Thriftiness

For this purpose, he contacted many people across the country. In this process, he visited Kolkata (Calcutta at that time) to meet G D Birla, the great industrialist and philanthropist. Malviya was advised to sit in visitor room which he did. After some time, Birla came to meet him and saw that few matchsticks were scattered on the centre table. He collected all the matchsticks and put them in a box. Malviya saw the behavior of Birla and made an impression that Birla was quite a miser and thought that such a miser would not give any thing for establishing the university.

When Birla asked about the purpose of his meeting, the later hided the actual purpose and told, “I am in Calcutta and thought of meeting you. There is no other purpose.” Birla realized that Malviya was hiding the real purpose because of matchstick episode. He told to Malviya, “I have heard that you are establishing a great university with the help of donation. What contribution do you want from me? Please do not go by matchstick episode. I cannot tolerate any wastage howsoever small it is.” Subsequently, Birla contributed the highest amount for the cause of establishing the university.

What does this example suggest? Do not waste any of your resource howsoever small it is because once you develop the habit of wasting small resources, you can develop the habit of wasting precious resources too in future. Resources are always limited by their nature at the disposal of a person whether he is a big man or small man.
Besides controlling the wastage of resources, you should follow the practice of putting those resources for various activities where these find their best use. This way, you can achieve more by lesser amount of resources. For this purpose, you can develop a resource utilization plan based on your plan for undertaking various activities to achieve your goals.