---
title: "Foundations of Time Management"
artifact: "summary"
resource_person: "Prof. Rupashree Baral"
resource_person_role: "Professor of Human Resource Management and Organisational Behaviour, Department of Management Studies, IIT Madras."
vertical: "careers"
module: "Time and Resource Management"
lesson: "Foundations of Time Management"
lesson_key: "foundations-of-time-management"
source: "GuruSetu original"
source_channel: "GuruSetu"
---
# Foundations of Time Management

**Resource person:** Prof. Rupashree Baral - Professor of Human Resource Management and Organisational Behaviour, Department of Management Studies, IIT Madras.

## Summary

## Manage your choices within the day

Prof. Rupashree Baral begins with Dr. Indu Iyer, a faculty member moving through family care, teaching, student supervision, accreditation, research deadlines, evening caregiving and late-night catch-up. Indu ends the day exhausted and already worried about the next one. The case asks practical questions: what is the real problem, what could be delegated, what might the institution change, and which boundaries would protect wellbeing while meeting professional responsibilities?

Next, list three current priorities at work and three in family life. Check how they connect to organisational goals, career development and what matters personally. Prioritising becomes difficult when demands compete or arrive unexpectedly, goals and measures are poorly defined, fear of missing out takes over, firefighting becomes normal, or time is simply tight. A one-minute eyes-closed exercise shows that the same duration can feel very different under different pressures.

The central exercise offers **₹86,400 for one day**, with the balance expiring at day’s end. How people spend it reveals what they value. The number then becomes the 86,400 seconds in a day. The exercise asks learners to decide how to allocate that fixed daily allowance.

Baral locates time management in our own choices and behaviour within a fixed day. Deliberate choices can create room for what we want to do as well as what we must do. Time management is a habit, and so is last-minute working when it repeatedly appears to succeed. Start by recognising the need for change, believing change is possible, choosing one small plan and reinforcing progress.