Jim Rohn, one of the pioneers of personal development once said: “Time is our most valuable asset, yet we tend to waste it, kill it and spend it rather than invest it.” and this is one of the profound truths. Time is an intangible asset.

Time is important and most powerful force in life because it constantly moves ahead. Time cannot be paused and reversed. Time shapes our life and experiences, influencing everything from the moment we are born till the last breath of life. Throughout our life we get shaped by our experiences, sequences to the events and milestone moments that forms our memories some good, some bad and some ugly.  

People are a varying resource who help businesses grow, and contracted as needed, which means sometimes are responsible for loss of organizations, hence, people cannot be the most valuable resource. The only remaining resource that is fixed is time. If time is running out, organizations cannot add on more days, hours, minutes, or even seconds between now and the due date. Each job needs to be finished in timeline. Organizations that respect time, grow bigger. 

Richard Branson the billionaire entrepreneur of Virgin Airlines wakes up at 5.00 am to work out which he claims boosts his productivity significantly and he keeps the list ready of work to be done throughout the day; Branson does not compromise with his time schedule; he finishes his work as per scheduled time. Branson has grown as a renowned entrepreneur because he values his and other’s time.

Time is most precious resource in our lives as we can never get back once it’s gone. Therefore, it is important for us to use our time wisely and make the most of every moment. Most people say, “I’m busy,” all the time. They are busy because they are not good at managing their time, they finish work late, because of which they become tired. Time management is most useful skill. Time management skills include the ability to set goals, focus, organize, prioritize, communicate, and delegate. Time management skills in every event every day is particularly important. For students, time management is crucial for success in achieving their goals. It allows them to prioritize their tasks, stay organized, and meet deadlines.

Sachin Tendulakar – the Master Blaster and Icon of Indian Cricket, always respected time in his life. His success in cricket is a result of his hard work, dedication, and discipline. He would practice for hours, work on his weaknesses, and strive for perfection. Young Sachin used to be at Shivaji Park cricket ground early in the morning at 5.30 am each day.  He was coached under the guidance of Ramakant Achrekar at Shivaji Park in the mornings and evenings. Tendulkar would practice for hours; if he became exhausted, Achrekar would put a one-rupee coin on the top of the stumps, and the bowler who would get out Tendulkar would get the coin.

I value my time. It is something that I can’t get back. I organize my tasks and responsibilities. I consciously make efforts to use time effectively. Time is precious in our life because it is limited. We must realise that we have a limited amount of time to accomplish our goals and our purpose in this lifetime. We also must try to live our life to the fullest. Some people may value the time they spend with loved ones, while others may value the time, they use to pursue their passions and goals.  I try achieving my bucket list and that gives me immense happiness.

Timeline is important in history as it allows us to understand the progression of events and how they have shaped the world today. Historical timelines are very broad and very specific and can cover a range of topics. A historical era is a particular period classified as a whole because of commonalities.  A timeline is a representation of a sequence of events in chronological order. Chronology is the science of determining the correct order of events as

The famous Indian star Amitabh Bachchan says, “People always want to be successful, but they do not want to get out of their comfort zone”. Getting out of the comfort zone is the first step to achieve success and that is Goal Setting. People hesitate to set goals because in their mind they are not ready to get out of comfort and run for success and happiness. The 81 years old star works today also 12-14 hours a day. He is strict in his time regime, he reaches the ‘Kaun Banega karodpati’ set which he hosts for past twenty years 3 hours in advance.  Kudos!

People who respect their own time, value other’s time. Narayana Murthy founder of Infosys defends 70-hour work week, here’s what he said. N R Narayana Murthy defended his advice of working 70 hours a week to boost India’s economy, stating he had not received negative feedback and that his advice had been well-received by his Western friends, NRIs, and many individuals in India. He is very strict about having meetings in the scheduled time and he is a staunch practitioner of time management.  

