Bholanath Baranwal

We are very concerned about our assets and preserve it for prestige, comfort and utility. But, the unique asset “time” is disregarded by many of us, which is the only asset that cannot be manufactured, gifted, purchased or earned.Only thing God has judiciously given equally to every creature on earth is time.

People who understand the value of time are more successful in every aspect. They get enjoyment and satisfaction from life, contrary to people who are stressed and confused, as they fail to organize themselves better.

Every person has various roles to perform, as individual, family, professional and social member. You can achieve more on all these four counts by having better management of time.

The first rule is to make personal commitment to yourself that you will respect your time and time of others.

CALENDAR

Using digital diary or calendar is as easy as using mobile phone. You can select simple calendar on your mobile phone, or go for more sophisticated version such as:

Act! [https://www.act365.com//],

Google [https://calendar.google.com/calendar/r?tab=rc1‎],

Outlook [http://office.microsoft.com/en-in/outlook/],

All of them offer free trial time.

There are various advantages of using a digital calendar, compared to no diary or printed diary. Noting down your schedule and tasks in the calendar keeps your mind at ease, and you feel in-control. You will not fail to your appointments or targets.

The entries are grouped in phone, tasks or schedules. Some can be of repeat nature, like going to temple at a particular time daily or weekly. Such entries can be made once and set to repeat between date-range of your choice.

PHONE

Phone calls you may want to make at a particular time today or on future dates. Once you tag the call to a particular person, you can also insert your note about the topic.

TASKS

Various tasks for today or future dates can be listed and can further be divided in category like most important (red color), important (green color), less important (blue color) etc. You can view them importance-wise, date-wise etc.

SCHEUDLE

You can insert your meetings and other activities like catching the train etc. You can set alarms to remind you of a particular activity at selected time, so that you do not miss it. The calendar is automatically synchronized between your mobile and computer at home or office, when you set it up once. If you make a change at one place, it is also changed in other devices effortlessly. You can view your entries in calendar in different ways, like daily, weekly or monthly basis. You can easily revise the same, in case of changes or cancellations.

CONTACTS

You require database of contacts in your mobile and computer. Like “Calendar”, you will find “Contacts” in above three programs of Act!, Google and Outlook. It is possible to link phone, tasks and meetings with one or more contacts by making a single entry. They can be synchronized and altered, as explained in preceding chapter of “Calendar”.

The Contacts can be grouped. For example, you can make group of your “supplier”, “buyer”, “family” or “relative” etc. So, when you want to see all you suppliers together on one sheet, by clicking that group, they are listed together. You can make further sub-groups, with virtually no limit. Suppose few of your suppliers and buyers are member of Bharat Vikas Parishad [BVP Member]. You can tag them like wise. Then, you can search “BVP Member”. They will be listed from the groups of supplier and buyer both.

You can make report of the Contacts database, showing only that information you desire. For example, in one list you want their mobile number, other with full address. All these can easily be customized.

The first-time user can go on YouTube and watch free tutorial provided by these companies how to use various features.

I have been personally using Act! for early thirty years and found it very good. It can be synced with Outlook, Google and mobile phones.