Sunday, July 26, 2015

TIME MANAGEMENT – Part 1 – HURRY SICKNESS

TIME MANAGEMENT  – Part 1

Revised Abridged and Updated Version of My Article on Time Management Written by me 25 Years Ago in the Year 1990...

HURRY SICKNESS
Hurry Burry Spoils the Curry
Musings
By 
VIKRAM KARVE


HURRY SICKNESS - DEFINITION and MEANING
 
A central element of lifestyle management is the skill to creatively balance achievement and work success with leisure activities, family life and social involvements.
         
Another critical aspect is the ability to feel comfortable at work and at home and to enjoy the experience of whatever is being done at that moment.
 
But nowadays, most of us are obsessed with getting results or completing one’s task. 

When task completion becomes more important than enjoying the task in hand – and understanding the work or activity one is doing at the given moment  a sure victim of “hurry sickness” is born.
 
The resultant constant sense of urgency is the trap of hurry sickness. 

You rush to “get things done” to the point where it becomes an obsession.
 
Breaking this syndrome requires that you learn to enjoy experiences for the pleasure they give. 

When you gain pleasure from an experience  there is no need to get things done painstakingly.
        
Enjoy experiences  not rewards  and things will get done automatically without any constant stressful sense of urgency.
 
Hurry Sickness can be defined from a psychological perspective as follows:

“HURRY SICKNESS is a pervasive and progressively urgent need to complete task in order to obtain rewards at completion without regard for other aspects of the work experience and by using maladaptive time strategies”


OBSESSION FOR TASK COMPLETION
 
They key causal factor in hurry sickness is the progressive need for task completion.

Enjoying what you are doing is neglected with a morbid urge to getting it done as quickly as possible 
 no matter what the activity.
 
The need for task completion extends to non-work involvements as well.

For example – Hurry Sickness affects activities like eating, playing, romance, making love, sex, leisure, having fun, loafing, taking a stroll, recreation, leisure, sports, pastimes, hobbies, holidaying, exercising, lazing around, dozing, enjoying music, cooking, gardening, and – even – doing nothing. 

Your Hurry Sickness interferes with the enjoyment of these experiences because of the persistent inclination to hurry up and finish it off.
 
Getting things done has become such a strong need  because the payoffs or rewards for completion have assumed primary importance.

Your work experience has taught you that rewards always come at the end of the activity 
 after you have put forth great effort to achieve a goal. 

You do not realize that happiness is not a destination but the manner of traveling.
 
Not only do you feel a sense of personal satisfaction from your achievements  but tangible rewards  such as promotion, cash incentives, awards, and advancements are given to you as well. 

With time  these rewards have become clearly linked with your self-esteem.
 
Each time you “succeed”  your ego  your inner self  sends a message to you which says: “You have done well. You are a commendable person because you succeeded again.” 

Your need for this kind of reassurance has become stronger than you would care to admit.


TIME URGENCY
 
Time-Urgency quickly becomes a strong internal driving force towards task completion. 

Your life becomes a frenzy of completing one task after another. 

You are obsessed with time  and wasting time becomes almost a mortal sin.
 
You strive to maximize your productivity by using time ever more efficiently  but you also have a sense that you are controlled by time  and you don’t like it. 

Time is both your challenge  and your enemy.

A telling sign of hurry sickness is that even while relaxing  you constantly fight the time-urgency that causes you unrest.
       
Another way to seek to increase your output is to adopt maladaptive time management strategies. 

These questionable tactics may help you get more done over the short run  but you pay a heavy emotional price.


MULTI-TASKING – A MALADAPTIVE TIME MANAGEMENT STRATEGY
 
You now do everything faster  you have learned to “multitask”  or “double up”  to do many things at once  and you are constantly preparing for what is coming next  before you are finished what you are doing now. 

The insidious trap is that you get something done quickly  even when there is no reason to get anything done at all.
         
Because of your emphasis on task completion  you focus on finishing the task – without regard for other aspects of the experience. 

In short  you have lost the ability to enjoy yourself while doing anything  because of your incessant drive to get to the finish line. 

Because of this change  you have lost the ability to emotionally rejuvenate yourself.

Chronic Fatigue and Pessimism are symptoms of this malady of Hurry Sickness.
   
 
SIGNS AND SIGNALS OF HURRY SICKNESS 
       
Here are some behavioral signs and signals that indicate hurry sickness:
 
 
1.     Hurried Eating  
 
You now eat in the office while continuing to work or you just skip meals altogether.

You multitask while eating.

At home, you finish meals well ahead of everyone else and eat in bigger bites without savoring the taste of food.

Sharing pleasantries at the table is minimal because you cannot sit long enough.

Ask yourself – are you eating mindfully and relishing every morsel of your food? 

Are you totally relaxed and unhurried when you eat? 
 