Conclusion

The average human lifetime is usually between 60 and 85 years. Specifically, the median being 72.5 years. We may think that it is a long time, or very little, depending on our outlook. If we try and make our life successful and full of happiness, we will realise that we need to use our time wisely. Truly, there is never enough time. We all live in the moment, trying to give our best. The fact is life itself is cumulation of moments. At the last moments of our life, many people think that they never had enough time. So, friends, let’s make best use of our present.

Time presents itself to us in many different ways – we label it as good, fair, bad, ugly etc. We measure time, keep time, meet and greet in time because our daily lives are completely wrapped around time. When things slow down, we say time is just not passing, and when we need to achieve too many things we crib that we don’t find sufficient time. We are always on an onward journey in life because time does not wait for anybody and anything. We perceive time as past present and future. And, we store mental picture of time with images and events. Of course, we also cherish photographs of our life. Time is so important in our lives. The greatest discovery in understanding of time occurred about a hundred years ago with Einstein’s theories of Special and General relativity in which he introduced the concept of slowing of time with motion and with gravity.

Time is simply a manmade invention to count the period of events. It does not exist in nature. Since beginnings man has associated events of his life with time, this defines the past, present and future. Time is evolved from sun to indicate parts of a day, to the moon, to indicate part of night. Winter, spring, summer, rainy seasons tell us when to sow seeds and when to harvest. Researchers have inferred that people counted days in relation to the Moon’s phases as early as the Paleolithic age. The concept of month was first used in a modern manner by the Mesopotamian civilization based on the motion of the moon. We human associate with time, whereas it does not exist in the universe.

Hinduism recognizes four great ages: Satya Yuga, Treta Yuga, Dwapar Yuga and Kali Yuga. Satya Yug is recognized as the Age of Truth which is believed to last for four thousand divine years, Treta Yuga for three thousand, Dwapara Yug for two thousand and it is believed that Kali Yuga will last for one thousand divine Years that equals to 432,000 earthly years. It is also believed that three of these great ages have already passed away, and we are now living in the fourth one. What these ages exactly mean, and why this division, it’s hard to explain, because they appear too unrealistic to be true for the rational mind.

We believe in four stages of lifecycle: infancy, growth, maturity and decline. We continuously progress in life, as we progress from one stage to another. Some people find themselves stuck in certain stages for years. While some even skip entire stages completely, without learning the important lessons. Hinduism links the four stages of life to four Ashramas. Each human should ideally go through each of these stages: the first Ashrama – “Brahmacharya” is about the Student Stage. This period is about formal education. It lasts until the age of 25, during which, the youngsters attain both spiritual and practical knowledge of life. This stage comprises of infancy and growth in life cycle.

The second Ashrama is called “Grihastha” This period begins when a human gets married, and undertakes the responsibility for earning a living and supporting family. This ashrama lasts until around the age of 50. This stage can be connected to maturity stage of life cycle, because the person produces kids, earns a living. Human in this stage are forced to think of others. He/she understands that taking decisions is important and taking responsibility for the outcome of decision. When something goes wrong, the human can’t blame others.

The third Ashrama is called “Vanaprasthashrama.”  This stage of a man begins when his duty as a householder comes to an end: the children are grown up, and have established lives of their own, and there are grandchildren around. According to the Laws of Manu, when a person’s skin wrinkles and his hair grays, he should go out into the forest.

The fourth Ashrama is called “Sanyasa.” At this stage, a human is supposed to be totally devoted to God. He is a sannyasi, he has no home, no other attachment; he has renounced all desires, fears, hopes, duties and responsibilities. He is virtually merged with God, all his worldly ties are broken, and his sole concern becomes attaining moksha or release from the circle of birth and death. The third and fourth Asramas are connected with decline stage of life. The reality of the four Ashramas is that people tend to prolong the Grihastashrama, they get so attached to this face of life.

Although these Ashramas were predominantly designed for the male, females had a vital role to play in each one of them. So women are not actually excluded because without them, men would not have had families. Today, women are leading more purposeful and active life.

