I’m back. Yes! For my 3rd consecutive post. And it feels good.

Finding the time to post regularly, get good grades, keep my apartment clean, work and actively relax (we’ll save the definition of actively relax for a different post) requires time management…a topic with which I have a love-hate relationship.

On a typical Saturday morning, you’ll find me in front of my computer, cereal and/or coffee in hand making a to-do list while simultaneously responding to e-mail. Then I say my sorrowful goodbye to a weekend that I will never get to enjoy. I find myself saying goodbye to entire days before they even begin. I have meetings and homework, workouts and an apartment that’s never as clean as I’d like it to be. So how…oh how….am I supposed to manage? Oh you think I should stop watching tv at night with my boyfriend and my puppy? No can do Mister, I need to escape from the chaos that is my life. If I don’t I will surely start producing too much cortisol and get fat. Understood?

Here are my time-management rules to live by.

Be Proactive- I know we are all procrastinators in one sense or another. (Even the most organized of us!). But no one can deny that doing things long before they need to be done reduces stress and produces better results. If you’re goal is to clean your house from top to bottom before your guests arrive next week, don’t wait until the day they arrive. Clean the bathroom the day before, vacuum two days before and the only thing you’ll have to do the day of is pick up whatever toys the dog (or baby) has dragged about. If you’re working on any task from house cleaning to class presentations for an hour a day for several days before the tasks need to be completed, you’ll find balance. I know the pressure of being in a time crunch is what motivates some people to get things done. My advice to those people is to find some other form of motivation. If you spend 45 minutes researching today, you get to spend 45 minutes doing something awesome today AND 45 minutes doing something awesome the day the paper is due. See where I’m going with this?

Prioritize – While active relaxation may be on your to do list, that project with a rapidly approaching due date, or that contract you need to send out should take precedence. It’s not always easy to do what you have to do over what you want to do, but you’re reducing your stress level by attending to the more pressing things on your to do list first. Personally, I can’t focus on my workout or on my tv show or even on my dinner, if I know that I still need to read for class.

Be Realistic and Timely- You can’t write a research paper in an hour (at least not a real research paper for a class you want to pass)!  When you make a to-do list it’s good to have an estimate of how long each item will take you. If you struggle with time management, you may want to evaluate whether or not you also struggle with your concept of time. Use a watch or a timer to keep you in check. If I only have time for a 30 minute workout, I set an alarm to remind me that it’s time to get out of the gym. If you choose to relax before you finish your to-do list, set a timer. It’s easy for your hour of active relaxation to turn into a 2 hour nap.

Be careful how you multitask – I am guilty of thinking that I can work on a school project, eat lunch and play with the dog. One task is always going to suffer and it’s usually the most important one. Ask yourself how long it would take you to do those tasks individually. Working on a project, responding to email or anything that requires a great deal of focus can take three times as long, if you’re not giving it your full attention. (For example, I’ve been playing with the dog the entire time I’ve been writing this post. I am certain I would have been done already, if I had sent him off to play by himself. But…I love him so.)

Despite following [most] of my own advice, I always find myself wishing there were more hours in the day. I’m currently doing some research on how to survive with less sleep. Stay tuned for the details on that!