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With less than two weeks before I embark on my summer journey halfway around the world to Sri Lanka , I’ve been giving this blog some serious thought.  I’ve asked all the logistic questions that come to the mind of Type A individuals – like how will I post when I will only have intermittent internet access?  And, how will I charge my laptop without a plug adapter?  If I am going to be honest, though, it’s not the logistics of blogging abroad that seem most troubling to me.  My reason for seriously considering taking a blogging hiatus runs much deeper.

When I started doing yoga, I learned that one of the keys to relaxation and meditation is thinking about one’s breathing.  When you focus on your inhales and exhales, you focus less on the external – less on what is going on around you – and more on your body and how you feel.  Since I am always thinking about how I can apply life lessons to scheduling, I tweaked this idea of refocusing just a bit.  When I am having trouble paying attention, I think about thinking.  When I’m having a bad day, I think about feeling better.  When I’m feeling stressed about getting things done, I think about scheduling.  I bring everything inward, narrowing in on something that relates to what I should be focused on, and block out the unnecessary distractions.  Thinking about scheduling – it’s my anti-procrastination tool.

And, thinking about scheduling (which with three jobs and a full class-load is pretty much all the time) has helped me write this blog.  When I’m stressed, I think about a topic related to scheduling, i.e. how am I going to manage to get all of this stuff done?  I use that topic and those thoughts to formulate a post, and voilà – a blog is born.  This blog, I guess I’ll admit, has been somewhat of a coping mechanism for me.

Thinking about scheduling – it’s what I do.  It’s who I am.  But, what if I didn’t have to schedule?  What if I didn’t have three jobs and a full class load?  What if my friends, who are always hounding me to hang out, were halfway around the world?  Better yet, what if I was?  Would I have to think about scheduling?  Would I have to use this coping mechanism to deal with stress?  And if not, then on what topics would I post?

When I tell people I am going to spend the summer in Sri Lanka, they usually respond by saying they think the experience will be amazing.  “You’ll find yourself over there,” they always say.  My hope is precisely the opposite.  As I embark on my journey I hope not to find myself, but rather to lose myself.  I hope to build a different me – start anew like a phoenix. The only way I know how to do that is to take away all the crutches on which I lean, to separate myself from everything I know, and to deprive myself of all the things to which I might cling.  So the bottom-line would be, then, no television, no pillow, no thinking about scheduling, no blogging.  It’s a crazy idea, I know.  I’m still not even sure it’s a good one.  What I do know is this summer will change me, and that’s all I want.

This blog will stand, nonetheless, as a testament to my crazy work-filled college years.  I may even come back to it when I return to the states – who knows?  For now, though, I hope the two years worth of posts I have accrued will be enough to help you in your own balancing act.

Click here for your double-two minutes of procrastination.

starting slow

The biggest issue for beginner schedulers, at least it seems to me, is committment.  They start a day planner, but forget to write in it.  They try to utilize a calendar, but never refer to it.  They sketch a schedule, but end up procrastinating.  They want to get organized, but they have trouble sticking with it.

The most sure-fire way for college students trying to better manage their time to stay on schedule is to start slow and start easy.  Don’t rush into it.  Don’t try to do too much at once.  Don’t jump into the ocean of scheduling before you test the temperature with your toes.  Mastering the easy stuff will make transitioning into the more technical seamless.  It will also assure that you stick with scheduling.

So where do you start?  As I posted last week, lists are a great springboard.  Lists help you get all of your ideas down, they help you remember everything, they help you get organized.  But lists can’t do it all.  They are not a map of your week.  They won’t set you up to get everything done on time.  They are not the best way to stay on schedule, but they are the best place to start.

So, master the list.  Practice making them, practice referring to them, practice making them more and more focused.  From here, you can turn your lists into schedules.  Sit down with a piece of paper and your empty day planner:

1. Write a list of all the things you need to get done in the week.  This should come naturally, once you get the hang of list-making. 
2. Include due dates and use them to prioritize your to-do list items.
3. Next to each list item put an estimation of how long you think the task will take.  This can be the toughest part of scheduling, so think about it.  Overestimate.  And, don’t get discouraged if it takes some practice to get it right. 
4. Now, look over at your day planner.  Fill in you recurring tasks, like when you have class or when you work.  Block these times off.
5. From here, add the tasks from your to do list into the free spaces in your day planner.  Use a pencil.  Move them around.  Think of it as a puzzle, and try to fit things together in the best way.
6. Look over your schedule to see if any individual day looks too busy.  If any day is too packed, try to re-distribute to even things out.