Everything in the universe is moving; once moved ahead, it can’t go back. The universe is changing every second to something different than it was before, it can’t change back. We cannot change our past, but yes, we can change our present and our future. Time is continual movement. To realize the value of one year, look at a student who failed a grade.

To realize the value of one month, look at a mother who has given birth to a premature baby.
To realize the value of an hour, look at the student who is writing an exam and the question paper is long. To realize the value of a minute, ask a person who just missed a train or a flight. Congratulate someone who escaped an accident by split of seconds, that person must have realized value of a second. And, look at the face of a sportsman who won a Gold medal in Olympics, for realizing value of one Millisecond!!

According to a research conducted at the University Of Berkeley, California, people who feel generally more powerful feel they have more time, power makes people have a broader time perspective. Mentally strong people are less stressed, and hence feel they have more time. The flip-side of the experiment is that those who feel powerless, sense the need to struggle with the feeling of not having enough time available to them. Your mental make-up matters a lot.

We mistaken people around us so often by taking them for granted. We jump to conclusions, misunderstand somebody’s intension, insult them, hurt them and relationship reaches its sour conclusion. I always feel that discovering the advantages of association and affiliation is not difficult. All it takes is the enthusiasm to look at our relationships with others from a different perspective than we are used to. When we become complacent with our colleagues, friends, partner, children, teachers, bosses, parents, siblings and neighbors we fall into a trap. Our day after day interactions with them compel us to fit them into our ideas. If we pay close attention, and respect people for who they are and not who we want them to be, each relationship will turn out to be enriching.  In fact, we don’t know most people half as well as we believe we do.  And truly knowing someone is a big deal and takes a lifetime to know how wonderful he or she is.  Every human being is amazing and beautiful in his own unique way. It just takes a patience and candid set of eyes to see it.  The more you get to know someone, the more you will be able to look beyond their exterior and see the beauty of who they truly are.

After brief experience with others around us, the biggest mistake we all commit is searching what they don’t have rather than what they posses. A familiar routine tends to make us bored easily.

Normally, we try to estimate the value of our lives by looking at the upper class of society. We compare what they posses to the (“few”) things we have. Rather than this approach (that is leading nowhere), I recommend making oneself aware of people that have less and their unique capability to make much of less.

When people break up, it’s common to regret it. People end up relationships irrationally because they think they can do better without the relationship. Sometimes it is too little too late and people learn from their unfortunate decision. What screws a person up is trying to live up to image they create in their minds. There is no such thing as perfect, only perfect for you.

What you have now was once everything you strove to attain. Just because something becomes repetitive does not mean it needs to be replaced. Think of how lucky you are to have someone you can be completely comfortable around, that is a true gift and one that should be cherished at all times.

Appreciate all the things you have in life because you never know when that time will end. Clear the clutter inside your mind and realize what you have right now. Don’t wait until you’ve lost it to finally see how much you took it for granted. Don’t wait until you realize that without it, your foundation to make it through each day begins to crumble.

Too many times people don’t realize what they have because they are out there looking for something better. The problem is that when they do realize it, they will come crawling back. Everyone falls into the trap that the grass is always greener on the other side. People make mistakes, its part of human nature. If you really love this person it may be in both people’s best interest to give him or her chance. Sometimes space makes people appreciate things they once had. You need to make it clear that you forgive one time, and one time only, and if this is what you truly want.

However on the flip side, you can only want something when you haven’t got it. If you had it back, you would only get fed up with all the bad bits again and start wondering why you wanted it back in the first place. When you lose someone, you tend to remember the good parts, when you are with them, you tend to notice the bad parts; this is of course until you find the one you were truly meant to be with, and then the bad bits just seem endearing.

The thing is, very few people can see the impact of what they do now and how it relates to their futures. Which would you rather regret: the present, where you have no idea what is happening as it’s in real time and you haven’t the slightest idea of long-term consequences; or the past where you can take your time to see things as they were? People make mistakes and leave the things they love most. They fail to appreciate the good thing they once had and as a result will continuously regret their decision.

