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THERE WAS ONCE
A KING who had three sons. Desiring to determine the fitness of
each of them for the prospective job of ruling the kingdom, he
hit upon a strange test. The king
ordered his sons to accompany him, with bows and arrows, on a
ride into the country. Pausing at a spot beside the road near an
open field, the king pointed out a vulture sitting on a tree
limb, within easy bow shot. "I wish
you to shoot at that vulture," said the king to his eldest
son. "But tell me first, what do you see?" Wonderingly,
the prince replied, "Why, I see grass, the clouds, the sky,
the river, a tree, and..." "Enough!"
said the king, and beckoned the second son to make ready to
shoot. The latter was about to do so when his father again said,
"Tell me first, what do you see?" "Ah, I
see the horses, the ground, a field of wheat, and an old dead
tree with a vulture on it," answered the youth. "Never
mind shooting it," the king said, and turning to his
youngest son, ordered him to hit the vulture, and again repeated
the question, "First, what do you see?" The youth
replied deliberately, not taking his gaze for an instant from
his intended victim as he drew taut the bowstring and aimed the
shaft, "I see," he said, "the point where the
wings join the body..." and the young man let fly the arrow
and the bird tumbled to the ground. The third son
became the king. The kingdom
belongs to those who can work in a concentrated way -- and with
the kingdom of the within, more so. The way of moving in life
with a direction. with a goal, with a clearcut vision,
crystallizes your energies. The goal is just an excuse. The
direction is just a device. Ordinarily you
are scattered all over the place, one part going in this
direction, another part going in another direction. Ordinarily
you are many, a mob, and each fragment of your being is
constantly contradicting the other fragment. How can you achieve
anything in life? How can you feel fulfilled? If misery becomes
your whole story, and if life proves to be nothing but a
tragedy, there is no need to wonder. Except you, nobody else is
responsible. You have an
inexhaustible source of energy, but even that can be wasted. If
your fragments are in a kind of civil war you will not achieve
anything worthwhile -- to say nothing about God, to say nothing
about truth. You will not achieve ANYTHING worthwhile, because
all realization, either of the without or of the within, needs
one thing absolutely: that you be one -- so that your whole
energy can pour into your work, so that your whole energy can
become a quest. Questions you
have many; that is not going to help unless all your questions
are together and create a quest in you. When your life becomes a
quest, when it has a direction, it starts moving towards
fulfillment. Then it will have crystallization. Crystallization
means slowly, slowly you become one piece, slowly, slowly
individuation arises in you. And the ultimate realization of
truth is nothing but the ultimate realization of unity within
your being. That is the meaning of the word 'God'. God is not
there somewhere in the heavens, waiting for you. God is waiting
within you, but you can find Him only if you are one -- because
only the one can find the one. Remember the famous words of the
great mystic, Plotinus: "Flight of the alone to the
alone". First you have to become alone. That's what I was
saying yesterday to Amrito: become alone. Alone means become all
one. This aloneness, or alloneness, this inner unity, releases
immense power because all dissipation stops. You stop leaking.
The ordinary man is like an earthen pot which is leaking from
everywhere, has many holes in it. You can go on filling it again
and again, but again and again you will find it is empty. Your
effort will not bring any fruition; first the holes have to be
stopped. Think of your
life as a great occasion to become one. Once you start moving in
one direction, you pull yourself together. Something in you
starts settling. A center arises, and that center is the door to
God. These sutras are of immense value. They are very mysterious too, because when one starts imparting truth one has to use the language of poetry, parable, mystery. There is no other way. The language of mathematics is inadequate; one has to be very metaphorical. The Secret of
Secrets, Vol 2 Chapter #7 Osho |
There are common
time wasters which need to be identified
In order for a time management
process to work it is important to know what aspects of our personal management
need to be improved. Below you will find some of the most frequent reasons for
reducing effectiveness in the workplace. Tick the ones which are causing to be
the major obstacles to your own time management. These we refer to as your
"Time Stealers".
Identifying your time stealers
Interruptions - telephone Interruptions - personal visitors Meetings Tasks you should have delegated Procrastination and indecision Acting with incomplete information Dealing with team members Crisis management (fire fighting) Unclear communication Inadequate technical knowledge Unclear objectives and priorities Lack of planning Stress and fatigue Inability to say "No" Desk management and personal disorganisationOsho meditations can add a lot to the field of time management. Fortunately there
are strategies you can use to manage your time, be more in control and reduce
stress, but you can analyse your time and see how you may be both the cause and
the solution to your time challenges.
Below, we examine time
management issues in more detail
1. Shifting priorities and crisis management. Management guru Peter Drucker says that "crisis management is actually the form of management preferred by most managers" The irony is that actions taken prior to the crisis could have prevented the fire in the first place.
2. The telephone. Osho meditations can add a lot to the field of time management. Have you ever had one of those days when you thought your true calling was in Telemarketing. The telephone-our greatest communication tool can be our biggest enemy to effectiveness if you don't know how to control its hold over you.
3.Lack of priorities/objectives. This probably the biggest/ most important time waster. It affects all we do both professionally and personally. Those who accomplish the most in a day know exactly what they want to accomplish. Osho meditations can add a lot to the field of time management. Unfortunately too many of us think that goals and objectives are yearly things and not daily considerations. This results in too much time spent on the minor things and not on the things which are important to our work/lives
4. Attempting too much. Many people today feel that they have to accomplish everything yesterday and don't give themselves enough time to do things properly. This leads only to half finished projects and no feeling of achievement.
5.Drop in visitors. The five deadliest words that rob your time are "Have you got a minute". Everyone's the culprit-colleagues., the boss, your peers. Knowing how to deal with interruptions is one of the best skills you can learn .
6.Ineffective delegation. Good delegation is considered a key skill in both managers and leaders. The best managers have an ability to delegate work to staff and ensure it is done correctly. This is probably the best way of building a teams moral and reducing your workload at the same time. The general rule is -this; if one of your staff can do it 80% as well as you can, then delegate it.
7. The cluttered desk. When you have finished reading this article look at your desk. If you can see less than 80% of it then you are probably suffering from 'desk stress'. The most effective people work from clear desks.
8.Procrastination. The biggest thief of time; not decision making but decision avoidance. By reducing the amount of procrastinating you do you can substantially increase the amount of active time available to you.
9. The inability to say "no!". The general rule is; if people can dump their work or problems on to your shoulders they will do it . Some of the most stressed people around lack the skill to 'just say no' for fear of upsetting people.
10. Meetings. Studies have shown that the average manager spends about 17 hours a week in meetings and about 6 hours in the planning time and untold hours in the follow up. I recently spoke to an executive who has had in the last 3 months 250 meetings It is widely acknowledged that about as much of a third of the time spent in meetings is wasted due to poor meeting management and lack of planning If you remember your goal is to increase your self management, these are the best ways to achieve this;
There are many ways we can manage our time. We have listed some strategies you can use to manage your time.
1. Always define your
objectives as clearly as possible.