STARTING DIRECTION

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Start. One of the most, if not the most essential step to achieve a goal. For successful completion of any activity, the way how activity was started is of utmost importance. To complete, it is important to start but it is even more crucial- how we start and when we start.

You either start right or start wrong, and you either start early or late. The process one passes through is also important but the process gets diverted with the type of start you have.

The context is of any task you take on in day-to-day life or also some specific tasks like a project on job, but more significantly life in general, what you do for long term goals, your thoughts about where you want to be 5 years or 10 years from now will remain only thoughts until you start doing something about it.

To understand each type of start you will face, look at the following matrix carefully and think about the outcome:

I call this the “Start Matrix”. What each cell-block means is:

1. Starting Early & Right: This is the best position you want to be in, one where you have started right which means you are surely on the right path towards achievement and you have got ample amount of time as you have started early. So, there is comparatively less pressure as you can complete your task diligently and efficiently without any kind of hassle over yourself. Sounds wonderful, doesn’t it? But this rarely happens as many brains are wired as such when given opportunity to start early, it says “Why not have some rest first and then start on the right time?”. I wish you luck overcoming that but one more advantage of starting early and right is things will only seldom go wrong hence there is no need of a contingency plan but even if they do, you have got extra time to make amendments. In one-day cricket, it’s like scoring 100 or more in the first 20 overs without any loss, because now you have 30 good overs and chances are you going for a massive total. This also has a tinge of fortune attached to it as starting early or not is in our hands but starting right is a matter where external conditions play a part. Planning is required to start right but that takes time so if your have a fixed time-frame you can start right but not early.

2. Starting Late but Right: This is the most probable thing to do, it is possible and doable, start late but start right, do planning, make contingency, take time to figure it all out but start right. Here the emphasis is on doing the right thing and not doing things hastily. As the famous saying goes “Think before you act”. The preceptive downside here is people focus so much on planning while they end up doing so little.  This is not what should be done.

Example: Ideally a course should be completed in 3 months, you can take a week for overview and planning. You started studying a week late but you did it better than majority of the people because you planned it all out and in contrast other folks just started studying. What I don’t mean by starting late is you take 2 months for overview and planning and divert from the course doing unessential activities, resulting in 1 month remaining for a 3 months course. You might be able to complete the course but the quality of understanding remains doubtful.

3. Starting Early but Wrong: Here you have an advantage, it won’t give you the best outcome but it will surely give you a positive outcome if you work accordingly. This is also doable and especially advisable when you don’t know much about the process or stuff to be done, the best thing one can do when he is in an unknown arena is start early, and make changes along the way. This brings out spontaneity in people and also adaptability. But it doesn’t mean that it is better than option 2, importance of a right start is highly valuable than starting early and wrong because a wrong start might bring up situations unprecedented, creating panic and stress. A calm mind is required to make the right decisions in this situation.

4. Starting late & wrong: O dear, o dear, you do not want to be here! Let us understand this, one is starting wrong which means that the path is not right and for changing the path you need time, but guess what you don’t have, Time, because you started late. Only continue on this path if you don’t have any other option or you think any result would be better than no result or you are desperate for an outcome. Otherwise, it is better to shift to another task or goal when you realize this condition as chances of desired outcome goes down in this scenario.

There are two types of start, one is desirable and the other is doable. Quadrant 1 as in starting early and right is desirable but requires a lot of work, discipline and a little fortune. However, Quadrant 2 as in starting late but right is a doable task, a few minutes to plan out the journey before we start is always a good idea.

Although you might not get as good an outcome as the quadrant 1 person (if fortune favors him) but the assurance of you getting an outcome what you planned for is utmost.

The two variables taken in the matrix are DIRECTION (right/wrong) and TIME (early/late). More emphasis is always on the time management, much more than what I would like to call direction management.

And no doubt time management is essential in attaining success but it doesn’t mean that success would come easy, but with direction management we can make it easy.

For example, while studying a course what time management would look like is this:

3 months=90 days for 3 subjects each having 5 chapters

Implies (90days/15chapters) =6days/chapter.

Congratulations you just got your key to success, but look at following:

3subjects with 5chapters each, out of which 1st chapter is the fundamental in all of them, 2subjects are easy for understanding.

For the tough one lets start early, get a tutoring session with faculty, within a month that subject would be learnt, I have 2 months and 2 subjects remaining but these two are easy so it will require less than 2 months say 45 days, for the remaining 15 days lets revise the tough one.

 

If you still think the first plan was better, I am sorry I couldn’t sell you the truth. The point is, time management is a single dimensional concept but your life isn’t, neither is the work that you are doing or your long-term goals. It can show you the path to goal, but direction management will make the success easy to get.

 

Time management is the path to success, but direction management is the vehicle you are using to travel on that path, so decide whether you want to walk or drive



Written By:

Nihar H. Mehta (The NH Updater)

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