People constantly want something more, something new, glamour, challenging and novel but sometimes the most valuable things are what have been with us at all times. Just because something isn’t happening for you right now does not mean that it never will. Happiness will never come to those who fail to appreciate what they already have. Just like you don’t know what you have until it’s gone, you don’t know what you’ve been missing until it arrives.

It is extremely important to invest your time, efforts, money, and energies in the specialization of your choice. Many of us are good at many subjects. And, many of us try to get adjusted in an area of specialization and try to ‘fit’ into it all through our professional lives. Specialization is a specific area in which you can make a career. When you chose a profession which gratifies your passion, you are the most fortunate person on earth. And, therefore, it is a wise decision to invest in a career of choice.  When we get career in which we find our passion our existence becomes very fascinating.

As Confucius said, “choose a job you love and you will never have to work a day in your life.” It’s great advice, but it’s not always that simple. It is very difficult to figure out what we love, and how to change that liking into a career. There are many elements one needs to weigh before entering a job. A friend of mine who is very knowledgeable in the area of finance; he has loads of information in the stock market, banking, FDI, accounting, behavioral finance so on and forth. But he does not like to talk and does not like elucidation of concepts. Now this gentleman is a lecturer in a college. Because he does not like talking too much and explaining things in details, he obviously does not make a good teacher. Very few students attend his lectures.

A famous physician practices in heart of the city. He is famous for his diagnosis and prognosis. The problem with this physician is – he gets hyper when his patients ask him more than two questions. He feels his patients should listen to him and obey his instructions. He does not listen much to what patients speak; each patient has some or the other question regarding diet, after effects of medicines, life style, sleep etc. He does not like to listen. He breezes into the exam room with his own agenda and hardly has the time to find out what the patient expects. This common complaint his patients have. Therefore, he is considered as a conceited man.

Matching up our personality with a suitable role is extremely vital to our career. In fact it can become a career challenge. Our personality has so many facets; most of the times we fail to break it down into separate traits. And, even if we are aware of our characteristics, it’s important to know which jobs they’re suited for. I mean, how many people know which career is appropriate for which personality type. Often we have knowledge of one or two careers.

The present trend of education in universities is that students study degrees that sound highly, and at times narrowly vocational. Nevertheless, the trend of students opting for traditional subjects, such as History, English Literature and the Natural Sciences, Commerce is not wiped out completely. Many universities still regard themselves as seats of pure learning. I frequently think is it still sensible and desirable to study for love of a subject alone? On a second thought, a person can get trained up in a job rest of his life, whereas the time you spend in university is the only time in your life when you can study purely because you enjoy it.

Look at the recent changes in the global job market people do not shy away from changing and hopping into new jobs. The old traditional philosophy of sticking and retiring from one job is disappeared. In today’s job market very few people experience the stability of working for only one or two employers throughout their careers. In fact, most workers entering their first job today will change career paths at least seven to ten times before they reach retirement age.
With workers hopping from one job to other, more frequently very few companies can afford to invest heavily in into employee training and development. Therefore, more and more employers prefer job seekers to develop their own skills before joining a company. As a result, the demand for workers with college degrees has skyrocketed over the past few decades. I want to bring the point of loving your work, loving your career, doing what you love to do. Then job hopping is out of question.

Therefore, one needs to invest a little time and energy before taking decisions about career.

