Harlem by Langston Hughes Essay

Harlem has skillfully summed up the pathos and miseries of Afro-American life and its reason for socio-cultural strife in the American society and history in few lines. It contains the two essential element of any great piece of literature i.e. brevity and comprehensiveness. Langston Hughes takes into account the social impact of deferred dream and provides a clear allusion that these deferred dreams went off in the form of social unrest and increased hatred between Black and White communities in the fifties and sixties. Langston skillfully uses the symbols of decadence to epitomize the putrefying society and then suddenly questions about the ultimate outcome. On a broader level, this poem also refers to ‘American Dream’ that aimed at the attainment of material gains only. This social goal neglected the social equity and turned American society into a wasteland.   So true dreams got deferred and exploded in the form of civil rights movement and social-political conflicts of 1960s. He uses powerful imagery to emphasize the magnitude of decadence that deferred dreams bring with the passage of time. For example ‘raisin’ denotes a darkened grape that remains constantly exposed to sun. So a deferred dreams feeds on the pathetic beams of social miseries and turns soar. Although on the surface level the net effect seems negative but one must keep in mind that raisin is savory too. So his revolutionary vision was based on a peaceful and progressive world.   Langston weaved dreams not only for the common Afro-American folk but also for poets of future generations. This dream-maker influenced the future poets to create work based in their own roots and values. So his â€Å"dream deferred† did not â€Å"dry up like a raisin in the sun† or â€Å"fester like a sore† but â€Å"it explode[d]† in a positive by influencing his reader and future writers alike.

Middlemarch Comment Essay

George Elliot wrote Middlemarch in the year 1871. Middlemarch is the town where the novel takes place. George Elliot’s incentive for having started writing was to create a new, different kind of writing which distanced itself to the melodramatic novels which female authors were writing at the time. Middlemarch is a novel about a character called Dorothea, who is an inhabitant of the town and stands out for her striking beauty and surrealistic views on life. The author first described Dorothea’s character and then conveyed her attitude towards Dorothea through the use of literary techniques. She used the town of Middlemarch as the background of the plot to help portray Dorothea’s life path. Dorothea (otherwise known as Miss Brooke) is immediately portrayed as the main character that had striking beauty, which was â€Å"thrown into relief by a poor dress.† Her figure was very feminine; from her hands, wrists, to her stature and profile create a delicate feminine figure. This property she has separates her from the average towns person. Dorothea is an exceptional woman: she is smart, pious, and beautiful, and the governing principle of her character is her desire to help the needy. She is also quite intelligent. However, despite all of Dorothea’s good properties she is always viewed in comparison with her sister Celia. Celia’s wit and â€Å"common sense† seemed more normal than Dorothea’s. Hence people were often suspicious of Dorothea. This is also due to the fact that Dorothea’s strong willed personality leads her to diverge from the common ideas of marriage that others have tried to inflict on her, such as marrying an older man. Dorothea is clearly an independent woman that seeks a man with strong values. She does not want a marriage with â€Å"good looks, vanity, and merely canine affection.† What Dorothea wants is a marriage with substance and love. Dorothea is always trying to help others in her town and wherever she goes. Her presence is described as her big brown eyes in comparison with her simpler sister. George Eliot’s perception in the novel is conveyed from the point of view of a woman writing about a woman. George Eliot clearly prefers the character of Dorothea describing her as a much more beautiful, intelligent and all round good person in the book as opposed to her sister. He uses compound sentences within the structure to convey this. Eliot doesn’t fail to use this technique to portray the elaborate Dorothea. The author highlights Dorothea’s unwillingness to compromise with the world through humor, and in doing so reveals Dorothea’s naivety. This can be understood when Eliot writes â€Å"riding was an indulgence which she allowed herself in spite of conscientious qualms,† Which was started to stress Dorothea’s unconventional methods and attitude to a simpler minded individual. Even though Dorothea is the main character in the novel, Eliot seems to be very interested in her fate whilst she makes fun of her character and the rest of the world. It seems as if Eliot is also trying to persuade the readers of the book to be fond of Dorothea. This turns out to be successful, even though she is a dull character, Dorothea compensates for her lack in ingenuity thanks to her fellow residents of Middlemarch and her ability to overlook the ordinary and her authenticity, when she is her greatest enemy. This gives readers a positive reflective view of Dorothea’s character. Middlemarch is a small town that has been chosen for the main setting of the novel (hence the title). Middlemarch is a fairly typical story, which consists of a character in a small town that creates a plot out of a young woman’s life, and not following a character around throughout the book. Middlemarch is a small town, which is strikingly similar to the town where Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen takes place. The two novels have similar properties as well, in terms of marriage. In the end it seems that Middlemarch took points and values out of the novel Pride and Prejudice as it was written afterwards. Due to the kinds of mentality these small towns in the 19th century hold in novels, we can see that Dorothea will most likely choose the wrong husband. However, the realization of her mistake in marring the man she chose would allow her to mature and become more sensible, and with her new point of view she will be able to lead her life in a more mature manner. In conclusion, we can see that George Eliot’s main focus in the novel Middlemarch is to portray women in context of a rural society, and their views on marriage. She uses marriage to show woman’s position in society during that century in such a small rural town. Dorothea is a exceptionally beautiful woman which has â€Å"childlike ideas about marriage† and is the main focus of the story which contrasts from her sister. This also shows what would happen when a woman in that century had different views on a topic such as marriage. This passage from Middlemarch, which was previously compared to Pride and Prejudice, confronts the way society reacts towards Dorothea and portrays the themes of marriage and feminism, in both cases from a female point of view

Cisco’s Web Enablement Essay

CEO John Chambers believed that â€Å"by providing the end-to-end network plumbing, we can change the way entire companies and industries operate. † How did Cisco’s IT web-enablement initiatives reinforce and demonstrate that belief? Explain your answer with examples. Cisco began web development in early 1990s. Cisco invested around $100 million to web-enable all the applications using standard set of tools and smart group of people. Most of the interactions with customers, partner and suppliers were network-based and began at Cisco’s home page which allowed them to do business with Cisco more efficiently and effectively. Below are some of the examples of the intranet and internet applications that were built part of this initiative: Intranet Applicationss: Employee Self-Service & Communication and distance learning: Cisco’s corporate intranet, Cisco Employee Connection, a centralized portal to access the information, tools and resources needed to streamline processes, facilitate knowledge exchange and maximize employee productivity met the unique needs of 40,000 plus employees. Training modules were available to employees to be trained from their desktops through the distance learning application. The usage of training modules was tracked to improve the quality and its effectiveness. Personalized home pages using ‘My Yahoo! ’ retrieved information from the internet based on user preferences and pushed it to their desktops. Cisco’s quarterly meetings were available for employees to be viewed from their desktop. This not just doubled the attendance but also enhanced the Cisco’s culture of maintaining a strong relationship with each employee. Internet Applications: Customer Self-service through website Cisco’s customer self-service portal built on Cisco. com, a comprehensive, web-based, online resource for information and networked application, was the primary vehicle for delivering responsive, around the clock support for its customers. They relied on Cisco. com to get their questions answered, diagnose network problems, provided solutions and expert assistance worldwide. It was translated into 17 languages for international customers. Cisco’s customers were highly satisfied and enjoyed the lower cost of doing business with Cisco than those who do not used internet based applications to support. Net commerce through the web: Cisco was an early pioneer in using the internet for full electronic commerce. Customer could place and track their orders using Cisco. com. As of January 2001, internet-commerce-based revenue represented 92% of the total revenue base. Productivity gains of 60% for Cisco and 20% for Customers and resellers were being realized through online commerce. Besides the above examples there were other intranet and internet based applications which increased the productivity of its employees and improved supply chain process & customer satisfaction. Thus the above web-enabled systems reinforce and demonstrate the CEO’s belief of changing how companies and business operate. It was very clear that Cisco was successful in the principles of using internet in doing general business.

Efficient Market Hypothesis Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Efficient Market Hypothesis - Essay Example On the other hand, the semi-strong form of efficient market hypothesis assumes that the stock prices fully reflect and represent the public information, mentioning and indicating that the fundamental analysis would not bring the yield of superior risk-adjusted returns. The strong-form of efficient market hypothesis is based on the assumption that the prices of securities reflect both private and public information, highlighting and indicating that the investors would be able to earn higher risk-adjusted returns. But, these three forms of efficient market hypothesis have proved some serious limitations. And these serious limitations proved their existence in the year of 1987 when the event of market crash occurred. Is it possible to rationally explain the causes of the market crash of 1987? Is it appropriate to say that markets were efficient enough to represent the prices of stocks in the required way? But, that was not end of it; rather they continued to be part of the finance histo ry. In the year of 1990, the Internet Bubble totally invalidated the rationale behind the use and application of efficient market hypothesis. On the basis of hindsight, it is clearly evident that the equity valuation, which normally heavily depends on the unpredictable and uncertain future predications, was based on irrationality and irrational and unsupportable claims. After that part, its implications in terms of validity and applicability of this theory would be critically accounted for.... In the year of 1990, the Internet Bubble totally invalidated the rationale behind the use and application of efficient market hypothesis. On the basis of hindsight, it is clearly evident that the equity valuation, which normally heavily depends on the unpredictable and uncertain future predications, was based on irrationality and irrational and unsupportable claims. In the subsequent parts of this piece of work, first the concept and theory of efficient market hypothesis would be clearly explained and highlighted. After that part, its implications in terms of validity and applicability of this theory would be critically accounted for. Definition__________________________________________ An efficient capital market is defined as a capital market in which the current price of a share or stock fully and totally represents and reflects all the stock or share related information, including the information of risk (Schweser, 2004). Furthermore, an informationally efficient capital market i s defined as a capital market in which a price of security or stock rapidly and fast adjusts as soon as a new piece of related information is arrived. This piece of definition of an efficient capital market hypothesis is based on certain assumptions, and they are: First, a considerable number of participants, who are there to increase profit or returns on stocks, tend to understand and analyse and and give value to stocks and securities, and these participants are independent of each other. Second, any piece of new information appears in a capital market in a random fashion; and pieces of information are also announced independent of each other with regard to timing as well. Third, securities and stocks investors and fund managers quickly and rapidly start estimating the prices of

