“Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin”. – Mother Teresa

If you understand the nature of resources, you will realize that time is a non-renewable resource. Once it is gone, it can never be regained. And as a matter of fact, you have less time than you think. Let us say you sleep for 8 hours every day and you die at the age of 75. Already, 23 years of your life is gone? If you watch TV for 3 hours every day and you live for 75 years, are you aware that you would have spent 9 years of your life watching television? There is a reason why you will never see a Ferrari or Lamborghini advert on TV. It is because the people when afford these cars do not waste their time watching other people doing their jobs.

Allow me to make this more relevant to you. You will be in grade 12 for 11 months, we do not count December. We do not also count the month of November since you will spend it writing your exams, you will thus be in grade 12 for 10 months. If you sleep for 8 hours every day, that is minus 4 months. Let us say you spend 7 hours at school from Monday to Friday that is roughly 2 months. Let us say you spend 2 hours for eating (all meals) and bathing every day that is minus a month. This means that you have only 3 months to study the syllabus of all your subjects in preparation for your exams. The guy that will be the top student in your class, in your district, in your province and nationally, has the same time as you. Well, you can argue and say that he/she has a higher IQ than you, but that is still not an excuse. The syllabus is the same and you are going to write the same paper as everyone else. The smart guy might have to study the syllabus once for him to understand and score straight As. If you have to study the same syllabus 18 times for you to be in the same level as the smart guy, then you have to put in the hours. The question paper is the same for both of you. If you understand the content, after studying it 18 times as opposed to the smart guy who only studied it once, you might even do better than him. Even if the smart guy studies 18 times, the maximum he can get is 100 percent. If you put in the hours, I really do not see why you should not be the best in your class, the best in your district, the best in your province and nationally. Now tell me, can you afford to watch 7 de laan?

People who find what they want to do early in life are generally more successful. Malcon, in his book The Outliers, argued that if you really want to be good in something, you need to do it 10 000 times. Maybe this is the reason why those who start early end up making it i.e. they get enough time to do it over and over again. One of the reasons why most young people do not want to commit early is because they are aware of the opportunity cost. What if I focus on this and miss something better? You can be good at anything that you decide to be good at. You just need to be disciplined and put in the hours.

Time is a limited resource; honor it by thinking before you act. If you can ask yourself the question ‘then what?’ before doing things, you will realize that most of the things you do or did are just a waste of your precious resource. A top achiever and an underperforming learner; are both given 24 hours in a day. What makes them different are the things they do and how well they do them within that period. The top achievers do things that bene t or contribute to the goals that they would like to achieve. The underachievers will be doing things that either affect their goals negatively or do not affect their goals at all. To avoid such tendencies of either doing things that affect your goals negatively or those that do not affect your goals at all, that is, wasting time, ask yourself the question `then what?’ before doing anything. Try to answer this question honestly and allow the answer to lead you. See if the results of doing what you want to do will affect your goals in a good/bad way, then you can choose to proceed with it, or do something else that will benefit you better instead.

You might find yourself in a situation where you want to do two things, both of which have passed the `then what’ test. Which one must you start with? For this, I recommend the use of the `Prioritizing Cartesian Plane’:

The numbers are written in order of first preference. If you have two or more things you want to or have to do, put them in their appropriate position in the Prioritizing Cartesian Plane: start with the one in the first quadrant, then the one in second quadrant, then the one in the third quadrant and you can end up with the one in the fourth quadrant. I believe that by using this way of thinking, you will do the right things at the right time.

The `then what’ principle and the prioritizing Cartesian plane will help you make good decisions, save time and stay focused. Every now and then, at least once a week, go back to the drawing board. This strategy works for someone with written goals. Have a book, wherein you write the things you would like to achieve and why it is important for you to achieve them, how you would like to achieve them, and the time span for achieving them.

As you strive every day to achieve your goals; there will be times where you will achieve good things, and you will be happy. Times will also come wherein you will be facing discouragements and disappointments. Times will come wherein you will not know what to do; things can be bad to an extent that you will even consider quitting or worse, even think of committing suicide. There will come times where you will ask yourself why you were born in the first place. All of these things are all part of the journey. It can come in a form of failing a test or grade, loved ones passing away during exam times, not having funds to pay for your studies, friends leaving you, falling pregnant, etc; whatever it may be, either you caused it or you did not; at the end of the day it has the potential to break your life and at the same time, it has the potential to build you. Whether it breaks you or builds you will depend on how you will respond to it. Do not react immediately. Think of yourself as a professional. A professional does not waste time or energy panicking, instead they think and try to come up with ways to go forward. Calm down, it happened and it cannot be reversed. What can be done going forward?

Ask yourself, irrespective of your field of study; what a professional would have done if faced with such a situation. You are a professional student. Some people act immediately and take a negative permanent decision even though it is based on a temporary situation. How many times have you encountered situations wherein you felt like it was the end of the world; but today you have forgotten about them and you are living your life. What makes this situation different? From my perspective it is not worth reacting irresponsibly. The other thing about reacting to situations rather than planning and acting is that you end up creating more problems for yourself and for the people around you. If a girl you love so much leaves you for another guy, fighting them will not bring her back. Think first, you will realize that you can save yourself a lot of time and energy if you can just move on with your life. You will not change a fail to a pass by going out drinking. Save your money and evaluate why you failed and take it from there.

“I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: If today was the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today? And whenever the answer has been `No’ for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.” – Steve Jobs

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Tell us what you think: Did you find this chapter helpful? Which points stood out for you?