1. Make a list of your interests.
2. Make an honest list of your personal characteristics and your talents.
3. At the same time, make a list of your limitations and things which bore you to death.
4. Carry out some research about what kind of life style each of your interests might bring if it would turn to a job. Gather details in order to build up a realistic image of those professions.
5. Talk to people who have been in those professions for years. Gather the present trends in those particular professions.
6. Now take some more time and try to remember what you loved as a child. Often, our truest passions emerge in childhood. We stifle our childhood passion as we grow older by real life pressures. So think about what you loved in your childhood, what made you happy – was it mathematics, numbers, puzzle solving, reading stories, making collage, drawing, singing, scientific research, navigation, being close to nature…..what was that made you happy. Try to remember. Getting back in touch with those instincts is an important step in finding your passion.
7. Pease remove the materialistic element from your passion. Please don’t let the financial objective spoil your choice. While we all know money can’t be ignored, but don’t allow money dictate your choices. Listen to what your heart is saying.
8. Discuss about your thought process with your best friends who know you well. Sometimes you might not be able to make up our mind. You might misjudge your own decisions. Ask the people who know you personally, they might tell you when you seem the happiest and what you do most enthusiastically. Their answers might surprise you. Listen to your friends.
9. While choosing your educational programs check which subjects scare you to death, which ones do you find boring, whether you would love wasting your time studying them, Think, think and then decide on the choice.
10. Identify your professional hero. We all like one of the professions; we imagine being in it and hero-worship the topper in it. Whom would you most want to emulate? Reach out to him/her to learn more about how that person got to where he is.
11. In short, think of what you enjoy the most. Focus on things that you both enjoy and do well. It could be cooking, gardening, teaching, singing in opera, acting in drama, handicraft, painting …………… it could be from the funniest sounding thing to very serious sounding topic such as aeronautics or medicines. Don’t bother what others would think of you. Follow your heart.
12. Make a list of the top three or four profession which fascinate you; narrow the list to the top one thing. Keep it handy, review it often, and use it as your jumping-off point when you’re plotting your career move.

The movie ‘3 idiots’ gives the same message: chose a career which allows working with passion, believe in yourself, chase excellence and success will follow you automatically, and most important sometimes be idiotic it helps you to bring in the best in you.

The Parkinson’s Law is the notion that ‘work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion’. It’s an adage. And it means that people work out their tasks of personal and professional life based on time available. Whatever size is your assignment, if you are given two week for it your will complete it in two weeks and if you are given two months for it, you will take two months for the same job. Time pressure forces people to complete tasks in the given time. If there is no pressure attached to a task then it continues forever to come to an end. Therefore, the more time a person gets to complete a job, the more time he takes to complete it. And, the person gets used to mixing personal and professional work in all the time he gets.  The moment he is assigned more work he starts cribbing about the workload. A task that has to be finished within an hour isn’t perceived important, but a task that’s to be finished in 2 months will become a mental outrage.

Complexity also rises in relation to the allocated time, the more time allocated, the better the perceived quality of the task – well this is what our mind perceives. While people crib about being overburdened with workloads, some people silently complete their own as well as other’s work also. Parkinson Law describes how people keep postponing (try to procrastinate) work till last moment. If only we embrace deadlines and checks, we can do a clear-cut job. It’s always better to force ourselves to work against the clock. When we are given a task without a deadline, it’s always better to set the deadline for self and hold on to it. And, as managers we must learn to always state a deadline while delegating a task, the shorter the deadline – better the outcome.

People always work better under time pressure. They are more focused when a task needs to be completed in constrained time since we all keep procrastinating assignments till the last moment. We vacillate with the time doing some stupidest things. But, if we like a job, we try to complete it in record time.

We need to free our company of the bad effects of Parkinson’s Law. Get more production in order to pay more by reducing or eliminating loss-making and unnecessary tasks and their associated expenses. Hiring more people is seldom the solution to manage inventory, assembly, purchases, sales, accounts etc. Work expands to fill the time available for its completion. This interesting statement was made by Cyril Northcote Parkinson, the famous British historian and author, in 1955. It appeared as the opening sentence in an article for The Economist and later became the focus of one of his books, Parkinson’s Law: The Pursuit of Progress.

Parkinson made observations on bureaucracy: he said that bureaucracy swells not because workload increases, but because bureaucrats have the capacity and resources that allow for bigger workload even if the workload does not in fact increase. People without any work find ways to increase the amount of imaginary work and therefore add to the size of their administration. Bureaucracy takes a beating because the wrong person fills the wrong role, the role exists only to minimize damage control, or the role swells unnecessarily simply because it can. How true!! We see it all Government departments, post offices, railways, government run hospitals and universities.