Dominant Types and Seriality in Architectural Practices Essay

Dominant Types and Seriality in Architectural Practices - Essay Example This tendency of the concept of typology to take different shapes and meanings in the history of architectural design methodology has been a subject of debate for a long time. A commonly held squabble against the typological procedures in architecture has been a claim that such practices are manifestations of the times of craft or preindustrial art. The purpose of this essay is to evaluate the persistence of the concept of typology in architectural practices of different time periods and contexts. Also the essay will attempt to comprehend the relevance of typology in the current architectural design approaches, as well as the significance of the employment of classification and seriality in such innovative architectural practices as FOA will be discussed. The impact of globalization on the political agencies of different countries and consequently on their attitude towards the urban transformations will be evaluated taking the example of Singapore. Hence the importance of controlling the individual identity of practice using repetitions and differentiations will also be discussed in order to identify the means of evolving distinct types in certain working environment and under different ethical influences. It is one of the universal principles to reduce human perceptions to certain persistently occurring patterns, regular geometries or harmonies. Hence the debate of typology is not new in the architectural discussions. Likewise typologies in architecture specify and direct the varying requirement profiles of certain buildings or spatial systems. These categories of typologies vary with the scale of architectural intervention. Hence at the level of urban planning the typologies may deal with groups of houses, attached or isolated, while the typologies of building may inspect residences, industrial units, entertainment complexes, etc. Building typology has offered the governing model

European Business Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

European Business - Essay Example also contains all the required components to get share from this huge market. It can also expand outside the EU. The major benefit of single market is reduction in border costs. They are similar to import tariffs, because they also raise the price of exports in the foreign market. A decrease in border costs has a great and positive effect on integrating regions as a tariff reduction. It helps in trade creation and trade diversion and changes in the terms of trade. It also affects the incentives to invest. Reduction in border costs produces a strong competition on the home market and a better competitive position on the foreign market. It also increase the cost of production for exports and their reduction simultaneously improves home country firms position on foreign markets and exposes them to more intense competition at home. These are some general benefits that can facilitate any business looking to expand in the EU market. But for doing specific planning it would be appropriate to undertake a general quantitative analysis of the social-economic functioning of the market, carry out a quantitative survey, undertake a qualitative analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of the market. These three steps will help in formulating strategy to specific areas of the business. For doing this analysis it is appropriate to have a detailed data on following aspects. Once the reliable data i... 6. Prices can be easily compared because of Euro. 7. Reduction in non tariff barriers 8. Adoption of the Common External Tariff 9. No threat of fluctuating exchange rates thanks to Euro. These are some general benefits that can facilitate any business looking to expand in the EU market. But for doing specific planning it would be appropriate to undertake a general quantitative analysis of the social-economic functioning of the market, carry out a quantitative survey, undertake a qualitative analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of the market. These three steps will help in formulating strategy to specific areas of the business. For doing this analysis it is appropriate to have a detailed data on following aspects. The socio-economic role of the market in the EU context. Balance and healthy competition between the market competitors. The market role in promoting local production. Possible internal and external partners in accomplishing this strategy. Once the reliable data is available about above said areas. It would be easy for planners to formulate strategy for the expansion of Company in EU single market and beyond. Besides the benefits of single market there may be some threats or hurdles that may cause problems. It is important to consider these threats before implementing the expansion strategy. These hurdles may be: Lack of knowledge about the demands of market Lack of coordination between the trading parties Cultural or traditional differences Purchasing power and price factor of different market within EU or outside EU After going through all these preliminaries reliable information can be gathered. This data will be greatly helpful in adopting a correct course of action. Once the planning and data collection phase is completed. It is time for taking

Agency Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Agency - Essay Example People in power tend to manipulate those below them by controlling how they think and act. Foucault uses the Panopticon to represent power laboratory, which uses the staff and the prisoners as experiment specimens. The Panopticon and the town stricken by plague represent transformational changes of the disciplinary measure. The Plagued town scenario is an exceptional case, where power is used to eradicate an unusual evil. While the Panopticon represents a comprehensive prototype of human operation, a feature that defines day to day power relations. The Panopticon happens not to be a dream building structure, but a layout of power minimized to its ideal nature. It perfects power functioning by multiplying the number of individuals under power control, and minimizing power operators. Power is made more effective and economical. Considering the works done by Susan Bordo and Richard Miller in their essays Beauty (Re) discovers the male Body and The Dark Night of Soul respectively, several aspects of agencies are being discussed. By using Foucault way of thinking on the essays of Bordo and Miller, we can be able to deduce how Foucault might treat the particular materials used choose for their examples. For instance, taking one example from Bordo in her essay Beauty (Re) discovers the male Body; she discusses about how the agency of men as supposed to be masculine and in charge has taken a different route whereby males are assuming ladies position. Taking an example from this essay about the advertisement she came across in the New York Times Magazines, in actual life setting, a male is supposed to have power over a woman a case depicted (Brodo 169). In this example where a young man poses with a Calvin Klein labeled undergarment but has a posture reserved for women. The eyes of the young man looks down from the camera as opposed to facing the camera as men do. It depicts a power that has given its

In instruction box Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

In instruction box - Essay Example It is indeed not an uncommon phenomenon to encounter businesses marketing and selling their products online either through their own portals or by relying on sites owned and managed by third parties. In the first case, the company produces and markets the product online without necessarily relying on players in the traditional distribution channel such as distributors, wholesalers, and retailers. This paper will discuss how technological advancements and the Internet have impacted product distribution in the world today. The Case of Fujian Wanhua Electron and Technology Company Limited One company that relies on the Internet to distribute its products is the Fujian Wanhua Electron and Technology Company Limited. The company is based in China and was established in 1996 (Fujian Wanhua Electron & Technology Co. Ltd., 2013). The company produces a variety of electrical and electronic appliances for home, business, office, and corporate use. Some of the products that the company manufact ures and markets include car alarm systems, cordless telephone communication systems, network management systems, and home/office wireless burglar systems (Fujian Wanhua Electron & Technology Co. Ltd., 2013). ... Advantages of Direct Online Distribution of Products There are several advantages associated with direct distribution of products using the Internet. One main advantage with this method of distribution is its association with low overhead costs according to Time (2013). What this means is that the company is able to make a bigger profit that it would with the inclusion of intermediaries. This is the case considering that the company does not share the profits it gets with the intermediaries. Furthermore, a business that does direct online distribution is guaranteed to reach a global audience (Time, 2013). For example, although Fujian Wanhua Electron and Technology Company Limited is based in China, many people know about it or at least about its products across the globe. This may not be the case with businesses that rely on the traditional method of distribution. In many cases, they end up having a market that is limited in reach and therefore a smaller capital base. Yet another adv antage of direct distribution through the Internet is that it offers customers/consumers a lot of convenience (Time, 2013). Consumers can get to shop for the products they desire at any time of the day or night and at their convenience wherever they are as long as they have access to the Internet. What this means is that the consumers are not limited to shopping by time. Since intermediaries are not involved in the transactions, the customers benefit from the direct arrangement in that they get products at prices much cheaper than they would otherwise get with the involvement of intermediaries (Gillai & Lee, 2009). Many customers tend to like the idea of dealing directly with product producers (Time, 2013). Furthermore, the customers are more likely to receive superior customer care

Hospital Case Management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Hospital Case Management - Essay Example Hospital case management is a process to meet patient needs with the best use of resources to provide the best quality treatment at the right cost. Case management is used to ensure the right clinical and financial outcome. The data used for statistical quality analysis is the medical expense, clinical workload and utilization. The care request is allotted the required services. The medical information for comparison is available. The referral of the case to the correct physician is a part of case management. The communication involved is also a part of case management. The case management program at this hospital is simple and effective. A model hospital follows the well defined procedures of continuous quality improvement. The quality program is based on delivering the best services to the patient. The risk management department at the naval hospital performs all the functions of a model facility. It monitors patient satisfaction and tracks patient outcomes. Other important aspects of quality are team based. The sub-divisions of the quality management department include performance improvement, risk management, credentials and infection control. The excellent working of the quality management department shows that the naval hospital fares well as compared to the model hospitals. The case management standards involve co-ordination, control of environment and funding. Case management is also used to buy equipment and supplies required for the services. Information is provided to the patients and their families. Case management facilitates professional rapport in the team. Changes are made as required depending on the condition of the patient. The care plan should be coordinated with the disease source. The standards also specify support to the family. The standards used here are USNHGUAMINST 6320.19 series, BUMEDINST 6010.13 series and Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) standards. The quality management department of the hospital has divisions for implementation of the work. The performance improvement division ensures continuous improvement. It also implements the total quality leadership. The quality procedures are included in the daily work in a systematic manner. The risk management division measures the quality of care and patient satisfaction. The credentials division evaluates the providers. It trains the health care providers and support staff. The infection control division identifies and reduces the risk of infection according to the established standards. The hospital has an educational program to promote health awareness. The utilization management division allocates the services and the resources. The case management division combines population health, managed care, quality improvement and preventive healthcare. The hospital applies disease state management. This is a process that encompasses the entire course of the disease from prevention to the completely healed patient. Thus we see that the hospital adheres to the best standards. A comparison with the model facility shows that the naval hospital exceeds

