Ask Thej: How do you manage your time ?

My time friend Hari has been asking this question since long time. Hence I chose his question as my first question in Ask Thej.
Hari Asks How is that you manage a big job at Infy and still make it to all adventure and tours abroad. Is there a secret behind this effectiveness and management of time. I would surely like to know.
Hari there are two parts to this question. 1. How do I manage my regular day. 2.How do I get leaves for the travel. My regular week roughly looks something like this.

As you can the amount time I spend in traffic is very less compared other city dwellers. As you can see we spend most of our time either sleeping or working. It becomes very important to enjoy both of these else 2/3 of your life is spent in misery.
This year I have decided to reduce my sleeping duration by one hour (i.e from 8hrs to 7hrs). Which gives  extra seven hours per week or around 40 working days. I am thinking about investing this time in cooking. I would suggest you to plan your day very meticulously. At this age your body doesn't need much rest ( other than regular sleep). If you need break in between the work change the work.

This plan doesn't apply when I am traveling (usually alone) or on vacation (Family). It kind of works as both resting time and following your personal interest. Every time I come back from a vacation I start working towards the next.

Taking a decent enough break from work needs planning. I usually take a week off every quarter and more in December. When taking off I usually plan it in advance and inform (get it approved) my seniors in advance. Which makes it easy for them to include my vacation in their plans. Being first also helps you in getting upper hand when your and your team mates holidays collide. In India usually vacation is not taken seriously. It is also very important to display seriousness about your holidays. I usually resist changes and doesn't like to get disturbed. It is very important to set this expectation with your seniors and colleagues.

When applying make sure that you choose the week which has more public holidays. Here again advance planning is very necessary.Planning in advance also helps in saving money specially since you are traveling during the busy season.

Another way of planning is to plan it during the off-season. When I am traveling alone I usually prefer off-season as I can explore the places at my own speed. It actually depends on the place you want to visit. Like I would like to go to Goa during Xmas but to Hampi during off season.

I hope I have answered your question. Let me know in the comments if you still want to know something.