A seminar on "Time Management for Enhancing quality in Academics" held at Pir Mehr Ali Shah Arid Agriculture University, Rawalpindi (PMAS-AAUR), on December 7, 2017 The seminar was organized by Quality Enhancement Cell (QEC) with an aim to elaborate the importance of time for quality enhancement- a step forward for the achievement of academic goals.

Prof Dr. Sarwat N. Mirza, Vice Chancellor PMAS-AAUR was the chief guest at the occasion while Prof Dr. Abdul Saboor, Dean Faculty of Social Sciences was the focal person at the seminar.

Prof. Dr. Sarwat N. Mirza said that there is dire need of time management in terms of hard intervention as well as soft intervention through enhancing productivity, efficiency and effectiveness of time use in academic sphere and allied areas of management so that the universities could play their role in the establishment of knowledge based economy in the country. Vice Chancellor appreciated Professor Riaz Ahamd, Director QEC and his team for organizing this seminar on an emerging issue related to quality enhancement in academia at the Higher Education Institutions. He also praised the ideas raised by Dr. Abdul Saboor in his presentation and sensitized the faculty to follow the same in their practical life.

Dr. Abdul Saboor, Professor of Economics and Dean Faculty of Social Sciences, while giving the importance of time opened his presentation with the argument that humans swear upon God and God swears upon "time" in Surah Al-Asar which indicates the unmatchable importance of time. He said that there is connection of time and universe as humans learn the time management from various material bodies of the universe and events happening in its domain. While arguing the micro and macro management of time, Dr. Saboor opined that Time Management is the process of planning and exercising conscious efforts for and control over the amount of time spent on specific activities - specially to increase effectiveness, efficiency & productivity (Quality use of time). He added that human psyche is tuned for procrastination which pushes him to keep on pending the work for other days. Sometimes, we are also victim of Sisyphus effect which keeps us revolving on and pursuing the same task again and again. We get on. He also explained the 4 time zones including comfort zone, Fast Zone, Slow Zone and Personal Zone; a rational allocation of time across these zones is necessary for optimally managing the time so as to enhance academic quality. While concluding his arguments, Dr. Saboor emphasized on the point that we should not use bad words for time as Allah himself is time; and that in order to give respect to others' time, we should start respect our own time in such a way that its productivity, efficiency and effectiveness is enhanced.

Earlier, Professor Riaz Ahmad in welcome address said that time cannot be managed in the same way that other resource can. He added that time cannot be saved, and it must be used at the same rate of 60 seconds per minute, 60 minutes per hour, 24 hours a day and so on. At the end, Professor Riaz Ahmad, thanked the Vice Chancellor and Professor Abdul Saboor for sparing time in this seminar and thus to start a very important debate to be continued in subsequent seminars.

There was very interactive questions answers session at the end of seminar while the seminar was attended by deans, directors, faculty members and a large number of students.