Business Research Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words - 2

Business Research - Essay Example Customer satisfaction gains all the more relevance in hospitality industry like the hotel industry. The Ritz hotel is one of the prestigious and luxurious hotels in France. The hotel is located at the heart of Paris in France and is one of the seven recognized Parisian palace hotels. Ritz presently offers 159 rooms with suites, restaurant, bars and private salons. True to the spirit of Ritz, each room offers a harmonious blend of modern ease and classical charm in a quintessentially French style. While there can be many reasons to choose Ritz over others; some reasons can only be experienced (Ritz Paris, n.d.). The hotel, now, plans to evaluate the level of customer satisfaction with the help of a survey. ‘Guest Satisfaction Questionnaire’ is distributed in various guest rooms and suites of the hotel. This report contains the questionnaire along with proper methodology to analyze the same. A conclusion has been inferred from the analysis and plausible recommendations are suggested to improve the service. Customer satisfaction is majorly understood as the sense of satisfaction that a customer feels when he or she compares his or her expectations with the actual quality of the acquired service. Satisfaction is closely related to the quality of the service (Krivobokova, 2009). In the absence of customer feedback, the quality of service is extremely difficult to assess. That is why direct involvement of the customers is necessary to analyze the improvement activities. Since evaluation of the level of customer satisfaction demands a considerable involvement from the customers, surveys are of paramount importance. Customer survey is a part of primary research. In this case primary researches are used to investigate an issue specific to business and to get feedback from the customers. Primary research delivers more specific results than the secondary research. On the other hand, secondary research is done on

The Virgin Mary Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

The Virgin Mary - Essay Example The Virgin Mary has a great many aspects in the world of Christianity because of her humility, piety and role as the mother of the Savior of humanity. Yet, in Protestantism, she would be quite different in her portrayal than she would be in Catholicism. Yes, she is still seen as the Virgin Mary, but in quite a different light. In the Roman Catholic Churches, Mary is the pre-eminent saint and the focus of much popular devotion. "This article explores historical and modern Christian beliefs about Mary (known as "Mariology"), which includes such doctrines as the Immaculate Conception of Mary, the Virgin Birth of Christ, the perpetual virginity of Mary, the Assumption of Mary, Mary as "Theotokos," and Mary as Coredemptrix and Mediatrix". (1. Religion Facts) The Virgin Mary plays a prominent role in some of the Gospels; these would include the birth stories of Jesus found in the books of Mark in chapters one and two, as well as the book of Luke in chapters one and two. Within the text of the Gospel of Luke, The Virgin Mary would have been part of the tribe of Judah within the lineage of David. In her first appearance in the Gospel of Luke, when an angel appears to her, Gabriel, where she is told that she, through the power of the Holy Spirit, will give birth to the Son of God. The Gospel of Luke in actuality goes no further in describing Mary at all, withholding credentials and more of her worthiness to be the Mother of God. Gaventa, in Religion Facts: Just the Facts in the World's Religions, points this out in many locations throughout the piece. "Really, Luke tells us nothing about her," Gaventa said. Gaventa goes further in saying that no credentials are given to make us think Mary would actually be worthy of being chosen by God. Or that what happens in the story is that Mary is chosen entirely by God's own initiative. This would be an excellent example of what Protestants would emphasize as being part of God's divine grace or God's initiative. "Mary, regardless of this unfathomable news, was engaged to Joseph and Mary, according to all accounts, humbly accepts the fact that she will give birth to the Son of God." (2. Religion Facts) The reason it is considered Immaculate Conception and delivery was the fact that the hymen would have remained intact dur ing labor and delivery, an unheard of capacity. This information was first divulged within the treatises of Gnostic Ascension of Isaiah in the late 1st Century and would also have been found in the late 2nd century Protoevangelium of James. When Mary was a young woman engaged to Joseph, the Angel Gabriel announced to her that she would give birth to a son that would be born of the Holy Spirit. Mary humbly accepted her divinely-appointed role, saying, "May it be unto me as you have said." She then conceived and gave birth to Jesus while remaining a virgin (Lk 1:31f; Mt 1:20, 23). Mary gave birth in a way as to avoid labor pains and leave her hymen intact. This was first found in the Gnostic Ascension of Isaiah (late 1st century), 1 and also found in the late 2nd century Protoevangelium of James. Christian writers in the earliest writings including Clement of Alexandria of the 3rd Century would have

