.

I enjoy the sound of my own voice and I know that I am rather long-winded at meetings.

In the last month I can think of at least one occasion when I have kept someone waiting needlessly without telling them why.

I am aware of the quantity of time that my people put into their work (how many hours a day), but not the quality of the time they give.

I have never reflected on the fact that other people’s time is as precious to them – or ought to be – as my time is to me.

I do not show potential or actual customers that I value their time. It’s their money I am after!

I frequently miss agreed deadlines, I say that I will do things and then don’t do them, and have to be chased by others accordingly.

I will practice and learn in next 30 years:

Time – human time – is the most precious natural resources I have.

Time is well-managed if:

Things that ought to run smoothly are doing so

Desired ends are being achieved by the economical use of time.

Time is well-led if those ends are carefully thought through in terms of purpose, aims and objectives in a rapidly changing world.

My personal sense of time should include an awareness of the value or importance of other people’s time as well as your own.

Finding Potential Within

River Ganga, Haridwar, India

When you are silent your potential speaks to you, whispers to you. And those whisperings are absolutely categorical – there are no ifs and buts. The heart knows nothing of its and buts, it simply says that this is your destiny: become a painter or a poet or a sculptor or a dancer or a musician. It simply says to you that this is how you will be fulfilled. It starts directing you. The function of the master is to help you to be silent so that you can hear your own inner whisperings and then your life starts moving through an inner discipline. So I don’t give you any outer discipline. I help you to rediscover your insight; then you are free, then you move in freedom. So sannyas is not a bondage, it is not a cult, it is not a creed. It is a declaration of freedom. It is a declaration of individuality. It is a declaration of love and creativity.

The truly religious person will live his ordinary life with immense joy and ecstasy. he will not call it ordinary. He will live it with extraordinary sensitivity. It is a gift from the whole, it is a gift from the beyond; it has to be respected, loved, appreciated. And it is really an immense gift. All these trees and the birds and the people and the rivers and the mountains and the stars and this vast sky, all this eternity… it seems really strange, sick, that somebody can be serious in this celebrating existence.

But seriousness has been praised, and because it has been praised people have tried to be serious. They have repressed their cheerfulness, they have repressed their dances, they have made themselves cripples, they have paralyzed their being in every possible way. They have cut themselves so that they can fit into the pattern of being a respectable saint.

To me this has been a calamity. Religious have been committing a great crime against man, and it is time it should be corrected. It is already late. This is the only world, and we have to live now and here. We are not sacrifice now and here for some fantasy of a heaven or a paradise or a moksha. Each moment functions as a mother for the next moment. Condemning it is dangerous. Appreciate it, love it, rejoice in it.