I need more time! Or do I?

The past week has been especially grueling. Deadlines for reports, assignments and presentations are getting closer by the day. While barely surviving, I still need to find time to select and bid for the next semester's modules. How I wish I have more time to do things.

However, I do not believe in fretting about what cannot be changed. Let me analyse what can be done with what scarce resource I have. Every person has 24 hours a day to work with. Out of which, the hours are allocated between sleep, work and play. And it is noted that one can't spent more time doing things than the available amount of time.

Time on hand <= Hours spent sleeping + Hours spent working + Hours spent playing

When work is urgent and pressing, play will automatically be sacrificed. All humans are mortals. They can lose some sleep but never not sleep.

Thus, during crunch time,
Time endowment (24hr/day) <= Sleep + Work

It does not make sense to stay idle doing nothing. For a rational person, the above equation holds with equality.

24 Hours = Sleep + Work (a.k.a all the time is spent either sleeping or working)

A survey with friends in similar positions turns out the following result. They sleep between 4 to 6 hours a day. Although they would enjoy sleeping more, they much rather not sleep at all and work through the night to complete the tasks at hand. They can't sleep less because 5 hours (average between 4h and 6h) of sleep seems to be the minimum requirement for human beings. Any less sleep = zombie in the day

24 Hours = 5 Hours + Work. This means time allocated to work is 19 hours a day.

And our physics teachers taught us that Work done = Power * Time.
Here, Work done = Power * 19h. Time is now a constant that cannot be changed.

To increase the amount of work done, to complete all the assignments, homeworks and projects, the only way is to increase the power (or efficiency of working).

Now, how many times in a day do you stare at the computer screen, blanking out and not doing productive work? How much time is spent sipping and taking your own sweet time to finish a cup of coffee while work remains undone in front of you? And how much time, while working, is spent thinking how life would be better if there isn't so much work, if there's more time, if giving up is possible. All these leads to reduction in the efficiency of doing work.

However, not everyone can be a robot and work day in day out non-stop. But just a little more focus during times of low productivity can go a long way.