2.     Hurried Sex
 
Relaxed and romantic sex and leisurely lovemaking is but a pleasant memory.

The frequency of having sex has reduced  and even when you do indulge in sex  it is a quick encounter  and you are off to sleep  or you move on to some other “important” or “urgent” activity. 

Sex is less spontaneous and more mechanical these days.

Sex has become another hurry-up-and-get-it-done activity. 

Worse  you often indulge in “faking it” – so that you can quickly finish off your lovemaking activity – in order to get sex over with in a hurry  so you can quickly get on with the more “important” and “productive” things in life – your “high priority” activities!  
 

3. Confused Communications
 
Your interpersonal communication patterns now focus squarely on the negative. 

Feedback to others emphasizes mistakes and failings – and you rarely compliment  or offer sincere support to anyone these days. 

You do not take the time any more for pleasant chats with family and colleagues. 

You make demands instead of working cooperatively with others or team-building.

You even stop talking to yourself (intrapersonal communication). 

And hey  are you on your cell-phone most of the time?  
 

4. Uneasy Leisure
 
You put aside less time for relaxation  and you enjoy it less  when you actually try to relax. 

Time-off is now more of a hassle than it is worth. 

When you sit still  you feel uncomfortable and uneasy almost immediately.

You have lost the ability to “do nothing”.

It is difficult for you to loosen up – and enjoy an idle hour relaxing  doing nothing. 

Leisure makes you uneasy.

Ask yourself: “Why do I work? 

Introspect  reflect and contemplate on this question  and realization will dawn upon you that the primary reason you work is to be able to enjoy your leisure.

Yes  we work to earn money  so that we can enjoy our leisure.

So why aren’t you taking a vacation every day  and learning how to enjoy your leisure with full awareness? 

Of course  if you are lucky  and you learn how to enjoy your work  then your work will seem like leisure. 
 

5.  Poor Quality of Family Life 
 
Family members now “report” events to you  but you share little of yourself with them. 

You and your spouse argue more than you talk.

The satisfactions of family life have diminished in quality and quantity

Your impatience is just as strong at home as it is in the office. 

In both your work life  and your family life  you display a sense of hurry.


HURRY SICKNESS  –  CURE AND MITIGATION

(HURRY BURRY SPOILS THE CURRY)
  
 
If you are a victim of hurry sickness  your initial tendency is to effect and expedite your “cure” in a hurry too

But  this hurry-up-and-get-it-done”  attitude  may actually sabotage your recovery. 

What is required is patience, perspective and the ability to deal with setbacks in healthier ways.
 
It is easy to blame hurry sickness on the pressures of the job  and what you “have to do to survive” – and on the insensitivity of the complex modern world. 

While each of these perceptions has a grain of truth in it  the fact remains  that most of the responsibility for hurry sickness lies within you.
 
Your drive to get ahead is the real root of the problem  and the fact is that  you have lost all sense of perspective. 

Until you accept personal responsibility for your present state  you will not be in a position to confront and reverse the real mischief, damage and harm caused by hurry sickness. 

Remember the well-known story of the hare and the tortoise. 

Decelerate your life a bit  slow down  walk leisurely instead of driving  and do not carry your mobile phone  or at least – switch off your cell-phone where you can.

Do not multitask  do one thing at a time  with full awareness and mindfulness and learn to enjoy the experience of whatever you are doing. 

Ask yourself:

Do you believe in multitasking? 

Are you a victim of Hurry Sickness?

Why don’t you rid yourself of this malady 
 and enhance your quality of life? 

Of course you can get rid of Hurry Sickness! 

Just stop multitasking – and focus on whatever you are doing at the present moment. 

It is very easy and it works - you can take my word for it.

So Dear Reader - just RELAX 

Remember: HURRY BURRY SPOILS THE CURRY


VIKRAM KARVE
Copyright © Vikram Karve 
1. If you share this post, please give due credit to the author Vikram Karve
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© vikram karve., all rights reserved.

Disclaimer:
1. This is based on my personal experience. It may or may not work for you. So please do due diligence before trying out this technique.
2. All stories in this blog are a work of fiction. Events, Places, Settings and Incidents narrated in the story are a figment of my imagination. The characters do not exist and are purely imaginary. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Copyright Notice:
No part of this Blog may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the Blog Author Vikram Karve who holds the copyright.

Copyright © Vikram Karve (all rights reserved)

This is a Revised and Updated Version of My Article HURRY SICKNESS written by me in the years 1990 and and posted online earlier a number of times in my blogs at urls: http://karvediat.blogspot.in/2010/11/hurry-burry-spoils-curry.html  and  http://creative.sulekha.com/hurry-sickness_31046_blog  and  http://karvediat.blogspot.in/2011/08/hurry-sickness-causes-and-cure.html  etc

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