180. Question Paper for Micro Management

Question paper for the examination of Paper IV (Micro Management), Time Management Course

Answer any five. Each question carries ten marks.

1. Define Self-replicating Goals. Explain why we always have to do something else before doing the actual thing. How can this phenomenon be incorporated in a time based schedule?

2. How can you overlap work and pleasure? Explain why you should brag about this ability among your friends and family but hide it from your employer.

3. (i) Define a Vanished Morning.

(ii) Make an activity-time relation table for the period between your waking up in the morning and leaving for work.

(iii) How can you reduce the total time in the above table by half so that you can sleep more?

4. Explain why you should care for time while time does not care for you.

5. (i) When was the last time you managed to do something on time?

(ii) How did that happen?

(iii) How can it be avoided in future?

6. Describe the disruptive effects of the following on a well-made schedule:

(i) promotion of a colleague who is not you,

(ii) last evening’s rancid street food,

(iii) the boss’s daughter,

(iv) an uncontrolled rage.

171. Syllabus for Macro Management

Part of the syllabus of Paper V (Macro Management), Time Management Course

(…)

2. Planning for different phases of life. Different phases of life: childhood in assembly line, teenage in hangers, 20s on the runway, take-off at 30s, ascend at 40s, cruising at 50s, descent at 60s, landing at 70s, exhibit for children from 80s. Plane crashes. Missing the flight. What happens during a hijack. Understanding aerodynamics: pressure makes planes fly. Airport hangers and bird cages. On the runway: awareness of the existence of other planes. Learning to scan beyond the clouds while taking off. Ascend: flying high with the seatbelt fastened. Cruising into the sunset. How to chalk out landing plans while taking off and set them in motion while still ascending. Old WWII planes around the world. 

3. Planning ahead. Things to consider: money, lack thereof, family, children, wimpy children, useless grown-up sons and daughters, bank loans, loan retrieval policies of banks (…)

(…)

5. Disruptions and deviations from a planned life. People who were not supposed to die. The meeting you should have attended. The traffic jam that should not have been. The promotion you were supposed to get. The boss who refused to die and burn in hell. The property you should have inherited. The wife who was supposed to be supportive. The husband who was supposed to be a teetotaler. The world that was supposed to understand your struggles.

170. When Failure is Imminent

A participant of the Time Management course has pasted the following hand-out from class on the wall above his study table at home. 

Goal Readjustment

What to do when a set goal cannot be achieved and failure is unavoidable? THIRTEEN suggestions:

1. Change the goal to something different. Justify by saying times have changed.

2. Shorten the goal to something that has already been achieved. Justify by saying one should not overdo things.

3. Extend the timeline. Justify by saying more extensive homework is needed.

4. Hint on some greater goals you are actually trying to achieve. Do not give details.

5. Spend time with people who will recite “It is not your fault.”

6. Say that Scientology has influenced you to take things more slowly.

7. Say that latest research findings in the related field has changed a lot of things. As reference name some random US university in collaboration with some random Japanese university.

8. Blame it on the recession.

9. Act like it is obvious the goal cannot be achieved. 

10. Make it look like anyone questioning your ability has no idea what they are talking about. Practice smirking.

11. Get emotional and do unexpected things if anyone asks why you are missing the deadline. Cry if you are a male and throw things if you are a female.

12. Try to brainwash people with bribes or threats into taking the blame.

13. Work your *** out and get the ******* job done on time.

161. Last Class

Class Teaching (Paper II - Priority Analysis, Time Management Course)

Teacher: “Today is your last class of this course. In this class we are going to talk about True Priorities. This is a matter of self introspection.

“You see, people are of two types. For some success means being popular and for the others success means being superior.

“None of these two is better than the other. The first group puts too much importance on what people think of them and the second group often forgets that they are not the center of the universe.

“However, I am not going to discuss advantages and disadvantages of the two types. You are the way you are and I have nothing to do with that. I myself belong to the first group and generally spend a lot of time pleasing people.

“And that is how it is going to be with you if you belong to the first group. You will try to please people. My suggestion is that you come to terms with this nature and set your priorities accordingly. Your priorities should be those acts that avoid confrontations. Since your priority is to be accepted by people, do not hesitate to be the one to compromise.

