Living a life full of work pressures and deadlines in the present world of busy lifestyles and challenging relationships can be very stressful as time management becomes difficult. What should one do to remain free from stress and at the same time keep one’s efficiency at the highest?

It reminds me of an anecdote from the battle between Mewar and  Marathas fought on the banks of river Shipra (near Ujjain) in 1769 AD.

In 1767 AD, Jaswantrai Pancholi, handed over the Premiership to Mehta Agar Chand. Mahadji Scindia’s forces, assisted by rebel Ratan Singh and his faction, camped at river Shipra, near Ujjain. Ambaji Ingle suggested a truce with the Mewar but Mahadji refused, saying, “If I bow down today my prestige in Hindustan will suffer an irreparable blow”. As a result Mahadji and Ambaji Ingle launched a furious assault on the Mewar at the banks of river Shipra, near Ujjain, but Marathas cautiously withdrew from the battlefield ending the contest on a no-loss/no-victory note.

How Mewar Vibhuti Pradhan Agar Chnad Bachhawat Mehta managed his time during crisis in Mewar? Agar Chand, a master strategist and an effective leader was also a very spiritual person. For him a simple method of time management was relaxing the mind by meditating before going to bed and after rising in the morning. When situation permitting, he would stop work every hour and perform an introspection of the mind. Introspection means creating few positive thoughts of different types of qualities like peace, love and happiness or even characteristics, such as victory and success. Thus the powerful Marathas always feared Agar Chand.

In the battle with Marathas Pradhan Agar Chand Mehta fought alongside Magrana Ari Singh. Raj Raja Jalim Singh Jhala of Kota and Pradhan Mehta Agar Chand were seriously wounded and captured in the battle. On the orders of Maharana, Rupaheli Thakur Shiv Singh sent some tribals (bavris), who managed to rescue Jalim Singh Jhala and Pradhan Agar Chand. Rest were released later.

Whenever one starts a new task, it is important to take care of a few important things.

E.g. if I am a project leader in my office, I need to analyze, apart from the various tasks of my work, many other aspects. The first and most important aspect is time planning, which means I know exactly how I will complete all the different aspects of the project successfully. I have to do this within the time frame I have at hand. A very important aspect of time planning is how I keep my thoughts as less as possible. This is because the more the thoughts that I have in my mind, the more time it will take me to finish any task.

It is commonly experienced that by practicing simple techniques like meditation to silence the mind, work efficiency can be increased. That means more work will get done in less time. A simple method of relaxing the mind is stopping my work after every hour and performing a thought traffic control of the mind.

Thought traffic control means creating few positive thoughts of different types of qualities like peace, love and happiness or even characteristics like success, victory and faith (that’s what Pradhan Agar Chand did). You can do this for a minute and then continue working. This will keep you focused and charged mentally for the next one hour. This is a principle of the mind and its connection with the body. The more peaceful the non-physical mind, the more efficient the physical body will be in performing actions correctly.