cently celebrated a new year 2016 and I
found everyone saying how the past year
just flew why some people were saying
this new year 2017 seems like going to
be quicker than the year before
did you ever have this feeling chasing
okay
I’ve always been obsessed about time and
I thought since time cannot actually be
getting quicker then either we are
getting slower or our perception of time
is changing I had to explore since the
ever since the origin of life itself on
earth and time has been defined in so
many different ways over the ages is it
a fourth the fourth dimension is it a
direction some philosophers said it
didn’t even exist the closest definition
to our talk today was by Aristotle that
time is a measure of change but not
change itself four and a half billion
years ago earth was created and we
weren’t the first life on earth first
life was just single-cell life and that
lasted for one and a half billion years
then multi-cell life for one billion
years afterwards all of land life on
Earth lasted just four hundred million
years and finally homo sapiens
including humans are until today just
160 thousand years are you starting to
okay you can see clearly that the number
of years between each evolutionary cycle
of life on Earth is getting is getting
smaller and smaller it’s happening
quicker it’s not time itself that’s
changing its evolution jumping into more
modern history first Industrial
Revolution inventions first telephone
first radio first microchip and shortly
afterwards first personal computer and
finally the beginning of our digital age
was the first connection to the World
Wide Web
1983 now the trend becomes clearer the
number of years between each
technological evolution and the next is
getting also shorter and short since
we’re in Egypt right now wants you all
to close your eyes for a moment okay
imagine five thousand years ago the
Great Pyramids of Giza being built can
you guess how long it took to build the
Great Pyramid of Giza it took twenty
years it took a whole generation to to
build just the Great Pyramid of Giza
jumping to modern times this was the
fastest built skyscraper in the world
this was built in only 20 days from 20
years to 20 days up till this point I
concluded that by nature life and
evolution of life and evolution of
technology is accelerating in nature and
here lies our problem the problem is
that life around us is evolving more
than we are and now more than ever we
have the need to evolve in order to
survive our environment Earl Nightingale
said that success by definition is
progressive if you’re not progressive
would you say that five years ago you
had more time in your life and your day
seemed longer and you felt you could do
more with your time raise your hand if
you agree yes keep your hands up if
you’ve ever taken time management
courses to better your life okay so did
I well uh I’m here to tell you that
there is no such thing as time
management you cannot actually manage
time since you cannot change time unless
you’re faster than the speed of light
what you can manage actually is your own
these are two brothers one obviously
sleeps all day his name is Fred and his
hard-working brother his name is Ted
would you say that Ted has a longer day
or has more time than his brother of
course not that’s exactly my point today
we are all living the same time the same
days the same hours it’s what we do with
our time that matters now let me tell
you what to do first thing you need to
do is to keep your time and by keeping
your time I don’t mean just watching
your clocks all the time of course not
there is an exercise to start with for a
period of at least one week you need to
write everything you do down and write
down the time it takes you to complete
it after one week you will have
something that looks like this it’s a
time lock then you can sum up all your
actions we all have exactly the same
hours per week 168 hours is what we do
them that matters then you can see if
you’re what consumes most of your time
is that your top priority
can you give it less time or more time
to other higher priorities when you sum
your time lock for the first time you
will be amazed at how how much free time
and three hours you have and that’s the
first step
another trick I’ve learned over my years
obsessing with time was prioritizing all
my tasks into only three categories to
keep it simple category a are the
immediate tasks are to be done our
urgent tasks to be done immediately and
you can only move on to category B there
as soon as possible tasks if you’re done
with the old the first one category C
are untimely tasks that don’t have any
deadlines another thing you have to keep
in mind is high value and low value time
what is high value time high value a
time could be the last hour you have
before moving out of your house to go to
university or work the last 15 minutes
before an exam or before a presentation
like this one low value time can be the
holiday or the weekend my message here
never do low priority tasks in high
value time another thing I always keep
my personal to-do lists separate from my
work or study to-do list this is an
example of my daily – dual a personal
list always having time for spiritual
having time for my family having time
for my friends having time for my own
self and hobbies having time for
exercise and last but not least I
specify time every day to learn and read
something new writing your personal
tasks down makes them a habit
and also you will have deep
psychological benefits of accomplishing
what you’ve done every day now that
you’ve learned about the nature of our
relationship with time and learned how
to keep time now we’ll explore the sense
of time John F Kennedy said that those
who look only into the present or past
are certain to miss the future time
perspective is a fundamental dimension
in psychology that divides human life
into past present and future what you
need to be is future oriented rather
than being past oriented since you can
never change the past developing your
sense of time that’s me okay not so long
ago I was one year old when I was one
the one year was a hundred percent of my
life when I was five the phylla the one
year becomes twenty percent of my life
when I was ten years old that was my
girlfriend the one year became just ten
percent of my life naturally we lose our
sense of time the years become less and
less significant and that’s another
reason we we feel that life is getting
quicker how to develop this I found only
one thing that worked which was
meditation and I’ll tell you how I do it
we need to isolate yourself in into a
room you need to you don’t need a yoga
position the lotus position could be
hard at first just sit comfortably even
you should also isolate isolate the
sound using headphones without any music
playing or using a earplugs to keep
everything silent and finally just a
candle turn the light down and light
your candle and set a timer for just
five minutes and for these five minutes
train your mind to be silent at first it
will be hard you’ll be getting a lot of
ideas but for five minutes
only one thing exists in the whole world
it’s the flame of the candle doing this
everyday for a period of at least two
weeks after two weeks I promise you it
will get easier you will have more focus
and you will have greater sense of your
time
we all have internal biological clocks
but we lose them as we grow after the
two weeks you will be filling every
second of every minute of these five
minutes then you can increase them to 10
minutes then to 20 and that’s the most
you need to do but keep doing it and the
more you do it the better you’ll get
added this will not only develop your
sense of time and your sharpen your
internal clocks this will sharpen your
mental focus and doing both will enable
you to do everything you do enjoy
everything you’re doing and living each
moment of your life enjoying it and the
more focused in doing everything you do
in each second of your life that counts
the better the quality of your life will
be finally I want you all to
congratulate yourself now that you know
about time know how to keep your time
know how to develop your sense of time
hopefully soon you will be
master of your own time I leave you with
my favorite quote about time it’s the
way we spend our time defines who we are
pink
[Applause] [Music]