Effects of Improving Productivity in Lost Foam Industry Essay Example for Free

Effects of Improving Productivity in Lost Foam Industry Essay The lost foam or expendable pattern-casting process is a relatively new process in commercial terms, but is gaining increased attention due to the environmental and technical benefits that are achievable for some types of casts. In the lost foam casting process, an expendable pattern is formed out of polystyrene foam. Patterns can be made manually, using automated systems or by molding those using a permanent die. Manual pattern making typically involves carving blocks and gluing sections together to build up the desired shape. The finished pattern is a single piece (i. e. no cores) incorporating all necessary gating systems. Process details and organizational: Lost foam casting is a type of investment casting process which uses foam patterns as the investment. This technique takes advantage of the properties of foam to plainly and inexpensively form castings that would be complicated or impossible, using normal cope and drag techniques. Why foam casting? In the world of metal casting, there are only three non-captive aluminum lost foam job shops exist, where the traditional process called sand casting remains at the top. But most of the companies could offer only with a lost foam facility. The manufacturers gives value-added castings, though the casting part might be initially more expensive, but the entire cost of the component, for the reason that of reduced or eliminated machining, less assembly and less of the other aspects, can make it more commercial for its customers. The green sand, permanent mold and die cast are lot of established processes but there is only handful of lost foam aluminum users. Even though the fact that there are only a small number of lost foam job shops across the country, some of the Irish and American Foam Cast still have to compete in the entire metal casting market. Due to the higher tooling costs than traditional casting the customers disregard lost foam strictly. Initially customers might be turned away by costs, but comparing to those cast by traditional methods certain lost foam components can be less-expensive. When estimating lost foam, with a total-cost point of view from design to finished component, customers save on unavoidable expenses in sand casting. Some of the customers were hesitant on utilizing lost foam because of its intricacies, when the Foam Cast drew in its first potential customers. But lost foam supplies the ability to design without interior while casting in geometry and features from the start. The lost foam can facilitate the staff to execute direct administration correctly over the casting process even with in the facility. Lost foam can also fabricate multiple parts to make one casting from thin to thick wall components independent of a riser. Advantages of Lost Foam Casting †¢ The lost foam casting can be used for precision castings of ferrous and non-ferrous metals independent of size. †¢ Compared to sand casting fewer steps are involved in lost foam casting †¢ In the foam casting system ‘Core making’ is eliminated. †¢ Binders or other additives and related mixing processes are eliminated. †¢ High dimensional accuracy can be achieved and thin sections can be cast (i. e. 3 mm). †¢ There is lower capital investment. †¢ The flasks used are less expensive and easier to use because they are in one piece. †¢ The need for skilled labor is reduced. †¢ Multiple castings can be combined in one mould to increase pouring efficiency. †¢ Lower operating costs can be achieved for appropriate castings. †¢ Complex castings, particularly internal sections, which require high dimensional accuracy and have thin sections, can be produced very cost effectively in comparison with to conventional sand molding processes. †¢ Fettling and machining is minimized due to high dimensional accuracy and the absence of parting lines or core fins. †¢ The shakeout process is simplified and does not require the heavy machinery required for bonded sand systems. †¢ High levels of sand reuse are possible. As little as 1-2% of the sand is lost as a result of spills. Periodically a portion of sand may need to be removed or reclaimed to avoid the build-up of styrene. Advantageous Productivity Areas of Lost Foam Process in Industry: ? Reduce Production Costs – The lost Foam process provides opportunity to reduce the labor as well as the content of energy and make other efficiency improvements must be pursued. As the activity based cost accounting approaches do the Lean manufacturing, six sigma and other concepts to progress operating efficiencies need to be practiced. Revolutionary technologies and process changes also should be investigated to achieve metal casting without the use of tooling. The industry should investigate the application and blending of statistical, shop floor layout, computer numerical control, and scheduling technologies to radically change the nature of EOQ’s, production release sizes, inventory levels, and delivery performance in metal casting plants. ? Reduce the Energy Content of Cast Products – In the lost foam system the energy consumption can be reduced by improving product quality thereby decreasing the scrap and melting requirements. The Improvements in equipment and process efficiencies can also save energy. The foam casting industry should build up a complete understanding of thermo physical behavior of alloys in melting, flow, and solidification as well as the capability to accurately simulate these behaviors. ? Waste Management – In the foam casting system, in order to enable increased reuse of foundry sand and other by-products and waste streams, more environmentally sound binders, and better emission treatment, the improvement in process are required. These Process improvements will also help to reduce scrap and thereby waste in casting processes. ? Reduced Labor Content of Cast Products –the current foam casting practices must be investigated in order to identify opportunities to decrease the number of steps in the process, develop and implement no-touch casting processes, and execute advanced information and control technologies. ? High-Quality, High-Performance Engineered Cast Components –the techniques to progress quality, precision and performance will result in fewer customer returns. The foam industry must develop an understanding of all process variation which affects the performance of castings in their applications; and develop process controls to ensure that variation is within allowable limits. Better performing products will also open new markets for metal castings. Tools are needed to capture digital, analog, or computer vision signals from all levels of the metal casting process to provide real time feedback about process status and to provide the ability to correct variances before they become product defects. The current status of Metal Casting Industry: According to Donahue â€Å"There have been significant advances from the past two years in aluminum lost foam, and yet domestic growth is almost non-existent†. The development have been made possible not because of a large group of lost foam metal casters but because of individual metal casters. According to Donahue, this influx of capital has contributed to advances in eight key areas of aluminum lost foam casting: * New types of foam which resists the folding and creating voids; * Improvement of the metal interface with sand by coatings; * Sand with low expansion rates that fill more quickly and completely; * More capable compaction systems; * reduced porosity through pressurized solidification; * Alloys that is more compatible with the filling process unique to lost foam; * modeling software; * gating advancements, such as hollow fiber sprues. Lean Manufacturing Lean Manufacturing is an operational strategy oriented achieving towards the shortest achievable cycle time by eliminating the waste. Its key thrust is to increase the value-added work by eliminating waste and reducing incidental work. The procedure often decreases the time between a customer order and shipment, and it is designed to radically improve profitability, customer satisfaction, throughput time, and employee morale. The advantages are lower costs, higher quality, and shorter lead times. The term lean manufacturing is invented to represent half the human effort in the organization, half the manufacturing space, half the investment in tools, and half the engineering hours to develop a new product in half the time. Jones and Mitchell (2006) as cited in Clive Atkinson Dr Margaret Linehan suggests Four significant benefits that can be gained through the adoption of lean management to an organization. First, increased productivity with the same workers with the existing resource levels. Second, the Improvement of delivery of work within less time. Third, reduction of error or defects and improved quality. As a Fourth one, Improved Customer satisfaction derived from the improved staff morale and a stable workforce. The characteristics of lean processes are: 1. Single-piece production 2. Repetitive order characteristics 3. Just-In-Time materials/pull scheduling 4. Short cycle times 5. Quick changeover 6. Continuous flow work cells 7. Collocated machines, equipment, tools and people 8. Compressed space 9. Multi-skilled employees 10. Flexible workforce 11. Empowered employees 12. High first-pass yields with major reductions in defects Lean Manufacturing integrates the use of Heijunka, level sequential flow, the heartbeat or pace of the production system, continuous flow manufacturing, cellular manufacturing, and pull production scheduling techniques such as Kanban. The Lean module explores the 5 Principles: †¢ Value: it deals with –What the customer is willing to pay for. †¢ Value Stream: Actions which adds value to a product or process. †¢ Flow: The continuous movement of product, favoring single-piece flow and work cells versus production lines. †¢ Pull: Replacing only material that is used and eliminating excessive inventory. †¢ Strive for Perfection: A relentless elimination of waste on a never-ending basis. Applying Kaizen as a Tool of Lean Manufacturing Technique: Kaizen Event: This is a quick-hit method for Lean process improvement. This tool needs organizational learning and readiness for implementation and is a power tool to eliminate waste in the facilities of casting industry. . Tools: Kaizen Model Kaizen was created in Japan following World War II. The word Kaizen means continuous improvement. It comes from the Japanese words kai which means change or to correct and Zen which means good. The Mixed model, one piece flow manufacturing can become a reality only when setup can happen in seconds. In these days several companies are doing mixed model assembly. Progressive automobile manufacturers use mixed model assembly methods to customize each vehicle as it comes down the line. The power of the approach presented in kaizen for quick change over is to help make it possible to do mixed modeling in production as well by making changeovers even faster. Kaizen is a system which involves every employee from superior management to the cleaning crew. Everyone is encouraged to come up with small improvement suggestions on a regular basis. This is not a once a month or once a year activity, it is a continuous process. These repeated small developments add up to major benefits. These will result in improved productivity, improved quality, better safety, faster delivery, lower costs, and better customer satisfaction. Above all of these benefits to the company, the employees working in Kaizen-based companies generally feels easier to work and more enjoyable resulting in higher employee moral and work satisfaction, and lower turn-over. With every employee looking for ways to make improvements, the expected results will be: Reduces Waste: In particular areas such as inventory management, waiting times, transportation, and worker motion, employee skills, over production, excess quality and in processes kaizen model will reduces wastage. Improvement: it improves in space utilization, product quality, use of capital, communications, production capacity and in the maintenance of employee. Kaizen Offer: It provides immediate results in the organization. Instead of focusing on large, capital intensive improvements, Kaizen focuses on creative investments which solve continually more number of small problems. Still the large and capital projects and major changes in that are needed; nevertheless kaizen improves the process of capital projects, the real power of kaizen is in the ongoing process of frequently making small improvements which develops the processes and reducing waste simultaneously. SMED SYSTEM: The other tool called SMED system is a process which makes possible to perform arrangement of equipment and changeover operations with in ten minutes, and is also used as an element of Total Productive Maintenance –TPM. Effects of 1. Forming of Implementation Team: The production employees/executors and professional team members, having responsibilities in their own sectors, represent the best alternative for team members. The purpose in implementing the 5S techniques is to enlarge the effectiveness through the development of knowledge and skills of the workers, and their responsibility. By this technique workers become more dedicated to their work; they are capable to understand appropriately the given situation and can take the correct decisions. Hence the implementation team members must act as a machine, production, tool and design technologist. 2. Training: The maintenance employees have to perform changeover team and machine setup has to be introduced into and qualified in implementing new methods and the procedures introduced into changeover procedures minimum once a week. Clarifying all the misunderstandings, training is forecasted to be done per team and questions as well as giving clear directions to enable faster and easier tool exchange (SMED). 3. Survey and screening of the situation prior to the method implementation Every changeover detail are recorded in video and complete work activity sequence is written down. Every move and every activity of the operator have to be recorded specifically, hence any unnecessary activity to attain even worse results. The same procedure recording should be done after implementing the method to establish the effectiveness in both applying the method and accomplishing the result (SMED). 4. Classification of Activity: In the classification of activity it is consists of the analysis of recorded material and the activities which can be divided into two groups: the internal and external ones. External activities are all the set up activities which can be performed while machine is in operation; where as the Internal set up activities are the ones that can be performed only if the machine is not in operation. The Internal activities refer to the dismantling of used tool, to the mounting of new ones and ascertaining communication in line of machine tool (SMED). 5. Transforming internal activities into external activities: The Transformation of internal activities into external activities is much possible. It is the most proficient procedure ever for decreasing machine outage rates (SMED). 6. Improvement of internal activities minimization – Set the tools visually, at the hand of operator (5S) – Using the connectors that may be rapidly exchanged for all tool power sources (5S) – Possible Usage of as many locating pins for accurate tool positioning. (SMED) – Cranes with sliding transporters (SMED) – Using of cranes for heavy tools only (SMED) – Using of standard tools as possible (SMED) 7. Improvement of External activities: – Placing visual markings for easier and faster identification (5S) – Using check list to prevent unpredictable events in resources preparation (5S) – â€Å"At hand† tool organization (5S) – Work place organization that decreases tool search time (5S) – Using appropriate tool preheating machine along with adequate device (SMED). 8. Forming and Standardization of the SMED procedures. 9. Saves quantification of savings reached by SMED. 10. CIP (Continuous Improvement Process) Applicability of Lean to Lost foam Industry: The five-step thought process for directing the implementation of lean techniques is easy to remember, but not easy to achieve: 1. By using the product family –the specification of value from the standpoint of the end customer. 2. Elimination of steps when necessary, that do not create value and identifying all the steps in the value stream for each product family. 3. Make the value-creating steps occur in tight sequence such that the product will flow smoothly toward the customer. 4. As flow is introduced, permit customers to pull value from the next upstream activity. 5. As value is specified, value streams are identified, wasted steps are removed, and flow and pull are introduced, begin the process again and continue it until a state of perfection is reached in which perfect value is created without any waste. There are several approaches an organization must take to meet the desired goal. Here, are some outlined tips to ensure a continuous lean transformation. 1. Identifying the company’s cultural model: Culture answers the question of how do we do things around here? and is actually the accumulation of leadership behaviors. Any organization which is serious about becoming lean needs to identify its cultural model and determine how to close the gap from the current cultural state to the ideal future cultural state. Once the base of improvement action works to build new principles, values and behaviors into the organization, then the ideal culture aspired to and begin to work on organized progress toward that ideal state is to defined. In the end, the organizations culture determines the ultimate success of any lean transformation. 2. A process improvement culture should be build: After identifying this model, a culture that practices process improvement should be build as part of daily life. Changing from a reactive culture to a process-improvement culture requires embracing an opposite approach. 3. Establishing a practice of leadership involvement The senior leadership committed to lean improvement only to drop off after the implementation gets started. Bringing leaders to the point where they recognize how to seek out waste before removing it drives the success of lean transformation. 4. Continually engage in rapid improvement events The most effective way a manager or manufacturing engineer learns how to apply lean tools and concepts is through participation in the initial week-long improvement event. The next step is to establish a series of these events as you develop new processes and uncover additional areas of waste, which will help you incorporate lean into every aspect of the business. Effects of Improving Productivity in Lost Foam Industry: Metal Casting industries that apply Lean manufacturing principles can be seen improvements in the following areas: †¢ Reduced Manufacturing Lead Time to less than 1 day †¢ Improved Delivered Quality – The defect rate is reducing to Six SIGMA level which is 3 Parts Per Million †¢ Improved Delivery Performance to 99+% †¢ Increased Inventory Turns to greater than 50 turns per year †¢ Reduced conversion costs on materials to finished goods is to 25 – 40% which is less than mass producers †¢ Reduced Manufacturing space to 35 – 50% which is less than mass producers †¢ Reduces New product development rate to less than 6 months References: Clive Atkinson Dr Margaret Linehan, An Analysis of Lean Management Procedures within Irish Motor Dealerships: International Journal of Buisnessand Management Vol . 3, No. 11, Retrieved July 18, 2009, from http://ccsenet.org/journal/index. php/ijbm/article/viewFile/894/849 Dennis Sowards, Lean Thinking is not a Fad Diet, Retrieved July 18, 2009, from http://www. masetllc. com/news/pdfs/0306-1. pdf Lean management practices in the pharmaceutical industry Heiko Gebauer, Michael Kickuth, Thomas Friedli International Journal of Services and Operations Management 2009 Vol. 5, No. 4 pp. 463 – 481 Kaizen, Retrieved July 18, 2009, from http://www. graphicproducts. com/tutorials/kaizen/kaizen-benefits. php Lost-foam casting, Retrieved July 18, 2009, from http://www.reference. com/browse/wiki/Lost-foam_casting Modern casting, Retrieved July 18, 2009, from http://goliath. ecnext. com/coms2/gi_0199-3666396/Finding-a-niche-with-lost. html Lost Foam Foundries find Energy-Saving Opportunities, Retrieved July 18, 2009, from http://www. foundrymag. com/feature/feature/67804/lost_foam_foundries_find_energysaving_opportunities Hobert E. Eppicch, Implementa tion ofMetal Casting Best Practices, Retrieved July 28, 2009, from , http://www1. eere. energy. gov/industry/metalcasting/pdfs/implementation_final. pdf

