Of the number of scenes that irritate and sadden us, one is to see the people idle and wasting the time in a number of useless, aimless and stupid activities. You pass by a small shop where chips and burgers are sold and in majority of such shops, you can see a number of customers who have finished eating their chips or burgers but they are busy in watching television and on most occasions, they forget about the other responsibilities they have and keep sitting in the shop for many hours and they never realize how much they have wasted their time by this procrastination.

This disease is so wide-spread that you can come to witness such scenes a number of times in a day. I know a shop-owner who sits in his shop the whole day long and does nothing except to watch television and his concentration is disrupted when he has to take the lunch. Similarly, the seats in a barber’s shop are never left vacant because they are occupied by a number of people who come and sit in the shop for the purpose of gossip and watching television.

Till here, the things are tolerable as they are related to the individuals and not going to harm the general public or aims but let’s go to the staffroom or Principal’s office in a school and there we find the same scene where hot and fresh tea is served after regular intervals and teachers and administrative staff keep talking and chatting with each other for the whole day. Many a times, a student comes and reminds the teacher of his or her class but the poor and hesitant student is sent back and the gossip continues.

There is a general perception about our public offices that people go there late, spend almost an hour in meeting each other and shaking hands, then tea is drunk for another hour and in this way, the very less time is left for the important work of serving the public and it is the reason why, people complain that a day’s work is not done in many weeks and they keep visiting the office every day.

When it comes to the students, they are also not less than others. Whenever they meet each other, they laugh on petty things, show each other interesting things on their mobile phones, discuss other issues and end up without discussing their studies or opening books and it is the reason why, we are producing thousands of graduates who are weak academically comparing to the graduates of the rest of the world.

Very unfortunate is that, it has been accepted as a general term of conduct and now it is not queer to see a number of people wasting their time from morning till the evening, without doing any work or without having any sense of guilt of the loss of time.

It may be justified if a young man who has nothing to do, does so or a rich person, who has nothing to worry about, wastes his whole day sitting in front of the television or watching something on the mobile but it is unfortunate if a student, who has to work hard with his tough subjects of university, sits and watches television and it is even more strange if a group of old men are laughing at a stupid and funny thing on their mobile phones or Youtube.

To some who realize the true value of time and who feel depressed when their single day passes idle, passing a day or days in such a manner would be very difficult and irritating. It is the reason why, when the time is not wasted and it is used in more productive works, they succeed in achieving more than the normal.

A friend of mine is a civil engineer and he likes to make simulations of buildings in his spare time. His 13 years old son, who is a student of class 8, inherited this interest from his father. In his spare time, he remains busy in his father’s computer. When the other kids of the neighborhood play football or watch interesting serials on television, the kid likes to make designs on computer. When my friend showed me the designs his son had generated on the computer, I was not only impressed but also increased my belief that we are not less than others.

A number of students were sent to the European countries for PhD where they completed their thesis and acquired their degree after six years. One day, a teacher went to them and asked an interesting question, ‘How many hours do you study every day?’ He was given different answers ranging from 3 to 6 hours. The teacher said, ‘As you know, the government spends a large amount of public money on your studies and try to imagine how many years you will be able to save if you increased your study hours. If you started thinking with this perspective, you will definitely be able to increase your productivity.’

The biggest factor that seems to be missing and creating this gap is the absence of targets and the trend of setting targets by the people. When we talk of target-setting, majority of us would be totally unaware of the meaning or true understanding of this term. Usually, we read about target setting in business organizations that set targets of revenue generation or other specific objectives for an year or a specified period of time but when we say that we should keep targets in our daily lives, the term comes strange to us.

But it is on record that, educated people use their time as efficiently as any other tangible asset and they set targets to make their lives more productive and meaningful. In this regard, there are few targets that equally apply to all of us which are; the number of pages of books to be read in a week, the hours specified for exercise or sport, the number of hours spent for any informative listening or other activities that can enhance our knowledge base and provide us with both entertainment and information.

The above targets are especially necessary for students and ambitious young men who have just put the first step in their professional lives. In this way, students would not only be getting enough time to cover their studies nicely but would be able to acquire knowledge and information that would be of much use to them in their professional lives. Similarly, the professionals who are ambitious and dream of rising to the peak of their professional expertise and be distinct than the rest of the people, must spare some time for getting extra knowledge.

It is not necessary to mention here that book reading makes your mind mature and behavior sound and thus it is very essential for the members of a civilized society.

But it doesn’t mean that we should be busy all the time with any kind of mental activity and there should not be any moment of rest or relaxation. Aim of our today’s discussion was to point out a pernicious habit which is becoming wide-spread in our society.

The solution to this problem also starts from the individual efforts. If we developed a sound and disciplined habit of utilizing our time, we would be able to inspire many others around us and it would gradually reach to the different corners of the society.