thank you for reading.

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.

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.

guiltless procrastination

It is 7:34 PM, and I just sat down to write this blog post.  I meant to start in on this at 6:30 PM.  Instead, I worked an hour later than I had planned.  Now I probably will not get back to my apartment until 10 PM.  By the time I get everything ready for tomorrow it will be too late and I will be too tired to do the homework I planned to do tonight.  I’ll push it off until tomorrow night or the weekend.

I hate procrastination.  Of all the things in the world that I hate, it makes my top five list of greatest evils (among ignorance and racism).  Most people know this about me, and most of them would say that I never procrastinate.  This is not an entirely accurate statement.  In all honesty I do procrastinate – just not the way normal people do.  You won’t ever find me watching television when I have a paper due or surfing the web the night before a big test.  If I ever did either of these things (or things like them), I’d just end up feeling really guilty.

But, I do procrastinate.  For instance, I worked late tonight.  I probably could have put off some projects for the next time I will be in the office, but instead I worked through to finish them.  I was productive.  I got stuff done.  Except, now I won’t have time to work on my school work tonight – the school work I was really avoiding.  You see, by deciding to work late I was really just giving myself a reason to put off writing a paper.  I feel less guilty about the procrastination because I got stuff done at work, but in the end I’ve just put off doing my school work.

I hadn’t noticed that I do this (and do it quite often) until a good friend pointed it out to me.  She asked me why I was working late during weeks when I should have been focusing on writing my undergraduate thesis.  My initial answer was because I had projects to finish at work.  The more honest answer – which I admitted only after she pushed me on it – is that sometimes even I don’t feel like doing school work.  “Yeah, you’re a work-a-holic,” she said to me, “but sometimes that’s only because you don’t want to have to write your paper.”

My point tonight is not so much that this kind of procrastination is bad.  It is; don’t get me wrong.  The bigger point here is that we sometimes don’t realize our own motives.  We think that we are doing something for one reason, when really another is driving us.  This week think really critically about why you schedule things a certain way.  Are you self-sabotaging?  Avoiding work in innovative ways?  Procrastinating guiltless-ly?  If you have trouble evaluating your scheduling methods, don’t fret.  This kind of self-reflection is really hard.  Try getting an outside opinion on your methods.  You never know what another perspective can teach you about yourself.

Click here for your two minutes of procrastination.

 

my gripe with extensions

If there is one question most college students are really good at asking, it’s this:  Can I get an extension?  Since I started at John Jay College in 2008, I’ve heard countless classmates asks professors to extend deadlines, accept late papers, and push back tests.  And every time I hear a request like this, I cringe internally… okay, sometimes externally, too.

I’ve never asked for an extension on a paper or a test.  Never.  Not in college, not in high school, not as far back as I can remember (which for those of you wondering encompasses all of my schooling back to kindergarten).  When I was out sick for two months with mono in my sophomore year of high school, I turned in all of my assignments via email – early at that.  When I was preparing for the first presentation of my thesis at the ACJS conference in New York this past month, I worked on my PowerPoint slides for two months straight and managed to turn in three other papers the Friday before I presented.  I meet deadlines – always.  So when students, students who I have to assume work fewer jobs and take fewer classes than I do, ask for extensions I am easily frustrated.

Perhaps, this frustration is tied to my personal aversion to extensions.  I hate when I can’t meet a deadline.  It literally drives me crazy.  When I can’t complete a task and I end up having to roll it over to the next day, I do so ever begrudgingly.

But sometimes it has to be done.  There are only so many hours in a day.  I am starting to learn that there are going to be times when I just cannot physically meet a deadline and an extension is the only option.  So while I refuse to ask for extensions in school (because I am one month away from getting through 18 years of schooling without having to have done so), I have learned that sometimes I just have to postpone projects at work.  In doing so I am being honest with my supervisors and realistic about my abilities.

I hate extensions.  I think I always will.  Getting stuff done and on time is just what I do.  It’s who I am.  But, having time to work on projects and put my best work into them eliminates stress.

Next time you need an extension think about how much work you can realistically do.  Think about the role procrastination plays in your ability to get things done on time.  And be honest with yourself about whether or not asking for the extension is appropriate.  An extension may not be an ideal situation, but it is better than pulling an all-nighter.  Click here for your two minutes of procrastination.

tuesday – april 10th @ 10PM – SLEEP

When talking to a co-worker, professor, or friend about upcoming tasks or events I often find myself saying, “Hold on.  Let me write that down.”  It’s a common rule among good schedulers to take note – literally – of these sorts of things.  When you have a lot on your plate it’s easy to forget about upcoming projects and deadlines.

But, how much is too much?  When do these notes become excessive?  Well to be honest, I’m reaching that point.  Yesterday as I glanced at my day planner I thought to myself, “I should try to get some sleep tomorrow night.”  I followed that thought with, “Hold on.  Let me write that down.”  Now my day planner reads, “Tuesday – April 10th: 10 PM – SLEEP!”

Surely this little note to myself was unnecessary.  I am tired enough tonight (and I knew yesterday that I would be) that I will not forget my intention to go to bed early.  Why do it then, you ask?  Boundaries.

