Regardless of whether I’m ambitious or just going through a quarter-life crisis, I’m frustrated. There is not enough time in the day to work, read, write, study, exercise, cook, clean. I have spent so much time trying to master the art of time management, but I fear that there are some things that time management simply cannot fix. Sometimes you just have to sit back and for just a few moments live like there is not a care in the world. I can’t even remember the days when there was not a care in the world. Luckily, my parents did get some photo documentation of these days.

Unfortunately, I spend no time at all climbing on couches anymore.  Most of my time, in fact, is spent doing this…

So this is my reality…

Working.…while I am certain the experience that I am gaining from my various odd jobs is invaluable and I do enjoy doing these jobs, I am certain I would have a lot more free time and a lot more money, if I could have just one job that paid well. (Oh Economy…I hate you.)
Studying…I can’t complain one bit here. I’m the one who filled out the application and enrolled in these classes and I want this degree (and possibly more degrees)!
Cooking…a necessary evil that I would enjoy so much more if it weren’t so time consuming
Cleaning…a necessary evil that I simply don’t enjoy
Exercising…the one hobby I won’t put on the back burner, because I will run a half marathon if it kills me. (Well, maybe not if it kills me.)
Debating…whether I want to take on more responsibility (e.g. become the Public Relations Chair of the UCF chapter of NSMH)

My fantasy…

Working…one job at the university where I can pop on over to class as necessary, while still making enough money to pay all of the bills and buy dresses, a MacBook Pro and PhotoShop. Or…maybe people could just start reading my blog and I could sell some advertising space or maybe trade some advertising space for a MacBook Pro and some dinner. I’m easier to please than I appear to be.
Free time…unlimited amount of it that I could spent reading books, doing art projects, being the Public Relations Chair for NSMH, taking up photography and photo editing, blogging and decorating my apartment and yoga lots and lots of yoga.
A clean apartment…where everything has a place and we live in organizational bliss. (Because I would be able to afford storage space with all of the money I’m making at my job at the university or blogging–ha!) I wouldn’t want to have to put a lot of effort into it either, so maybe I could afford a magic want or Merry Maids or something.
Studying…but more research and less chatting on discussion boards about unemployment number and sustainability in human resources management. I want to research the food revolution and make plans to change the world.

Am I being too ambitious here or am I just trying to find myself? I’d like to think that I have a pretty good grasp on what I want in life. After all, applying to graduate school is a pretty big investment (both in terms of effort and finances) for it to be some sort of experiment.

To address my spread-too-thin-lifestyle and simultaneous quarter-life crisis, I’ve decided to finally read In Praise of Slowness. It’s been on my to read list for quite some time and I think I need it now more than ever!

So I’ve put myself out there, I am SO excited about the experience that I am getting and I am busier than I have ever been in my entire life. However, school starts in a matter of weeks and I have got to find balance. I am taking three graduate classes this Fall! I keep thinking that maybe there is a well-kept secret that I don’t know about (you know, a secret code you can use to add extra hours to your day, or a way that I can freeze the world around me as I continue to work). I’ve debated reading books like The Time Trap or Getting Things Done. But honestly people, if I don’t have time to get dressed after I take a shower and I work until 2am, how am I going to find time to read a book? Can we be serious? I can’t live on caffeine naps.

I was thinking about waiting until I actually found a solution to this time management problem I am having  (Am I even having a time management problem or do I simply not have enough time?) to start blogging about it, but here I am. Anyone have any solutions?

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!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/knmurphy/ / CC BY 2.0

Why hello end-of-the-semester!

You sure did sneak up on me.

I take that back…projects, homework, and additional readings never sneak up on me, because I am just a bit obsessive when it comes to managing my time wisely.

Some people are not so wise. So here I am– I live another semester to pick up the slack.

So now I’m going to tell you all the secret to never getting stuck in a position where you have to do all of the work for your group…

Nominate yourself as team slacker!

Just kidding! What’s the point of paying for your education, if you’re going to try to get away with learning as little as possible? You do remember that you made a decision to go to college and you’re paying for right? I mean…if you don’t want to be in school, you don’t have to be!

The only thing you can do to make your life easier is prepare for catastrophe every time and brace yourself. In my life as an academic over-achiever, I’ve developed a group-project protocol to minimize (note: it’s not always possible to eliminate) stress in desperate times.

1. Take control of the project from the beginning. If your teammates know that you are serious about the project and serious about your grade, they’re more likely to get working right away.
2. Set due dates along the way. Separate your project into phases and set a due date for each phase. Make sure that the due date for the final project is at least a week before the professor’s due date. This gives you time to edit and compensate for any work that did not get done.
3. Find the hard workers in your group and assign everyone a slacker to tend to. Some slackers may give the illusion that they are working on the project. If you don’t check up on them you  may find that the “work” they were doing is unacceptable.
4. Be ready to do someone else’s work. If you want an awesome grade and you’ve got slackers in your group, you’re going to have to pick up the slack. The best way to prepare for this extra work is to make sure that you understand the project as a whole. It’s difficult to do someone else’s part of a project, if you don’t know what the complete project needs to look like.
5. Let your professor know who carried the majority of the burden. Do this without whining and without disclosing too much detail (which may make you seem like a tattle-tale). This may seem like a futile step, but I look at it this way: If the professor does do something about it (e.g. dock the slacker’s grade), the slacker might learn that he can’t always get away with slacking. This may save that slacker’s future group-mates a lot of stress, if he learns his lesson!

I hope you’ve enjoyed my five-step protocol for academic over-achievers working on groups.

(side note: etsy shop is “up” but mostly in the testing phase. I’ve decided not to invest too much energy in it, as my online endeavors (e.g. examiner.com and ehow) are monopolizing most of my spare time.)