“And if you belong to the second group, do what you want to do. Do not try to compromise a lot or have aspirations to be a people’s person. You can try to be loved by the public but chances are you are going to fail. So do not waste time and effort in doing so. Focus instead on those acts that please yourself.

“You cannot be loved by all when you have a strong ego. And you cannot live life at your own terms if you try to satisfy others. Find out what you are and get your priorities right.”

156. Reluctant Goals

Three students are discussing a class assignment (Time Management, Paper III – Goal Setting)

Girl: I am writing dieting as my Reluctant Goal.

Boy 1: Me too.

Boy 2: Are you reluctant to diet?

Boy 1: I never get around to doing it, no matter how many times I plan.

Boy 2: That means it is a difficult goal, but is it a Reluctant Goal?

Girl: Reluctant Goal means you do not really want to do it.

Boy 2: Even though you are adding it to your to-do list.

Girl: Yes, even though. And then you do not really feel bad that you have not done it.

Boy 1: Well, maybe I really do not want to diet. I only think I should.

Boy 2: Then it is a Reluctant Goal for you, but that is not what she meant.

Girl: I really want to cut down on carbs, only it never happens.

Boy 2: Morning walks for me is a Reluctant Goal. I often talk about doing it but deep down I know I am not much fascinated by the idea. So I never do it and I do not feel bad about it.

Boy 1: Then it is a Reluctant Goal for you by definition. And the same thing happens with my dieting, so I am going to write dieting for me.

Girl: But I feel bad about not controlling what I eat. You know what, I would actually go low-carb if such food was readily available. It is just so much easier to make rice or rotis with a sabzi after a long day at work.

Boy 1: If you were staying at home you would probably follow a diet.

Girl: Yes, definitely. This is not my Reluctant Goal. This is just a difficult thing to do. I think for me learning to drive will be a Reluctant Goal. My sister knows how to drive and she pesters me, so I say yes I will. But I really do not like the idea of me driving and never actually try to learn. And I do not feel bad about it.

Boy 2: Don’t want and don’t feel bad. So, that is your Reluctant Goal by definition. Write it down.

Boy 1: I often think about catching up with old friends. Somehow I never get the time. Do you think that is a Reluctant Goal for me?

148. Advantages and Disadvantages of Goal Setting

On the whiteboard in a classroom (Time Management, Paper III – Goal Setting)

Advantages and disadvantages of goal setting

Advantage	Disadvantage
Things mostly get done	1. Possibility of lifelong frustrations 2. An eternal feeling of pending tasks 3. Too much time wasted in setting realistic goals. 4. Difficult to continue for more than two weeks. 5. Long term successful goal setting may cause alienation from more humanly acquaintances. 6. Disobeys the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

146. Syllabus for Task-Time Relations

Part of the syllabus of Paper I (Task-Time Relations), Time Management Course

1. What is meant by a Task. Stages of a task: conceiving, planning, delegating, observing, commenting. Pre-tasks: things to do before beginning. Nuclear model of doing a task: nucleus as the actual work done, surrounding atom as the force needed to start the work. Types of tasks: postponeable, non-postponeable, delegatable, non-delegatable, avoidable, unavoidable, legally obligatory, girlfriend’s/crush’s requests.

2. Time. Concept of time as a merciless flow. The deficit between supply and demand. Idealistic utilization of time. Clever wastage of time. Why everything needs more time. Stretching and bending of time: expansion during sadness and contraction during happiness. Best time to perform certain tasks. Time as a variable. Difference in time perception related to age, sex, and alcohol. (…)

(…)

5. Estimation of time required for a task. Overestimation of required time, unplanned free time, feeling of emptiness in life. Underestimation of required time, breaking deadlines, excuses and passing of blame. How to calculate the actual time needed: mean, mode and median. Frequency distribution and analyses of most outlying points.

129. Syllabus for Priority Analysis

Part of the syllabus of Paper II (Priority Analysis), Time Management Course

(…)

3. Obligatory priorities – Definition and extent of obligatory priorities: spouse’s demands, parents’ expectations, sibling’s competitive challenges, friend’s plea of help, employer’s wishes. Rank and file of priorities. Discarding obligatory priorities based on the social status of the obligator.

4. Acting on priorities – Relationship between performing and claiming to have performed. Models based on proportionate divisions of the same. Substantiation of False Claims. Non-executionary priorities – definition, examples and explanation of why there are no needs to act on such priorities. Concept of Eternal Pending.