Role of Marriage in Society

Role of Marriage in Society Culture is defined as the dynamic system of rules established by groups (Matsumoto Juang, p. 10). Marriage is one of the norms established by people, which reflect attitude, beliefs and behaviors. Marriage is an interpersonal relationship with communal or religious acknowledgment which is often created as an agreement. Marriage is rooted effectually in almost every society except where common law partners are recognized. It is the bond that exclusively consents a sexual relationship, especially in collectivist countries where sex before marriage is considered a sin, likewise some societies, especially collectivist countries also require official approval of religious or civil body. Across cultures, the anatomies of ancestral standards are different. Beliefs of what comprises a family are based on culture, dynamics, assets, and ethics. In many cultures, extended family which includes married couples staying in the home of their parents is a form of showing love and respect for exampl e in Pakistan; marriage is also basis for having children in those societies. Since issues like fornication and having children outside of marriage is considered taboo so to grow a family in collectivist cultures getting married is must. Our attributions, interpersonal and romantic relationships and group behaviors are all influenced by the culture we live in thus resulting in the attitudes we have towards a specific actions we take. Support gap, depression and illness including marital satisfaction, communication pattern and attitudes towards marriage, they all differ across cultures and will be discussed. Attitude towards marriage being the most important one, because the whole idea of relationship relies on the individuals perspective and preferences. It depends on the individual to see it as a social foundation which administer structure, support, growth and stability or see it as an economic arrangement or as a part of religious institution. The western society might pay more importance to love whereas collectivist cultures might see as an obligatory and as a religious foundation to have family. Spousal Social Support: Social support for women is greatly reduced in machismo cultures (Matsumoto Juang, p. 198). The conformity and obedience are expected by women and is related to traditional gender roles that females and males have occupied; with male traditionally being in power. Such differences result in loss of support especially in cultures where women tend to get married at a young age; since getting married at an early age is a form of economic survival it is also seen as a way to guard the female gender and to administer some adherence in settings where society is under pressure for example India. The support a married couple gets from their significant partner is substantial, because support from outside the marriage does not compensate for the lack of spousal support (Xu Burleson). Belle (1982) termed support gap hypothesis which is that women receive less support from their husband compared to men even though the study Belle did was in 1980 and it has been almost a decade, the study done by Xu and Burleson indicates that social change in sex role relations has not changed. The different kinds of support received are emotional support, esteem support, network support, tangible support and informational support. Research indicates that men are less comfortable and less skilled in discussing distressed emotional state (Burda Vaux 1987; Saurer Eisler, 1990; Trobst, Collins Embree, 1994). In Cross Cultural comparison of social support, Mortneson (1999) found that members of the American individualistic cultures viewed seeking of social support as more appropriate means of coping with problems than did members of the Chinese collectivist cultures. American individualists also rated the provision of emotional support as more appropriate form of emotional support than did Chinese Collectivists. Study done by Xu and Burleson, included 100 native born Americans and 102 native born Chinese; 45% of the sample were between 18-24 yrs of age and not exceeding 33 years. All participants were recently married i.e. not more than 5 years. The study tried to obtain desired and experienced levels of spousal support for the five types of social support (emotional, esteem, network, informational and tangible). Participants also responded to demographic questions that provided information on age, sex, race, national origin, length of time they had known their spouse and the time they have been married. The results indicated a vast difference between Chinese support system vs. American support system; Chinese men reported getting more esteem and network support from their spouse than Chinese women versus American women who experienced higher level of support from their spouse than did men. Sex differences were found amongst Chinese and American women, both face a support gap but Chinese wom en face an additional gap with respect to network support. The results provided Cross-cultural corroboration for the existence of support gaps, i.e. the less network support for Chinese wives that is because Chinese wives were reliant on their husbands for social contacts outside their home. Chinese also reported in getting more information support than did Americans, which could arise from Individualism-Collectivism; a cultural factor. Americans view intimate relationship in terms of personal affect changes whereas Chinese in terms of connection with community. American men reported getting low level of spousal support than Chinese men that is because in traditional value system, wives have an obligation to support the egos and social connections of their husbands and husbands have lesser responsibility. Results indicate that marriage remains more influenced by traditional values among Chinese men than Americans. Depression and Illness including Marital Satisfaction across Cultures In collectivist societies, marriage is the central reality of a womans life and the blue print on which her life depends. Epidemiological studies confirm the special vulnerability of women, especially married women, in South Asia (Johnson Johnson, 2001). High rates of domestic violence (Jejeebhoy, 1998); female illiteracy, malnutrition, anemia and maternal mortality are major public health problems (Buckshee, 1997). Psychiatric epidemiological studies consistently identify high rates of depression and other neurotic illnesses in women and the gender ratio of these disorders on the subcontinent is higher than the gender ratio in the West (Mumford et al., 1996). Among married women in Pakistan, especially among newly married women, attempted suicide (Khan Reza, 1998) and death rates from murder and suicide are higher than in are higher than in many other societies and are usually associated with in-law conflicts, especially dowry disputes (Kumar, 2004). Smaller scale studies of menta l health and illness have found that a variety of disorders such as depression and post-partum depression were strongly associated with marital problems, particularly maltreatment by husband or in-laws (Patel et al., 2002; Ulrich, 1987). Women immigrants report higher rates of depression and dysphoria than Native American women (Karasz, 2005). A study of traditional South Asian immigrant women and white European American women found that European American women viewed depressive symptoms as the result of personality structures shaped by childhood experiences, or by patho-physiological processes such as serotonin deficiency or hormonal imbalance. South Asian women, by contrast, viewed depressive illness as a normal emotional reaction to severe situational stress, especially marital distress, and to the vulnerabilities associated with womens gender roles (Karasz, 2005). The present study by Karasz examines how women understand the link of marital family problems and a wide range of health problems by examining their conceptual representations of the causal relationship between marriage roles, health and illness. Using qualitative methods and a model of illness representation from health psychology literature, 35 traditional South Asian immigrant women living in New York City were interviewed. Results indicated that problems associated with marriage roles, including marital and marital family conflict, domestic overwork and isolation were viewed as extremely serious and were associated conceptually with a variety of health problems. In another study done by Qadir, De Silva, Prince and Khan, tested the applicability of marital satisfaction scales developed in the West for use in Pakistan. The results indicate that, contrary to cultural beliefs regarding marriage, most women expressed the need to be satisfied within marriage, which was found to be extremely low because of variety of reasons such as living in an extended family background and low spousal support. Communication Patterns Rehman and Munroe did a study and used cross-cultural methodology to examine the demand-withdraw pattern of marital communication. In Western countries, women make more demands, whereas men are more likely to withdraw. This advanced marital structure hypothesis suggests that this pattern can be altered by gender roles and beliefs, particularly in traditional marriages (Rehman Munroe, 2006). To test such hypotheses, the authors conducted an observational study of marital communication across very different cultures, with varying levels of patriarchy (i.e., 50 White American couples, 52 Pakistani couples in Pakistan, and 48 immigrant Pakistani couples in America). A questionnaire was used to gather demographic information, such as age and education. The Short Marital Adjustment Test (SMAT; Locke Wallace, 1959); a standard measure of marital adjustment with well-established psychometric properties was the measure of marital satisfaction level. The Conflict Tactics Scale (CTS; Straus, 1979); was used to screen out violent couples. Modified General Ethnicity Questionnaire (GEQ; Tsai, Ying, Lee, 2000); only the immigrant couples completed this measure of acculturation to U.S. culture. Unable to find acculturation measures designed for The Desired Changes Questionnaire; the DCQ was used to choose topics for each couple to discuss during their marital interactions. Twenty areas are listed (e.g., Get together with my friends).3 For each area, spouses rated how much they wanted their partner to change (1- no change; 7- much more); they then listed at least two additional issues on which they wanted partner change and rank ordered their three most important issues. Each couple was also asked to discuss for 7.5 minutes, which were later coded. Across cultures, demand-withdraw communication was related