There's always time

When you were a child, your parents come home late from work and tell you how tough it is having a full time job. With constant increasing amount of workload, they hardly have time to breathe thus no time to spend with you. They create this perception in your mind that working means having no time for everything else. A job will rob you of time with family, friends and loved ones.

When I enrolled in college majoring in Advertising & Marketing, I was firsthand warned by lecturers and college principal that the most stressful field in the working force is Advertising. You have to work around the clock with demanding deadlines and ever in-coming projects, most of them sleep at work and rarely see their family. Ah, just the challenges I need. I prepared myself both mentally and physically as I walked into the Advertising world. Turns out, it's nothing alike the way they described it. Or is it because I have good time management?

I have been working for two years full time now, entering my 3rd year come the month of May. Honestly, I have yet to sleep at the office or even stay back for overtime more than ten times in my entire working life. I have not missed family dinners, cancel dates with friends or anything alike. In fact, in my point of view, the Advertising world is not at all stressful. It's all about time management and being calm - never jumping into panic state whenever a project barks you last minute.

Personally, my working life has been slow and boring with too much leisure time at hand. And it's not even my fault, the whole industry is working too damn slow. I refuse to slow down for the them. Don't believe me? Here's my daily routine for the past three months.

0700 - The alarm clock rings. I get up and prepare to drive to work.
0730 - I leave the house on time each morning so that I could arrive at the office before 9am.
0845 - Sit in the office pantry and have my breakfast, that's if the office is open this early.
0900 - Check my emails and my blog.
0915 - Read the newspapers.
1000 - Shift the things on my desk, thinking how I should occupy my time throughout the day.
1100 - Go around and disturb all my colleagues. Too bored, yes, damn bored.
1300 - The table should be filled with little paper cranes by now, hundreds of them. Lunch time.
1330 - Time for mini games during lunch hour.
1400 - More paper cranes folding.
1600 - Jump around like a monkey in the office - restless.
1630 - Continue staring at the monitor blankly wondering if tomorrow will bring new jobs in.
1730 - Insanely restless now, I go to the designers and insist that they let me read the copy though I have probably checked them more than ten times.
1800 - Walk out of the office. Time to get home.
1930 - Arrive home with a tired foot on the brake in the traffic jam. Dinner time.
2000 - Wash the dishes, go for a walk and grab a bath to relax myself.
2030 - Blogging time.
2045 - Time to start cracking my head on freelance projects.
2330 - Shites, almost midnight. Work harder and faster to rush for deadlines for my personal clients.
0030 - Sit on my bed thinking why on earth do I have to be so free during the day with a full time job while I am fighting for time at night for my freelance projects.
0100 - Slumberland time. Zzzz....

What did they say about being stressful and having no time for others if we embark on a full time job (again)? It's all crap because with good time management, there is time for everything. Most working days, I sleep more than 6 hours too! Even with two jobs and lots of freelance projects I have time to do everything else that others have no time to. So the next time your loved ones tell you that they are too busy with work to spend time with you, know that they are not worthy of your time because they think you are not worthy of theirs.

Mini Bites of the day: You cannot turn back the hands of time but you can change the way you make use of the next 24 hours of your day.