Being busy means never having enough time to do everything on my list.  Trying to fit things in whenever and wherever I can is just part of my daily routine.  So it is entirely conceivable that I would look at my day planner today, see a bit of an opening tonight, and shove in a little task.  Later on as the tiredness set in I would think about going to bed early but convince myself to finish the scheduled task, because if I can’t cross everything off my list for the day I feel very unproductive.

“Tuesday – April 10th: 10 PM – SLEEP!”  It seems crazy, but putting in these kinds of placeholders works for me.  Sometimes I write in things like, “8 AM – relax,” or “3 PM – go on Facebook.”  Sure it’s bordering on scheduler insanity, but if I don’t write in these little tasks I’ll end up scheduling over them.  I’ll neglect my need for fun stuff (and sleep!), which could only make me even crazier.

This week think about the things in your life that you often neglect.  Consider using place holders in your day planner so that you won’t prioritize other tasks too often.  Who knows – you might just find this insane scheduling technique useful.

Click here for your two minutes of procrastination.

 

an inspired space

In a recent team meeting at Echoing Green, a non-profit that promotes social entrepreneurship, my boss asked my colleagues and me to think about a social ill that we would like to see remedied, solved, or overcome.  He told us to envision a world without this problem, to describe what that world might look like, and to share this with the team.  I spoke about mass incarceration.  One of my colleagues spoke about inequality in education, another about the oppression of women.  After we had shared what the world might look like without these problems, my boss explained that seeing these ideal worlds brought about is what inspires us to work with Echoing Green.

The purpose of this exercise was simple and profound.  It is so easy to get caught up in the day-to-day of a job (or a life, I would argue) and to forget what it is we are striving for.  At Echoing Green the everyday tasks my team and I do can overshadow and draw our minds away from our passion and why it is we were drawn to the organization in the first place.  Thinking about what drives us and about what we are working towards can bring us back to that emboldened and committed state-of-mind.  It can keep us inspired, and it is that inspiration that keeps us productive.

Sure, it’s hard to stay in this state of inspiration, passion, empowerment.  Day-to-day minutia has a way of weighing on it, but there are always ways to keep yourself engaged and thoughtful.  One such way I have found helpful is defining an inspired workspace.  When you’re surrounded by things that inspire you, your workspace becomes a safe place for open-mindedness and free-thinking.  It is then that the monotony of everyday tasks can be overcome.

My desk at Echoing Green.

At my desk at Echoing Green I am surrounded by my favorite books (like Prudence Carter’s Keein’ It Real), pictures of my favorite places (like the South Bronx), and notes/quotations from people I admire.  When my mind wanders for a minute as I read emails or when I need a quick two-minute break from staring at an excel spreadsheet, my eyes focus in on these things.  I am brought back to a state of awareness, awareness of what I am working for and towards.  So after our team exercise I added a new knickknack to my desk – a small poster about incarceration in the United States given to me by a close friend.  Now when I need to refocus and get inspired, I just look up and read, “Incarceration Nation.”

This week think about your workspace, whether it is a workspace in an office or just your desk at home.  How can you make this space yours?  How can you make it a space that screams inspiration, that gives off passion, that empowers you and keeps you focused?  This kind of project is not only one that will make you more productive, but it is a lot of fun, too.

Click here for your two minutes of procrastination.

if i had more time…

I spent part of my weekend last week at my bakery on Staten Island serving up bread and pastries and cookies as I do two to three times a month.  As I struggled to chat with one of my friends there – a baker I have known for nearly 5 years now – I thought to myself, “I really need to brush up on my Spanish.”  This is a thought I have probably one a week.  And, it’s always followed by another thought… “If I had more time, I’d speak it fluently by now.”

When you’re busy this second thought is a common occurrence.  Variations of it plague my mind whenever I am presented with something I’d love to do, but for which I just don’t have any time.  They go a little something like this: “If I had more time…

• “… I’d make pretty scrapbooks.”
• “… I’d get caught up on How I Met Your Mother.” 
• “… I’d spend some quality time with my boyfriend.” 
• “… I wouldn’t be so tired all the time.” 
• “… I’d walk instead of taking the train.”

Yes, we all have things we’d like to do if we had more time, but what do you do when this list gets ridiculously long?  What do you do when at least once a day you start a thought off with, “If I had more time…”?

My answer here is I don’t know.  What I do know is what doesn’t work - or perhaps what doesn’t work well.  I’ve tried writing these things down – that only created documentation of all the things for which I do not have time.  Then, I tried dedicating one hour a day to working on one of these items.  When that became too stressful (and impossible with my schedule), I worked on fitting in one hour a week.  And when that was still too stressful, I gave up.  At the moment I get along by following this kind of thought with, “When I graduate, and I’m not so busy I’ll make time.”  I know it’s just wishful thinking.

This week I really want to hear from all of you.  What do you do when you want to do something, but can’t find the time?  Is this a problem you face?  Is it one you’re working on?  Is it one you’ve solved?  Please, share your own thoughts and experiences below.  And, click here for your two minutes of procrastination.

money vs. stress

I’ve been on a quest, as you may already know, to de-stress my very stressful life these past few months.  It’s no wonder really that I stumbled across an article in the Huffington Post this morning about the eight most stressful and unhealthy jobs.  Once I got over the shock that full-time student was not on the list, I thought long and hard about the implications of such a list.