to marital distress, extending previous findings to new groups. The results for demanding behaviors showed that Pakistani wives were significantly more likely to engage in unassertive demands than were American wives, whereas American wives were significantly more likely to use aggressive demands than were Pakistani wives. In addition, among Pakistani and immigrant couples, husbands were significantly more likely than were wives to use aggressive demands, whereas American wives were significantly more likely to use aggressive demands than were American husbands. There was a trend for American husbands to be more likely to withdraw than their wives. In contrast, in the Pakistani group, wives were significantly more likely to withdraw than were husbands. In addition, Pakistani and immigrant wives were significantly more likely to withdraw than were American wives, whereas American husbands were significantly more likely to with draw than were Pakistani husbands. Pakistani and immigrant wives showed increased withdrawal and made more unassertive demands, whereas Pakistani and immigrant husbands withdrew less and made more aggressive demands. Attitudes towards Marriage Attitude is one of the definitions in Jungs Chapter XI of Psychological Types. Jungs description of attitude is a readiness of the psyche to act or react in a certain way (Jung, [1921] 1971:par. 687). One of the types of attitudes Jung describes is, rational attitude, which is reason as an attitude (Jung, [1921] 1971: par. 785). Rational attitude is subdivided into thinking and feeling and irrational is subdivided into sensing and intuition. Attitude towards marriage involves, readiness to act in a certain way, whether you are capable of considering it rationally or irrationally. Why an individual chooses to get married? (voluntarily and involuntarily) differs across cultures. In collectivist cultures, it is seen as the only way of having family, fornication is not only considered a sin but also an individual can be severely punished which can lead to his/her death; some countries also have laws protecting it for example Saudi Arabia. Higgins, Zheng, Liu and Sun did a study to compare the attitude towards marriage amongst people living in China (collective culture) and United Kingdom (individualistic culture). The British sample consisted of 338 students and the Chinese sample consisted of 505 students. A questionnaire was devised by Chinese and English researchers working together. Respondent cultural differences in response style were noted (Higgins, Zheng, Liu Sun, 2002). According to Triandis, Brislin, and Hui (1988), people who belong to collectivist, group-oriented societies are more likely to value harmony, face-saving, modesty, and moderation and this may manifest itself in neutral answers to attitude scales. Respondents were asked for their opinion using a 5-point Likert scale. In this study, students were asked for their general attitude to sex before marriage. A total of 46.3% of Chinese men and 41.2% of Chinese women gave neutral answers, a higher percentage of Chinese female students (46.9%) were aga inst sex before marriage than were Chinese male students (29.9%). The next statements concerned the connection between premarital sex and marriage. Most British students (85.2% men, 91.3% women) disagreed with A couple who have had sexual intercourse before marriage ought to marry each other, whereas only a few Chinese (12.9% men, 11.4% women) disagreed. The belief that sex is designed for marriage is still firmly held by many Chinese people and exerts a strong influence on their attitudes (Higgins, Zheng, Liu Sun, 2002). When asked about their willingness to marry a partner who had had sex with somebody else, over half of the British respondents (54.0% men, 50.6% women) did not seem to worry about their partners previous sexual experience whereas their Chinese counterparts (34.0% men, 36.5% women) appeared to be less agreeable to the idea. 87.1% male and female 94.3% students were against freedom to have lovers within marriage. This attitude was also prevalent among the Chinese sample, with 65.6% of men and 72.5% of women against extramarital lovers, this study showed that these male-superior norms still exist in the U.K. sample but are more prominent in the Chinese sample (Higgins, Zheng, Liu Sun, 2002). Culture exerts a strong influence on peoples attitudes to love, marriage, and sex. People from a more traditional society (e.g. China) have more consensus about the gender roles of men and women; adhere more to traditional morality and values; and are less open about sexual freedom (Higgins, Zheng, Liu Sun, 2002). Hojat, Shapurian, Shafeyhain and Parsi conducted a study amongst 160 Iranian immigrants in the US in 2000. The immigrants were between 20 -50 years of age, questionnaires were given which included 25 questions regarding attitude towards marriage and relationship. Results showed that Iranian immigrant men were more likely than female partners to view premarital sex, marriage and family from a traditional point of view. Another interesting study done by Wiesel and Krenawi consisted of 150 participants of different cultural backgrounds i.e. 29 were Druze, 32 were Muslims and 33 were Christians; 44 were women and 50 were men with a mean age of 34. The questionnaires were designed to reveal attitudes toward love, the marriage expectation scale, potency scale, which will reveal the control of things, and mate selection scale which revealed how the person took initiative in getting married (love or arranged). Results indicated Muslims saw love as less important for marital quality than did Druze and Christians, Muslims more than other groups correlated independent decision making with marital quality, attitude toward love and marital quality were weakly correlated among Muslims, the necessity to beget off spring and unity between families were high amongst Muslims than other groups suggesting what might keep the families together in the absence of love. The results also suggested that arranged marriages are negatively associated with marital satisfaction and low level of marital satisfaction was related with low level of education. Discussion Through a variety of perceptions, one develops an exclusive analogue of what marriage is; and the ancillary ideals concerning marriage. My mother always said that successful marriage depends on two things: finding the right person and being the right person. Since I am a Muslim, I will give several quotations from Quran; which I support as my belief and my idea of a perfect family and what a perfect husband and wife should be like. Though I must admit with time, I have come to realize that to be perfect; one must have to sacrifice a lot and since marriage is a two way street one has to give a lot in order to get anything. In Islam, marriage is treated as half-faith. When a servant of Allah marries, he has completed half of his religious obligations, and he must fear Allah in order to complete the second half (al-Baihaqi). Prophet Muhammad has also said, Marriage is part of my *Sunnah, whoever runs away from my path is not from among us. Husbands and wives are compared as garments to each other (al-Quran 2:187) Marriage gives tranquility (al-Quran 30:21) of mind in the spouses. Allah has prescribed marriage as the only way for conjugal relationship and family life in human society (al-Quran 2:221, 5:5, 24:33). With enough being said of the significance of marriage in Islam, its a shame to see that Muslim women face higher suicidal rate than men in Pakistan (Khan Reza, 1998). Most marriages in Pakistan are arranged by parents and other elders of family, with the woman having little or no say in the selection of her partner. Premarital meetings between couples are rare. Many couples meet each other for the first time on their wedding night. Newly married couples share the house with the grooms family, having little time or space of their own. Once married, a woman is under increasing pressure from her in-laws as well as her own family to have children as soon as possible, preferably in the first year. If for some reason the woman cannot have children, the threat of divorce or the husband taking on a second wife (allowed in Islam) is not uncommon. The divorce rate in Pakistan is quite low 0.3 per 1000 population (Encyclopedia Britannica, 1996, p. 686) but this does not reflect the true state of marriages. There is considerable stigma to divorce, especially for the woman. In addition, few women work outside their homes or have jobs that give them economic independence. Because most of the South Asian and Middle Eastern countries give high power to men, the spousal support is something that men living in these countries expect from women. Being a housewife, taking care of kids and most of all thinking of women as inferior is something common amongst these men. Because the families live together, there is not privacy, which gives rise to poor communication amongst married couples. My marriage was an arranged, it wasnt that my parents didnt ask me of my approval; or if I didnt get a chance to talk to my husband, before getting married, that is something that a women in Islam has the right to do and people; who are uneducated living in impoverished societies, deprive women of these right which gives rise to many social and marital problems. I must admit though, that living in an extended joined family, gave my husband and me little or no time for us, our life was going around in circles to which I always thought was no ending. But, being educated and having a liberal thinking we always made sure there was at least if not all, some privacy left, some matters that only me and my husband would discuss behind closed doors. While doing research for this paper, I sadly have to confess that women living in Asian or Middle eastern countries do suffer more, which didnt come to me as a surprise because Ive lived in Pakistan and have seen it all, but my question and concer n was who will ever put a stop to all this nonsense?. Sadly, women is a victim in these countries but women are also who are perpetuating these hatred and violence in the household. A woman can take many forms, she can be a daughter, a mother in law, a sister in law, a wife, an aunt etc. most importantly she is the one who raises a child to be the kind of person she wants to see him as; unfortunately in countries like Pakistan and India, it is the woman (mother in law) who forces their child to be stern and harsh to their wives, I think its because of the fact that they cant stand the undivided attention of their sons or maybe they think keeping a women under control will only bring out the best for their sons. Who will ever think of these women who are ignored?