Parkinson also observed that organizations give disproportionate credence to trivial issues. One example he quotes is of a committee whose job was to approve plans for a nuclear power plant, spent the majority of its time with futile discussions on relatively trivial and insignificant but easy-to-grasp issues, such as what materials should be used for the staff bike-shed, while neglecting the most important matter of proposed design of the nuclear power plant itself. We usually assume that those persons working on panels and committees it comprehend it. On the other hand, everyone involved get engaged in endless discussions on a trouble-free issues to show their personal contribution. No wonder, committees appointed by government waste precious time without much outcome.

Let me tell you, Parkinson’s Law does not apply to only time management but it applies to everything in our life.

Our needs keep increasing and if we don’t keep a check on them, they add on. We crave for a big house, a big car, a big bank balance, more and more belongings and so on. When we buy a bigger home, a bigger bag, a bigger cupboard, bigger storage within a short time every nook and corner gets stacked. The bigger the available space, the more junk it can hold. So when people buy bigger houses they need to fill it with most unrequited items, and most of the times people buy big houses even when they don’t need them.  The more money we earn the more money we spend. Only people who want to become rich understand that they need to save money. They break the law and resist the urge of spending unnecessarily. When we start earning more, our needs start expanding so that we spend all of the money that is available. Similarly, our appetite increases when too much food is served on the plate. We end up eating up everything that’s on the plate. Rarely do people resist overeating. The end result of the application of Parkinson’s Law is that we don’t have enough time to do everything that we need to get done; we don’t have any money left over at the end of the month; we are surrounded by clutter; and, since we are constantly overeating, we put on more and more weight which makes us unwell. By the time we realize this fact, it becomes a vicious circle of our life.

It is therefore important to break Parkinson’s Law by setting time, money, storage, and portion limits. If we do this successfully it radically improves our life. We must learn to avoid cluttering our life; we must learn to give away things including books and clothes to de-clutter our home.

Set limits: decide what tasks you need to get done, and then set a limit on the amount of time that is available to perform each task. Set a limit on the amount of money that you have available for spending. Set a limit on how much storage space you really require and have available. Set a limit on the size of your food consumption. Excessive clutter is often a cause of stress and can affect every facet of our life. Clutter can distract you, pull you down, and in general it invites chaos into your life. Break Parkinson’s Law as far as possible.

Whatever careers we are in, and at whatever position, it takes a lot of our energy, liveliness and effort and attention to get really good at our craft. The fact is we all get 24 hours of a day. In those 24 hours we try to fit in so many activities; our job, our kids, exercising, cooking, meeting up friends, guests, gardening, car repair, visiting bank so on and forth. And, it is really appreciable that some people still find some time out of their power packed day to invest in their interest/ hobbies. So what people do to fulfill their desires – they squeeze time out in the gaps of activities of their exertion to work on their craft. People steal time to fulfill their desire; I think it’s just a matter of prioritizing work. People compromise on some of their work to get that little time to accomplish their craft. In this process lot of artists get so involved – their tendency to stay at work unless allowing an outside force to act upon them creates inertia.

Creative inertia is all about staying in motion; and inertia is the contrast of creativity. No sooner the artist settles in to a comfortable time gap, inertia sets in. Some creative people experience their creative juices draining away. The hardest part to get over the inertia is getting started on a task. Once you get into a rhythm and make significant progress, the inertia vanishes. Developing a regular habit helps to get started. Once a habit is established, there is very little inertia to overcome to finish a task.

All busy and creative people should remember that there is nothing such as perfect time and if they wait for this illusionary moment it will never come. There is nothing as the ‘right way of doing things;’ the details will work themselves out as you go along. The small, big and ugly mistakes that an artist commits help him/her to learn to do the right thing. In between the time taken to complete a task, the artist might hate his work. You know many times some artists have mentioned that they start disliking their work, well, this not awful. It’s healthy, as far as the artists never give up its ok to feel that way.