It seems since the recession most college student have only one question when it comes to choosing a career path:  what job will pay me the most money right out of college?  I get it – we all have to pay the bills.  What bothers me however, is the fact that so many millennials are overlooking other factors that should be considered here, too.  If you are going to spend eight hours a day doing something, it should be something that you love  (or at least something you don’t hate!) to do.  A job where you are miserable might pay a lot, but doesn’t being miserable negate now much you earn?

I recognize that this issue is a matter of opinion.  As I attempt to cut all of the unnecessary stress out of my life however, I am becoming more fervent in my belief that the things that stress us out are just not worth our time.  Why be unhappy or anxious or tired when you could be happy, excited, and passionate about the work that you do?  Sure it might take a little longer to find a job that fits this bill, but doesn’t all that extra work pay off when you can enjoy those eight-hour work days.  Take it from someone who loves their job(s), it’s a lot easier to get out of bed in the morning when you do not dread the place you are going.

So who are these eight most stressed-out professionals?  According to recent studies cited in the Huffington Post they include investment bankers, soldiers, and shift workers.  Check out the full article by clicking here, and click here for your two minutes of procrastination.

the stress-free diet

If there is one thing I learned from doing yoga, it is that everything in the body is connected.  You can do a side-body stretch and find yourself able to breathe deeper.  You can do a power lunge to strengthen your legs and core, and end up loosening up your shoulders.  You can work out your body and end up with a clearer mind. 

Sometimes when we approach a problem we do so with blinders.  We can focus so much on what we think the causes of that problem are that we pass off (sometimes unconsciously) possible solutions.  We forget that many things are interconnected.  We put ourselves in a box unable to think outside of it.

Most people regard stress as a state of mind.  I’m inclined to agree with this to some degree.  There are aspects of stress, however, that are concretely physical.  Take, for instance, the way your heart races when you are anxious or nervous.  This is a very physical response to stress.  Attempting to change your state-of-mind when you are stressed is productive, but why not also try to counteract the physical symptoms of what you are feeling. 

Research has shown that one of the best ways to attack these physical symptoms is by changing your diet.  Certain foods, like simple carbs (sugary snacks and drinks) can give bursts of energy followed by crashes, a combination that can exacerbate stress symptoms like high blood pressure.  Conversely, other foods can help you combat stress, like complex carbs such as whole wheats and nuts.  These carbs increase your brain’s serotonin production, which quells anxiety and evens mood.  Researchers have also found that oranges (which have lots of vitamin C for a healthy immune system), spinach (which contains magnesium that can help stave off fatigue), and black tea (which has low levels of caffeine that reduce cortisol production without the crash brought about by coffee or sodas) are good anti-stress foods.  Doctors also suggest an overall healthy diet is a pro-active way to fight stress symptoms.

I’m not a believer in diets.  I think the only way to be healthier (and lose weight, if that’s what you are going for) is to make a lifestyle change.  This week think about living a less stressful life by making changes to your daily routine.  Do some breathing exercises, go for a run (physical activity has also been shown to be a good outlet for stress), and eat healthier.  You’ll feel better, I promise.

 Click here for a two minutes of Valentine’s Day procratination.

being a silo and the self help book debate

Sometimes people make the assumption that because I write this blog, I must consider myself a scheduling pro.  I guess, if I am going to be completely  honest, these assumptions are not entirely false.  Yeah, I consider myself better at scheduling than your average Joe, but I wouldn’t say I’m an expert in any real sense of the word.  I tell these people, the ones that assume I must be some sort of Ph.D in scheduling to be keeping a blog like this, that I simply blog about the techniques I’ve tried, what’s worked for me, and my trials (including failures) in the art of time management.

All that being said, I want to post tonight with a bit of a different tone.  Tonight I don’t have any suggestions, new techniques to try, or stories to tell.  Tonight, rather, I have a question.  It’s an age-old one, by which I mean one that came about in the 1990′s.  Self-help books – how useful are they.  Already I can feel some of you judging me.  “Only losers need self-help books,”  you’re thinking.  “But,” I have to response, “then why are they so popular?”

Sure, I’m not the type to buy a book about relationship advice.  I’m probably not the type to buy a cook book either, but my point is this:  when does being independent lead to becoming a silo?  When does figuring things out for oneself turn into building up a fortress and closing oneself off to helpful advice?  It’s a fine line, or at least I think it can be.  Sometimes we’re so used to being self-sufficient that we become skeptical of others and their advice, when we could really benefit from it.

I’m not advocating running out to the nearest bookstore to buy Stress Management for Dummies.  I’m not even suggesting reading this blog every week (though, I’d love it if you did).  What I am suggesting here is being a little more open-minded about advice.  After all, thinking we know everything is the most immature and naive kind of thinking.  Perhaps, someone should tell self-help book authors that.

Click here, here,  and here for your two minutes of procrastination.