Time Management: History and Concepts

Time Management: History and Concepts WARMING UP TO THE CONCEPT OF TIME Now go on and enjoy yourself, dance to your hearts content and win the Princes heart. But remember, you have to be back before the clock strikes twelve at midnight. We all are familiar with the words of the Fairy God Mother in the evergreen fairy tale Cinderella. Its these words that probably made us aware-for the first time in our lives-of the value of time. We all sympathized with Cinderella when all her splendid gown and other finery turned to rags at the stroke of midnight. Our first acquaintance with the villainous Time! But then, is time such a villain, who should always be painted in black? We have heard the proverb that says there are no wounds that time cannot heal. Here of course we get the image of a wizened old woman who comes hobbling up to us with a pitcher full of balm and gentle fingers that soothe away all our pains and sorrows. But thats enough! This project was not made to sing the praises of time. There is no need of the romance of Cinderella or the soothing finger of an old lady when we are talking about time. And do you know why? Its because we do not have the time for it. We are going to try and understand time in its many faces. No, I was not referring to the faces of watches or clocks. I was referring to the many meanings that time has. Oh yes it does! You thought that time meant the same to everyone. Well think again; or maybe you could try to explain the logic behind the following cases. Picture a farmer who plants a sapling of a tree that would probably take ten to twelve years to reach the stage when it would start to bear fruit, by then the farmer would in likelihood be under the soil himself. Picture a jailbird in bird counting on the bars of his cell waiting for the seconds, minutes, and hours, days, weeks, months and years to go by before he can be free again. Now picture a young couple madly in love with each other cherishing the few minutes they get to spend with each other every day, cursing time because it flies so fast when they are together and never the other way round. So what does time mean to you? When was the last time that you realized the value of time? The answer is probably the last time you watched one of those Bollywood thrillers in which the hero is driving a car in which a time-bomb has been planted and the hero is unaware of this. But we being the getting-to-see-it-all audience watch with bated breath as the tiny needle of the timer ticks towards the point at which the explosion is sure to occur. But just before that, the hero hits the brakes screeches to a halt to avoid hitting that old lady crossing the road. And when he jumps out to help her cross the road the needle reaches the point and the bomb is exploded. And our hero is safe. Its funny how the hero always escapes without a scratch in these movies. But I expect thats why they call them heroes. Now we are really transgressing arent we? So back to our subject that is Time Management. Do you know what is interesting about the concept of Time? It is absolutely uncontrollable. Personally I believe that there is something very humbling about this concept. Just imagine a man with all his power is just like a helpless babe before time. There it is Time stands tall and strong before man and man remains vulnerable and weak before it. Man, the big strong man who tamed rivers and seas, who reached out to the skies and beyond, who harnessed wind and water and dug up the bowels of the earth is but a worm before Time. The best he can do to win the battle against time is die is hair and use some anti-wrinkle cream on his face. In fact, the closest that man has got towards conquering time is those many history books that have been penned; they are of course chronicles of events that happened long ago and that is certainly not much to boast about. And so now we come to our subject that is time management because after all the illustrations given above, I hope that I have made one point clear, that is that Time cannot be controlled, it can only be managed. And that is what we are going to do. We are going to learn the art of time management. I dont want you to have an air of helplessness. You might begin to feel that if the battle cannot be won, then what is point in putting up a struggle? Ah, but there you are missing out on a very important point. In all the illustrations that I used above, I was referring to man in general and not to one particular Tom, Dick or Harry. So you can see that this aspect of time is applicable to every human being and there is no running away from it. Every person has only twenty four hours in a day and no force on earth can alter that. So in order to get the cutting edge what you have to do is to be able to manage your time in the most effective way possible. And that is what Time management is all about. Its about managing your time effectively and if I may I would like to add the word efficiently too. Now, when we talk about our resources, everyone knows that we are referring to the resources like fossil fuels, forests, mineral wealth, and water bodies and so on. But surprisingly time is never included in this list. When we talk about non-renewable resources, fossil fuels like coal, petroleum and natural gas top the list. But what about time? A point that most people tend to forget is that time is the most valuable resource that we have, and time once lost, is lost forever. We can think about alternate sources of energy for fossil fuels like electricity, fuel cells, solar energy and the research goes on. But is there any alternative for time that is lost. Again I stress on the point that time once lost, is lost forever. And hence we have the proverb, time and tide waits for no man. HISTORY OF TIME MANAGEMENT The idea of time management has been in existence for more than 100 years. Unfortunately, the term time management creates a false impression of what a person is able to do. Time can neither be managed, nor controlled. We can only manage ourselves and our use of time. History of time management dates back to the 6th century AD with the St. Benedictine Monks who emphasized and encouraged scheduled activities at all times. The concept of time efficiency was introduced by Scottish Economist Adam Smith who developed an assembly line system for factory workers. Benjamin Franklin is considered by many to be the father of modern time management. He mostly emphasized on the effective use of time. Franklin carried around a little black book wherever he went, and within it, he wrote about his thirteen virtues. Each night he would reflect upon the days activities to judge whether he had lived up to these core values. These values were as follows: Temperance Silence Order Resolution Frugality Industry Sincerity Justice Moderation Cleanliness Tranquility Chastity Humility UNDERSTANDING TIME MANAGEMENT We all have time to either spend or waste and it is our decision what to do with it. But once passed, it is gone forever. Bruce Lee (Zen in the Martial Arts by Joe Hyams) Every individual on earth has the same amount of time 60 seconds in a minute; 60 minutes in an hour; 1,440 minutes in a day; and 525,600 minutes in a year. While a vast majority of people confesses faltering to come to grips with it, extremely few can claim to have made the most of it. How is it that they have got it all done? Its because they have managed a way to figure out how to manage their time effectively. Time Management is more than just managing time. It is about controlling the use of the most valuable and undervalued resource. It is managing oneself in relation to time. It is setting priorities and taking charge of the situation and time utilization. It means changing those habits or activities that cause waste of time. It is being willing to adopt habits and methods to make maximum use of time. With good time management skills one is in control of ones time, stress and energy levels. One can maintain balance between ones work and personal life. One finds enough flexibility to respond to surprises or new opportunities. It is not how much time one has, but rather the way one uses it. The bottom line is how well one manages time. Internationally known authority on time management Dr. Alec Mackenzie in his book The Time Trap argues that the very idea of time management is a misnomer because one really cannot manage time in the way other resources can be managed: financial capital, physical capital, human capital, information and time. While each of the first four can be augmented, reduced, transferred or otherwise controlled, Time cannot be manipulated. Dr. Mackenzie contends that when it comes to time, one can only manage oneself in relation to it. One cannot control time as one can control other resources one can only control how one uses it. In the world in which we live, time cannot be replaced or re-created. It is therefore not for us to choose whether we spend or save time but to choose only how we spend it. MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT TIME There are several misconceptions which we all have about time. They affect everyone including those persons who may be considered quite successful and effective. Here are some of the misconceptions identified by Dr. Mackenzie:  · Time management is simple all it requires is common sense. While it is true that the concept is simple, the self-discipline required to practice effective time management is not easy.  · Work is best performed under pressure. Psychological studies show this to be no more than an excuse for procrastination. One does not work well under pressure only does the best one can under the circumstances. Pressure and challenge must not be confused. Laras performance when the West Indies Team is in trouble has more to do with application and determination rather than pressure.  · I use a diary, a to-do list and have a secretary to keep me organized. One has to keep oneself organized no one can do it for others. The trouble with the disorganized person is that he hardly has time to listen to his secretary or look at his diary.  · I do not have the time. The effective worker or manager often gets more work done in the earlier hours of the morning than most laggards get done in the whole day. He then no longer has to work against tight deadlines and under stress which contributes to heart problems and not unusually the ultimate reduction of time on this earth.  · Time management might be good for some kinds of work but my job is creative. Time management is not about routine: it is about self-discipline. Lack of discipline prevents one from being great instead of simply good. Time management takes away the fun and freedom of spontaneity. Is working under stress, forgetting appointments, making constant excuses and apologies to be fun? Would it not be much more fun if by better organization one had one or two more hours every day to spend with the family, to play games, read a good book, plan for tomorrow and the day and week after or just relax? WHY IS TIME MANAGEMENT SO IMPORTANT? Time management is a common problem faced by most of us. Oftentimes, when you are swarmed with multiple tasks at once, it becomes extremely difficult to identify which ones you must complete first. Too often, people eat up what is supposed to be their free time to be able to accomplish all pending tasks in time. It takes a considerate amount of skill in order to manage your time properly. If you are one of these people, you are usually able to control your time efficiently that you can even finish tasks ahead of time. Lets try to analyze the importance of Time Management in different fields. Time Management in School/College: Due to more freedom merited to college students, it can become quite challenging for new (freshman) students to cope with time management. The liberty to choose your own schedule readily creates a false notion that they can do whatever they want. On the other hand, it reflects ones priorities and how you are able to properly appropriate them into your schedule. With lack of proper time management, a student will have trouble coping up with deadlines set by professors. Most students would tend to slack off during vacant hours that they end up accomplishing nothing. If a student has prepared his or her own list of work for the day, he or she will be able to properly allocate the time spent for extracurricular activities and assignments. Time Management at Work: When it comes to your job, proper usage of your time is more particular. This is because you are paid for the hours of service you render to the firm. Hence, companies will try to ensure that each hour you spend at the office is utilized effectively for work. Despite of this, employees still seek out ways to have a break. If time is not properly managed, employees could easily eat up more time for their breaks than what is actually spent on actual work. Hence, the company ends up requiring the employee to do overtime work just to finish a project. If the overtime rendered is reflected on your paycheck, then good for you. But if not, then you reap the unpleasant effects of poor time management. SYMPTOMS OF POOR TIME MANAGEMENT Poor time management shows up by way of one or a combination of typical perceptible symptoms. Managers would do well to look for and reflect on whether they are subject to any of those symptoms with a view to take necessary corrective actions. The following are some of the indicators of poor time management: Constant rushing (e.g. between meetings or tasks) Frequent delays (e.g. in attending meetings, meeting deadlines) Low productivity, energy and motivation (e.g. I cant seem to get worked up about anything) Frustration (e.g. Oh, things just dont move ahead) Impatience (e.g. where the hell is that information Ive asked him for?) Chronic vacillation between alternatives (e.g. whichever option I choose it is going to put me at a big disadvantage. I dont know which way to jump) Difficulty setting and achieving goals (e.g. Im not sure what is expected of me) WHERE DOES ALL THE TIME GO? It is quite surprising when you sit and think about where all the time in one day goes. Twenty four hours is really a lot of time. But on most days it scarcely seems enough. But this is because of certain misconceptions about time. Let us proceed to carefully examine where all that time goes and find out if twenty four hours really is. For that I have listed out certain points which will help you to get a realistic view about how much time you really have in a day. Point 1 We do not really get twenty four hours in a day. Maybe its because we always talk about the twenty four hours in a day, we get the feeling that we really do have twenty four hours to finish our daily business and the fact is that we do not. Assuming that you hit the sack at least by twelve in the night and taking for granted the fact that you need at least seven hours of sleep; let me fix your waking time at seven in the morning. That means that you have already lost seven hours, which we can deduct from twenty four, giving us only seventeen waking hours. Waking hours does not mean the hours you take to wakeup but the hours that you are awake. So let us get that straight, we have only 17 hours in a day. Now if you think that all those seventeen hours can be used for productive work, you are wrong again. For this come to the next point. Point 2 The seventeen waking hours cannot be used completely for