Time Strategies

After reading the two articles named 11 Ways Unsuccessful People Mismanage Their Time and The Important Habit of Just Starting respectively, I've picked up a few new techniques that i'll look to integrate into my schedule and routine.

The blog The Important Habit of Just Starting emphasizes the importance of starting work early while also scientifically breaking down procrastination to a formula. It mentions the pros of beginning work and the cons of procrastinating over it such as depression and anxiety. Personally I find starting a piece of work is the hardest part, and as someone who procrastinates on every project and assignment the blog presents an interesting argument. But what caught my attention the most is how it uses dreams as an example of procrastination, noting how many dreams can go unfulfilled due to people leaving the work necessary to make those dreams a reality till later and continuously putting them off. This made me think about procrastination as mindset, and that continuously avoiding more plain and mundane tasks such as schoolwork can translate into avoiding more serious and long lasting decisions, meanwhile someone with the mindset of a doer acts in the moment, gets what they need done and ultimately achieve whatever they want.

(The aforementioned formula)

Source: Lifehacker.com

The other blog 11 Ways Unsuccessful People Mismanage Their Time makes note of how unsuccessful people do the same things as they follow the mindset and fall into the same pitfalls as each other. Some of these actions include not planning/scheduling work time and fun time, not keeping records, not having rituals etc. this blog didn't stand out to me as much as the other one but it follows a similar concept, that procrastination is a mindset, and a dangerous one at that. However, I think i'll try and integrate a few of these "11 ways" into my routine and see if I can maintain them and if they have any knock-on effects on anything else.

Last semester we were very time restricted, weekly tasks were one thing but when we were given our final project for the semester for each project it was a huge drag. All of the projects were due in the same week and thanks to the regular weekly work we just didn't have the time to do the work in advance. Thankfully however, this semester we have Mondays off, and this extra free time will be perfect for getting work done. This combined with the new scheduling techniques I've picked up and the overall experience in college I was missing last year means that i'm more confident in my ability to get work done then I was before.