(…)

6. Daily priorities – Importance index of family, friends and acquaintances. Relationship between priority and time of day. Weekday and weekend priorities. Concept of self-satisfaction and self-centeredness.

7. Hindering agents – concept of everybody else as a hindrance. Own priorities, polluting priorities and impurities. Structure and components of  obstacle courses. (…)

119. How It Should Have Been

Class Teaching (Time Management, Paper II – Priority Analysis)

Teacher: “There is often a large difference between ideal priority and the actual priority.

“It has been seen multiple times in history that people have not considered carrying out what should have been their utmost priority. Instead they have done something vastly different and at times paid a huge price for doing so.

“And this trend is not restricted merely to human beings, it is also found in the course of major social events and organizations.

“Here are a few examples.”

On the board

	Ideal Priority (what should have been the priority)	Actual Priority (What actually happened/happens)
People
Julius Caesar	Spending time with Cleopatra	Spending time with Brutus
Adolph Hitler	Enjoying the fruits of his Empire and designing more cars for VW	Attacking in all four directions while trying to avoid a two-front war
Diego Maradona	Playing football	Playing handball
Kurt Cobain	Singing	Shooting
Organizations, events or institutions
Hollywood	Functioning as a Film Industry	Functioning as a CGI Lab
The Internet	Offering information to users through search engines	Gathering information from users through social media
The British Empire	Ruling the world	Fighting Germany
Religion	Opening the gates of Heaven	Bringing hell on earth

116. Sundial vs. Watch

From Time, Space and the Rat Race by Vidur Bhargava (Suggested Reading, Time Management, Paper V – Macro Management)

Nine advantages of a sundial over a mechanical watch:

1. It is cheaper than a watch. The cheapest version can be made with a branch from a tree and a chalk. The branch comes for free. You only have to buy a chalk.

2. It slows down your life as you never see the second hand of a watch.

3. Making and scheduling of appointments become very simple, since now you are concerned only with the unit of hour.

4. You have your evenings free.

5. You will be less frequently irritated with people’s unpunctuality since you will never be very sure about exactly how late they are.

6. You have no functionality on a rainy day. Sit back and enjoy.

7. The sunlight and the walk to the open space whenever you want to know the time will be good for your health.

8. Operating defect of a sundial is hitherto unheard of.

9. You can write 'Don’t Panic' in large, friendly letters on a sundial, but not on a watch.

111. Camouflaged Pastime

A father and his daughter are talking at home. The daughter is attending the Time Management course at NILS. The father is not entirely convinced that the courses are actually teaching something useful.

Father: Your mother tells me that you are spending unusually long in the bathroom.

Daughter: How is that a problem for you? I have my own attached bathroom.

Father: I am talking to you about this only because your mother insists. You are also apparently taking very long to finish every meal.

Daughter: I am eating slowly.

Father: That is not what your mother says. She says that you begin normally, but halfway through you get up from the table and carry your plate to your room. Then you take nearly an hour to finish that.

Daughter: Where is the problem in that?

Father: You have also insisted that you will do the cleaning of your room and the maid will not sweep the floor. But then you are taking about forty five minutes to sweep and clean your floor.

Daughter: Once again, why do you have a problem with that? I am not asking you to sweep.

Father: This is something to do with that NILS course, isn’t it? 

Don’t shrug. I know it is some kind of homework or observation. What happened this time? Are they teaching you to waste time?

Daughter: It is my business, not yours.

Father: I know it is that course. You can’t hide it from me.

Daughter (upset): Hide? I don’t need to hide anything from you! Yes it is from NILS. I am doing some experiments on Camouflaged Pastime.

Father: Ahh, there it is. Another one. What is it this time? Camouflaged what?

Daughter: Pastime. Free time. Hobby time.

Father: And why camouflaged?

Daughter: Because people get jealous and irritated when they see that you have free time. One way to avoid that is to cover your pastime with a pretext of some work. Like going to the bathroom, eating, cleaning the room.

Father: What are you doing while you are in the bathroom, eating lunch or cleaning your room?

Daughter: I am watching Netfilx on phone in bathroom, taking a nap during eating and reading books during room cleaning. But you and mom never get to see that. So it is perfectly camouflaged.

Father: If it was so perfectly camouflaged, then how are we having this discussion?