Getting really good takes years; if you want to get really good as something, expect to spend a lot of time doing it. Sometimes you might love what you are doing, and sometimes the other way. You are probably better than you think. If you are not, you are ought to learn from the process and you will improve. Most people won’t even notice if you fail, and if they do they won’t care. If anyone laughs at your failure, you can ignore them, they are irrelevant creatures anyway. Don’t give up – keep pulling on! It gets easier.

We all are witnessing a more informative and reveling healthcare environment than it used to be in past. Thanks to the Internet. With a click of mouse you get loads of information more than you can chew.

The doctors are witnessing more challenges than ever before. Limited appointment time, edgy patients and their relatives, the ability of patients to do their own research, over competitive market, legal threats all of these makes doctors more cautious and alert. To add to the dilemma of both – doctor and patients is the ‘doctor shopping’ which means the practice of a patient requesting care from multiple physicians, often simultaneously, without making efforts to coordinate care or informing the physicians of the multiple caregivers. The doctor shopping can lead a patient to be misdiagnosed and mistreated as too many cooks spoil the broth.

Therefore, effective communications between patients and their physicians has become more important than ever. And, good and clear communications really boils down to two things; respect for each other and the ability to manage expectations.

Almost all Internet users spend time searching for health and medical information. According to Pew Internet which is project of Pew Research Center, a group that studies these kinds of trends, we don’t get a good response or reaction from all doctors when we try to share that information with them; we are often perturbed by the experience. Sometimes our doctors are curt or trivializing. Sometimes they even get angry. Even if they don’t say so in so many words, their body language says it all. It seems we’ve rubbed them the wrong way.

It is very important to understand few key points about the clear communication with your doctors:

Your doctor has limited time. It makes most sense for us patients to prepare ahead for the probability that the visit will be shorter than we expect.

Your doctor will be to the point in his communication. You need to be well-organized, prepare questions ahead of appointments, and sticks to the facts. With so little appointment time, you’ll want to be sure your doctor has all the important information about your problems, and has time to answer all your questions.

Ask your doctor what happens next. Before, during or after diagnosis or treatment, asking your doctor what happens next will help you understand what is going on at once, and what your outcomes might be. For example, if your doctor says he is sending you for a medical test, you might ask what he expects the results will be, or what the possible outcomes might be, and what they would mean. If he can manage your expectations, you will have more confidence about the process and its outcomes.

Be polite. If you feel your doctor is not listening and you are anxious, politely ask him/her to listen to your entire list of symptoms, or to let you ask your entire question. Sometimes a simple gesture such as gently holding up your doctor’s hand or a gentle tap on his shoulder will alert your doctor to stop and listen to you.

Good doctors understand that a sick or wounded patient is highly vulnerable. Therefore, being respectful towards the patient goes a long way toward helping the patient to understand   symptoms, preparing him/her for decision-making, and complying with instructions.

I think a good doctor has to be a fine human first; a mature and skilled doctor has the ability to share information in terms patient can understand. They make their patients and their kin comfortable. They communicate in simple terms accompanied by an explanation at the same time. However, a doctor is stressed for time, he knows that if it can’t be done right to begin with, it will need to be done over. Listening carefully and respectfully to the patient will go a long way toward better outcomes for the patient.

And, last but not the least a good doctor has the ability to effectively manage patients’ expectations.A lot of research literature on doctor-patient trust suggests that a patient’s health or recovery depends to a great extent on the doctor-patient relationship. Once the patient and physician are introduced to each other, they enter into a relationship which can go a long way. Both must respect one another. The relationship thus formed has substantial implications for how the curing and caring process will be accomplished and the extent to which needs and expectations will be met. And, a satisfied and healed patient acts as a brand ambassador for a doctor!!