productive work. There are many things that a human being should do in order to continue to live like a human being and some of these things do take up a lot of time. Now the following list that I have drawn up is sure to vary from person to person. But I have taken the times for each action on what I felt to e reasonable times as far as any normal human being is concerned. Taking a shower. Most of us take a shower at least once in a day and the time I think we can put down for that is ten minutes. For those of you cleaner ones who shower twice a day put that as twenty minutes. Answering the call of nature Oh yes, we are all very cultured people who have the best of manners and upbringing. We dress ourselves properly and conduct ourselves with the utmost poise. But there are several times in a day when we have to go back to nature and summing up all those things we do in the bath room I think a good half hour should be enough. Getting ready and tidying ourselves When we move about in society definitely we have to look our best and adding up all the minutes that we spend in front of that mirror, we get another ten minutes. For some people of course, this figure comes up to half an hour. But I think ten minutes is good enough. Eating We need to eat to live and though I accept the fact that people have different eating habits and times, I think that and Im sure doctors will agree with me that a person needs three meals a day and should take at least ten minutes to ingest a meal and not just gobble it down. So that makes it 30 minutes for food. Time to relax Please do not raise an argument now. I promise to deal with this bit later on. But right now I would like to put down one hour as the time to relax, and this includes the time that you get to yourself for prayer or meditation or just to stare out of your window or perhaps the few extra minutes that you spend in your bed after waking up, waiting for the last traces of sleep to go away. Time with family and friends Please we are human beings, arent we? And we certainly cannot get along with our business of life without chatting a few minutes every now and then with our friends and the family too. So with your permission, I would like to deduct another hour from your waking time. So now what do we have left? We started off with 17 hours of waking time. And we proceed to add up all the time that we accounted for in the above mentioned points; let us see how much time we have left for productive work provided we still want to exist as human beings. The activities mentioned above would take when put together a good three hours and twenty minutes. That is 3 hours and 20 minutes. I put it down in both numerals and words so that you can get a real taste of the figure. Now if we proceed to subtract this figure from our 17 hours of waking time, what do we get? We are left with just thirteen hours forty minutes. In figures that is 13 hours 40 minutes. And that is a fact. That is all that we get. So from now on dont you think that it would be more realistic to say that we have just thirteen hours and forty minutes to accomplish a days work and not twenty-four hours. For if we continue to believe that we have twenty four hours, and then we are in effect deceiving ourselves. But wait there is more to this story than meets the eye. These crucial hours that we have painstakingly added up are not really put to constructive use. There are certain things called time waster which you have to look out for and that is what we are going to deal w ithin our next chapter. Time Killers Till now, we have been harping about how valuable time is and how time lost is time lost forever and so on. But now we come to a strange concept and that is Time Killers. The very word sound like sacrilege doesnt it? How can one talk about killing such a valuable resource. But thats the way the story goes. Thee are a lot of time killers in this world and what you have to do is that you have to identify these time killers, look out for them and stay wary of tem. Only then can you put your available time to the maximum possible use. The time killers that I have listed below are more or less general. They are things that most of us encounter. But apart from these, each one of us may have unique time killers that are particular to our style of living and way of work. Be smart and identify these killers. When I talk about killers, do not get the impression of masked men lurking in shadows brandishing guns and knives. The killers that I am referring to are quite ordinary every day things that we see and use in our lives but often do not realize how much of our time they take away. Seven terrible Time Killers Telephone calls Chatter boxes Traffic jams Finding parking spaces Meetings Bad machinery Long queues The list could of course go on. But before we keep adding to the list, I would like to elaborate on certain of the items listed above. How to handle Time Killers †¢ The funny thing about telephone calls is that these instruments are indeed great time savers. In fact the amount of time that people get to save thanks to telephones is stupendous. The problem arises when telephones are not used properly. Most people do not understand and even if they do they forget that telephones are not to be used for lengthy conversations. For one thing, another person may be trying to reach you and there is nothing as exasperating as trying to reach a person over the telephone and being confronted with a busy tone. So the first thing about a telephone conversation is that it should be brief. Another thing about telephones is that most people do not know how to use a telephone properly. In stead of immediately identifying themselves and asking directly for the person they want, some people go on playing a lot of who is speaking games once they make a call or answer the telephone. Now coming to mobile phones there is a lot to be said and done. What should be done is turn off your cell phone when you are having a conversation or a discussion with more than one person. As soon as you get a call, you may ask the people you were talking to excuse yourself but you leave them waiting while you chuckle and giggle over your phone. Often we tend to give ore importance to the caller than to the person we were having the discussion with. Again the same rule applies here. Be brief. A mobile phone is to be used to get an important message across to a person who you were not able to reach on the land line. * The next point is about those chatter boxes. Havent we all met them? They simply love the sound of their own voices and once they open their mouths, there is no stopping them. They waste not only your time but their time as well. Steer clear of such people. Believe me, it is much easier to avoid such people than to tell them to shut up and if you get a telephone call from such a person, use a caller ID facility or ask your secretary to divert the call.  · Traffic jams and finding parking spaces. Any one who has lived in the city for at least a day will know what I am talking about. There is no getting past a traffic jam at the rush hour. And will someone tell me whit is called the rush hour when that is the time when the traffic is the slowest. The only thing you can do is anticipate the traffic jam and leave your home a half hour or one hour early. But that does not really keep the time killer at bay. It just helps you to avoid being late. In this respect you have two options. Either you could find something constructive to do while you wait for the traffic to move along or the traffic light to change or a better option would be to take subway and walk the rest of the way. You can get a long a lot faster on your feet and it is a lot better for your health as well. By doing so, you can also get rid of the headache of finding a parking space.  · Not surprisingly lengthy meetings and discussions can prove to be awful time killers particularly if the meeting does not have a clear agenda and if there are people who love top talk among the group. It has been found that most middle and senior level mangers spend nearly 70% of their work time talking. And in most organizations, parleying has been made into a fine art. * Bad machinery is a time waster. How many of us have wanted to sit and scream and bang the daylights out of a pc that does not give us the required data or information. A computer that takes a long time to start up, a photocopier that gives shamefully faint photocopies, even a leaky faucet or a stubborn drawer or door knob can waste a lot of time and send us up the wall. If you have such equipment or machinery, get it changed at the earliest possible date. It is worth the amount of time and energy that you waste on it every day. * Long queues certainly waste a lot of time. That does not mean that you have to jump the queue. If you can get the job done over the telephone or can reserve your ticket in advance, do it, even if it means a few extra dollars, it is worth the time you may have to spend waiting. Apart from these each person may have particular time wasters, like for instance, a car that refuses to start in the morning, difficult hair that insists on looking like Medusas head on a bad snake day, an elevator that takes forever to reach your floor. Use your common sense and try to find alternate methods or even better, if you cannot find an alternate method, you could put the time to some use like read your morning paper in the elevator. You will get a better idea of how to get over time killers once we handle the section called the time savers. Lining Up Your Ducks: Prioritize! Lining up your ducks is a familiar and charming phrase. It derives from the tendency of baby ducklings to swim in a perfectly straight line behind their mother. If the ducklings begin to stray too far, the mother duck will invariably shepherd them back into line—thus, getting her ducks in a row. The application of this phrase to time management is clear. If you deal with things in a logical, orderly sequence, youre sure to bring efficiency and results to your efforts. When your ducks begin to stray too far afield, danger is lurking—for them and for you. Lets face it. 24 hours in a day is not enough time for many people to do everything in their schedule. It is therefore imperative that people perform their activities in the order of priority. Time management experts like Stephen Covey S R (The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People; Simon Schuster) have developed a model called a time management matrix. This model enables managers to prioritize their activities and use their time more effectively. With the help of the model, they can evaluate their activities in terms of importance and urgency. The art of prioritizing covers 4 major task groups: Important and Urgent Not Important but Urgent Not Urgent but Important Not Important and Not Urgent TIME MANAGEMENT MATRIX Important and Urgent Quadrant 1 represents things which are both urgent and important labeled firefighting. The activities need to be dealt with immediately, and they are important. These tasks are the ones that must be done right away, or consequences may result. An example would be bills that are due today. If you dont pay your bills on time, you would incur additional charges or they might cut off their services to you. Activities belonging to this category need to be acted upon without delay. You should give them the highest priority. Important but Not Urgent Quadrant 2 represents things which are important, but not urgent labelled Quality Time. Although the activities here are important, and contribute to achieving the goals and priorities they do not have to be done right now. As a result, they can be scheduled when they can be given quality thought to them. A good example would be the preparation of an important talk, or mentoring a key individual. Prayer time, family time and personal relaxation/recreation are also part of Quadrant 2. Urgent but Not Important Quadrant 3 represents distractions. They must be dealt with right now, but frankly, are not important. For example, when a person answers an unwanted phone call, he/she has had to interrupt whatever he/she is doing to answer it. Not Important and Not Urgent Quadrant 4 represents Time Wasting. You might think activities in this section are not worth peoples time, so they wont engage in these activities much. You would be surprised to know that people spend most of their time doing things that are both unimportant and non-urgent, such as watching TV and movies, playing video games, senseless chatting for hours on the phone, shopping for new clothes, etc. Of course, it is essential for people to relax and unwind once in a while. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, as they say. But you should be strict in limiting your time for these activities; that is, if you really want to accomplish a lot in your life. Treat activities belonging to this section with the lowest priority. If you really want to succeed, strictly limit your time in doing these activities or dont do them at all. Focus on those that will bring you fruitful results. Numbered Priority Tactic Heres one of the most powerful techniques that you can use to manage your time efficiently the Numbered Priority Tactic. Buy a very small notebook that you can put in your pocket. You should be able to bring it anywhere you go. At the front page of the notebook, put the title: Important and Urgent. At the back page, put the title: Important but Not Urgent. If an idea or event you encounter is Urgent but Not Important, then forget it. You want to utilize your time well, wont you? If you think its significant in some way, then you may put it under Important and Urgent. Ignore Not Important and Not Urgent tasks. Every time something comes up during your daily work or on your mind, put it in the appropriate page of your little notebook. So lets say your boss told you to submit a report due tomorrow. Write it down on your notebook under Important and Urgent. Then your friend told you that theres a big 2-day sale at the downtown furniture store. You may put it under Important and Urgent if you simply must have that furniture youre drooling for months. But if you think your house would do fine without it, then dont write it anymore. As youre walking down the street you suddenly thought of a great new idea for your part-time business. You may put it under Important but Not Urgent. As the day goes on, write down each and every idea, thought, or event that comes to your mind. As the list increases in each category, examine each of them carefully and start numbering each item in the order of priority with 1 being the highest priority. Start working on Number 1, and never go to Number 2 until youre done with Number 1 for each category. If distractions come about, you may take care of them first but always come back to your numbered list when youre done. Because priorities may change, you may switch or change the numbers of the items in the list. You may also transfer one item from Important and Urgent to Important but Not Urgent, and vice-versa. When you do any changes, make sure your notebook stays clean. Transfer your writings to a new page when you see that its getting untidy. Start off with a new page every day. This method can enable you to achieve more in one week than what most people can accomplish in a month. The important thing you must do is to buy that little notebook and to start doing this super tactic right now! Time is running fast. <