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Thu, March 28, 2024

Managing Your Time

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You get to do more only when you enhance your capabilities. So how organised your body, your mind, your emotions and your energy is right now is how much you get to do. Whether you can do it like somebody else or not is not the point. Are you doing it to your full potential? That is the point.  

So if you want to function to your full potential, you have to see that there are no inner issues anymore. Your work is about external issues; action is always about the external, not the internal. Most people are working for their satisfaction. They would be lost without work. They are doing work to make themselves into something. As long as you are doing work to find yourself or fulfill yourself, how much ever you do it is not enough, there is something within you which always wants a little more.  

You are doing work in pursuit of happiness - this has to change. If you are doing work as an expression of your joy, then time is not a problem; there are 24 hours in a day. How much you can do will happen, what you cannot do will not happen; that is all there is. But are you working to your full potential? Most people are not busy, they are just preoccupied. If they just look at their body and their mind, a lot of their activity is unnecessary, especially mentally. Generally, more than 80 to 90% of the mental activity in human beings is unnecessary. If you drop all that unnecessary activity, you will not feel you have done too much.  

Generally, more than 80-90% of mental activity in human beings is unnecessary. If they drop all that activity, even if they work 24 hours a day, still they will not feel like they have done too much. If I work 24 hours a day, physically I will get exhausted. But mentally, I will never feel exhausted or stressed because I only think what I want to think. I don’t think anything that I don’t want to. So there is no question of stress. For most people, as there is no organisation between the mind and body, they always feel overworked. There is unnecessary mental activity going on. If they do not do something about it, they will always feel the paucity of time. Their life is passing away without them realising their full potential.  

In life, if you do not do what you cannot do, there is no problem. But if you do not do what you can do, your life is a tragedy. Every human being should avoid that. What he can do, must happen. If it has to happen, his mind and body should function at their full potential. If that has to happen, he has to do something about it. You don’t get to do more because you want to do it. You get to do more only when you enhance your capabilities. How organised your body, mind emotion and energy are right now, that is how much you get to do.

A human being needs to pay attention to his interiority which is not being done right now. We are trying to function accidentally. We take so much care to maintain our machines. You send your car and motorcycle for servicing but you have done nothing for your body and mind. If one has to function to his full potential, then he has to ensure that there are no inner issues.

I do not see things as time management. It is more of priority management – the allocation of time for different activities that you need to do. There is no particular way to do it because priorities are different for each individual. If your priorities are clear, time will naturally fall into its place. Instead of trying to manage time, if it is very clear to you how significant a particular aspect of life is, time will arrange itself. If you look at what the most significant thing that needs to happen in your life and to life around you is, then there is no confusion about what should be done.  

Ranked amongst the 50 most influential people in India, Sadhguru is a yogi, mystic, visionary and bestselling author. Sadhguru has been conferred the “Padma Vibhushan” by the Government of India in 2017, the highest annual civilian awards, accorded for exceptional and distinguished service.


Sadhguru. Named one of India’s 50 most influential people, Sadhguru is a yogi, mystic, a bestselling author & poet. Sadhguru has been conferred the “Padma Vibhushan” by the Government of India in 2017, the highest civilian award of the year, accorded for exceptional and distinguished service.

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FEBRUARY 2024

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