96. Waste Some Time

The panel discussion on daily schedules of successful people is going on. A renowned film and theater director is speaking.

“In my daily routine I always leave at least an hour long slot for wasting time.

“Yes, I am not joking. I actually schedule a period of time when I don’t do anything. No matter how much work I have, I will stop doing that and then…then I will simply not do anything for the next hour.

“This is very important for people in the creative line of work, like me. You have to be imaginative. You have to be creative. You have to have your day dreams.

“I cannot schedule a fixed period of time for coming up with the basic plot of my next film. If I write in my schedule, for example, that I am going to think about the topic of my next film from four pm to five pm, then I am going to think of anything but that during the entire time. I will think of a football match, my lunch, if I need new shoes and all the time keep looking at the watch. Time is flying.

“But if I simply leave four to five pm as time to be wasted, I have no compulsion to do anything. I am also not reading or seeing TV. I am just wasting time.

“I am just doing nothing.

“And then my mind is bored. And then it starts venturing into the land of imagination. It starts daydreaming. It creates images.

“And at five I come back to my productive schedule with quite a few of such images in my mind. Most are to be discarded. But one…just one…might be my next film.

“Which is why I believe, that to be successful as a creative person, one must learn to waste time.”

95. Nothing Personal About It

A father and his daughter are talking at home. 

Father (holding a sheaf of papers): What is this?

Daughter: That is my report on the Multitasking experiment.

Father: (reading from the front page) “The breaking point of Multitasking: from extreme productivity to all-round failure”. This is your topic.

Daughter: Yes.

Father: What yes? This is your analysis of that experiment you did with me? The one where you wanted me to have breakfast while reading sports news from the paper and watching other news on TV and with you blabbering about your personal friend problems and asked my opinions? You wanted me to do five things at the same time!

Daughter: Yes. Eating, reading, seeing, listening and speaking. Those are parameters for Multitasking.

Father: And I went from extreme productivity to all round failure?

Daughter: Failure does not mean your failure. It means general outcome of the experiment.

Father: Really? Then what does this mean: (reads out from the report) “After a point, subject starts showing symptoms of failure.”?

Daughter: Why are you being so touchy about it? This is just technical language.

Father: Technical language? Then I guess I should also feel happy knowing that the (reading from another page) “different parts of the subject’s brain are not entirely in equilibrium.”

Daughter (sighs): Once again you are taking things personally.

Father: Oh yes? (Opens another page and reads) “The difference between the theory of Multinodal-tasking and the observation during my experiment might be explained by the incapability of the subject to handle complex situations.” I am incapable of handling complex situations?

(Mother enters)

Mother (to father): Why are you shouting. This is just a way of writing.

Father: Way of writing? Your daughter calls me incapable of handling situations, says that my brain is not in tune, that I am showing signs of all round failure.

Mother (to daughter): Have you really written all these things about your father?

Daughter: Not about my father, but about the subject of my experiment. That is impersonal and unbiased.

Father (to mother): You see: Your daughter can’t even call me ‘father’. I am her ‘subject’.

Mother (to daughter): Call him your father right now! (Exits room).

For Reference please see post 80 (Different Parts of the Brain).

93. Multitasking Homework

Submitted Homework (Time Management Course, Paper IV – Micro Management)

As a home assignment, students were asked to write short paragraphs on Multitasking. No particular sub-topic was specified and students were encouraged to find their own topics.

Titles of some of the submitted works:

Is Multitasking a result of bad planning?

Genetic advantage for women in Multitasking

The breaking point of multitasking: from extreme productivity to all-round failure

An algorithm for maximum output in three-point Multitasking

Multitasking vs. delegation of responsibilities

Observation: my daily Multitasking

Multitasking: verb, noun, verbal noun or nominal verb?

Effects of alcohol (and other substances) on Multitasking capabilities 

Multitasking in ancient Egypt

88. Panel Discussion

NOTICE

A  panel discussion session on Daily Routine is going to be conducted on Wednesday, 26^th September at the Common Room from 5:30 pm. 

Successful personalities from different fields of life will talk about their daily activities and schedules. The audience will also have a chance to interact with the speakers during a question and answer session at the end.

The session is free for participants of the Time Management Course. Participants from other courses may also attend the session with an entry fee of Rs.50/-.