Through out my career in manufacturing industry , i had been eating, sleeping,dreaming and what not about achieving the target defined by management:- section target , dept target , division target , organization target and all this targets were broken down to shift target, daily target,weekly target, monthly target and yearly target.Life used to revolve around target only.

However, keeping track of the tasks related to those targets was no difficult job with a small diary in the top pocket and making notes on anything and everything that matters .Some of the information were the results obtained against targets already achieved and meant for instant reference during some meeting , some about the progress made in a given time and rest about the next course of action.

In between ,lets have a quick glance at the objective of task management :- The ultimate objective of any micro task is to ensure, that its contributes positively to the accomplishment of a Macro task called Target.Successful completion of ,may be tens or hundreds of such micro tasks, finally ensures achieving the desired results expected out of that central or macro task.So a successful micro level task management actually guarantee the final outcome.

Okay,then i joined a Recruitment Consulting Firm and started getting direct exposure to target in terms of revenue generation. Same thing but in a different format, i mean monthly and yearly target ,broken down to function wise revenue,Client wise revenue , Industry wise revenue etc .Again, the objective of task management here was to monitor the progress of each and every activity attached with certain target for generating projected revenue.

With a new year stepping in, my old dairy would get replaced by a new one and all my transactions pertaining to those hundred of people were buried conveniently in a pile of waste paper .So the precious time spent on developing relationship and maintaining the same during that year was wasted , valuable information collected painfully over a period of time was deleted and ultimately all activities related to relationship management during that year was scrapped in an acceptable manner.

No, it's not so simple .At the top of our life pyramid structure , there stands one and the only one target or objective of living a meaningful life and all the activities consisting of several tasks through out our life time ,surely contribute to the achievement of that target. I call this process as "Making Things Happen" in life.

Every task at its own level in a given time of our life ,contributes to "Making Things Happen" at micro level , added up gradually to move up the Life Pyramid ,ultimately reaching the macro level at top.

So, for "Making Things Happen" in life , no task should ever be considered completed. Sounds confusing ? Well, let me explain :-

Our life consists of a set of activities , some are repetitive and some are not.Hold it, that's exactly where i differ.These one time activities do reappear quite often in different forms and structures ,at different point of time in life and a close look shall clearly reveal their repetitive nature .

Okay , going deeper :- a micro level task could be to call some one for something , attached with some bigger task for achieving a particular target.Once through, that task is normally deleted permanently before going to the next. May be your communication with that person for a particular task is over and you may or may not interact with him in future.If not , then that person is permanently deleted form your life.That's what is against the principle of MTH. How :-

I strongly believe that , every task involving another individual , (which normally is) is a process of either developing or maintaining a life long relationship with that person.You can never conclude that, her/his role in your life is over forever, unless you are 100% sure of no further transaction in future, which is a rare case but possible ,if you relocate to a different area or place or switch over to a different career. Even then also, you might bump into her/his life again anytime.

Let me tell you , this is exactly what happened with me ,while participating on Social Networking sites.Long forgotten people resurfaced , buried friendships reactivated, Deleted chapters reopened.I might have deleted all transactions pertaining to those people , but not the TIME.

So the idea is to delete the task from your local system to reduce unnecessary clutters but not from your life system. It appears to be a mammoth job but actually not, if we are able formulate a practical strategy about which i shall express my opinion in the next posting.I have been doing it for along time without investing much time.

So for "Making Things Happen" in life , each and every task should be given prioritized importance but never deleted permanently from our life system and how we integrate this regular micro and macro Task Management with the ultimate task of MTH in life is ,what decides the Quality of Life.

"Don't ever delete a task from your life system , rather go beyond it to make things happen "

Author : Abhijit Kar

Originally posted in  my blog Leadership And Networking