Using a day planner can be tough when you first start out.  Keep in mind that it can be an awesome and helpful tool, especially when things get busier.  Start with lists and start small.  Then – during a not so busy time like the summer – practice making schedules.  This will ensure that as things get busier you will have the skills to handle all the craziness that accompanies a tight schedule.  Stick with it!  Click here and here for your two minutes of procrastination.

lists of lists of things to do

It is May 8th, and that means I am twenty-five days away from taking my first ever trip outside of the Unites States.  I will spend 3 months living in to Sri Lanka this summer where I will intern with Emerge Lanka Foundation, an organization that supports Sri Lankan girls who have been abused.  Being the super-Type-A-borderline-obsessive-compulsive planner that I am, I have made list upon list upon list of the things I have to do in preparation for my trip.  At this point, I’ve got a list of lists of things to do before I leave.

In February when I started to seriously plan for my trip I made a list of things to do, then separated it by month.  These monthly lists have grown as the trip has gotten closer, and as you can imagine the one for May is quite a doosey.  Even if they can seem never-ending and unnecessarily extensive these lists have kept me on track, prevented procrastination, and set me up for an amazingly well-planned departure.

Okay, at this point I will just come out and say it:  I love lists.  I really love lists.  I love lists so much I make lists of lists.  It’s absurd and neurotic, I know.  But the way I see it, lists are the most fundamental form of scheduling.  You have a bunch of things you have to do but you’re afraid you’ll forget one, so you write them all down.  Then as you complete tasks, you check them off.  Just throw a calendar into the mix, and you’ve got a schedule.  Seriously, this isn’t rocket science; it’s more important than that stuff.  Lists are the building blocks of organization, and without organization we wouldn’t even have rocket science.  I’m just saying.

Since I started writing this blog, I’ve had a lot of friends ask me how to get organized.  Sometimes I have replied, “Buy a day planner.”  Other times I’ve said, “Start plotting on a calendar.”  I think a few times I’ve even suggested, “Use post-its.”  I take all of those things back – well, kind of anyway.  The best advice I have for anyone who is just starting to deal with time-management issues is to make lists.  Make shopping lists, make lists of movies you want to see, make Christmas lists, make to-do lists.  Because once you master the list, using a day planner or a calendar will come easier.

So this week think about organizing yourself for the end of the semester.  Think about all the stuff you have to do before the end of the month and write it down.  Take that list and break it down into what you need to finish this week.  Then break that list down to what you need to finish tomorrow.  And tomorrow, break that list down into what you need to do in the morning, afternoon, night.  That’s a schedule, brought to you through a list.  And that’s why lists are better than sliced bread.

So for all of you non-list makers out there living chaotic lives, this post is for you.  Want to get organized?  Start listing.  It will change your life.  Click here for your two minutes of procrastination.

 

good busy

While going to school over the next four weeks I have to write three papers (the shortest of which is ten pages and the longest of which is nearly forty), take two finals, plan three events at work, mentor seventy students through the close of the semester, present my undergraduate thesis one more time, attend five graduation/award ceremonies, and plan my summer trip to Sri Lanka.  My schedule for the next month is jam-packed to say the least.

That opening paragraph might sound like a complaint, but I assure you it’s not.  To be honest, I don’t think I have ever been so happy to be busy.  While having too much on my to-do list can stress me out, this “To-do before I leave for Sri Lanka list” is an entirely different animal.  The longer it gets, the wider I smile.

I have found over the past four years of college that having too much to do can make me anxious, but so can anticipation.  Sometimes wanting to get through the week because of fun weekend plans can stress me out more than an enormous amount of work.  My trip to Sri Lanka, for which I am more excited than I have been for anything since I was eight and believed in Santa Claus, is like those fun weekend plan times one thousand.  I just can’t wait to get on the plane and head out of the country.  The anticipation is killing me.

Being busy keeps my mind off of the trip.  It keeps my mind off of packing lists, travel details, and trip anxiety.  It allows me to work through my last four weeks here with less stress than I might have had if I had more time to think about all the awesome adventures I will have this summer.

This post tonight isn’t about my trip to Sri Lanka (those are to come!), but about the utility of being busy somethings.  Sure, you shouldn’t pile stuff on to your to-do list to shut out everything, but sometimes using school work or real work to keep your mind off of things that might otherwise stress you out can be a good thing.  My rule of thumb for these kinds of things is if you throw yourself into work but give yourself an end date at which time you will think about whatever it is you are avoiding temporarily, it’s okay to put whatever it is you are avoiding on the back-burner.  As long as you realize this technique is not a permanent fix, it’s okay to use it.  So to avoid the anxiety of planning my trip, I have planned to work on other things for the next three weeks.  I’ll worry about all those travel logistics later.

So next time you find yourself stressing out about something in your life – maybe about where your future is headed or why that cute guy you went out with hasn’t called you back – try throwing yourself into your work for a little bit.  It’s a productive temporary fix that can sometimes work wonders.  If it does nothing else, it will take your mind off of things.

Click here for your two minutes of procrastination animation.