Technical Director Crowe, Co-founder Nutralife Africa / Nutrilife ZW, and Founder Busy Bees
The time conundrum
The one thing I find chasing often is time.
Relaxation comes in many forms to me, top of which is reading a good fiction book. I might learn a new word or two whilst I read, but my main objective is to immerse myself in a non-technical task that gently saps my energy until I am in a blissful state of relaxation − while relaxing my mind will wander and I imagine winning R3 million, R15 million or even R50 million in the Lotto and daydream about how I would spend my money (I don’t play the Lotto).
My point is, how much time can we commit to such mundane tasks. We live in a world that demands you to be on the go constantly. Do something ‘worth’ doing, impactful. How do we define that worth? Who determines what is impactful to you personally? Did you lobby to stop GBV? Did you take time to challenge unfair work practice? Did you strike that work-life balance?
The last month saw me celebrate my 35 days of success, and I found myself rediscovering the mundane. I have found out how much my daughter has grown to become her own person. I discovered that my husband finally finished the book he started a year ago. I rediscovered a few neglected friendships and I realised that I am as busy as I want to be.
It is important to realise that the perception of time controls most people. You know what time you must be at work and how much time, or lack thereof, you can take between breaks. Your Outlook calendar tells you what time you should join a meeting, but you determine that time you can discreetly leave to make it in time for a game, match or event. Life is on a constant timetable ‘Zooming’ from one thing to the next.
COVID-19 laid waste to people’s best-laid plans resulting in a big shift on how we consider and perceive time. Little or no time has been wasted in traffic in the last six months. So, did you capitalise? Did you finish that business plan? Did you put up the shelf or learn your child’s favourite song?
CAs(SA) talk of time as if they can control it. Have you taken the time to step back and reflect on the next year of your life? How will you grow? What are the metrics you will use to measure that growth? Will it be wealth, status or the number of kids you have? The chartered accountancy profession has never needed to evaluate time management as it does now. As we gear up for CA2025, how many of us will still be stuck in a time capsule from 2019, not realising that 2020 has catapulted us into a futuristic state of mind where we finally concede that there is more to the designation and qualification than books, salaries and status? Where we spend time committing to community forums and being part of policy change, even if only in our body corporate! Where young voices are finally time conscious as they realise that soon they too will be expected to ‘fix’ the economy, stop corruption and take the lead.
Being a part of the change in South Africa should not be separated from the time spent studying. This should be done in parallel by each of us making the time and investing in becoming good corporate citizens and start by rooting out corruption in our sphere of influence, jobs and communities.
