I like to think I have good time management skills. Or at least, I do for things that 110 percent need to get done by a certain time.
Lately, my slack has been to my online presences. My blog posts (personally and on Her Campus) are way down; my actually intelligent tweets are non-existent and my celeb-gossip and foodie blogs are sitting unread.
Where did my time go? I’m on co-op four days a week, taking a prerequisite Spanish class for my 5-week trip to Argentina this summer, I’m the Sports Editor at Huntington News, and I really like my friends. I thought this semester sounded busy, not nearly as hectic as it turned out.
When classes started January 10th, I rescheduled my life, but only recently have I actually began saying, “No. I don’t have time.” I’ve cut back on taking new projects, extra shifts at work, and activities on campus. It was hard, but now it’s getting easier because there’s no guilt in not having time to do something.
As I write this (on a Saturday), it’s a day I only realized I had over-booked on Thursday. I shuffled things around and won’t know if it worked until later.
Northeastern’s co-op program drives us to constantly think resume — remember the high schools days of only thing college applications? — an extra project or shift at work isn’t going to make my resume, but being burned out will certainly break it.
To avoid this, I’ve kept an incredibly set schedule Monday through Thursday, and a skeleton for Friday through Sunday. To leave for work fed, with checked email and hair done at 7:10 a.m., My alarm, unfortunately, goes off at 5:45 a.m. From that point to the end of our Thursday Her Campus meeting at 8pm, I’ve stopped making extra plans (almost) completely.
My life is so hectic that to avoid skipping meals I had to schedule them. I shower, I eat breakfast. I have an apple and peanut butter at 10:30, lunch around 1 and eat dinner as soon as I walk in the door. In and around that, I’m constantly on my email, gchat, twitter and texting.
Tuesday nights are designated for me and my friends as we play trivia over a bucket of Coronas at Symphony 8 around the corner from campus.
Once the whirlwind stops on Friday, leave me to myself. I had nothing scheduled yesterday beyond a 10am meeting with my Spanish professor. And feeling congested, I skipped my usual run. I found myself bored, caught up on TiVo and with four hours before dinner plans so I took a nap.
Valid use of time? So far so good.
In a similar boat? I figured these out the hard way but my suggestions would be:
- start saying no
- in the middle of craze, find a friend night
- don’t skip meals
- don’t pass up an opportunity to nap, but don’t forget to call home or your parents will forget you (I got President’s Day chocolates instead of Valentine’s — the card even admitted it)