It's called TIME MANAGEMENT. We hear this phraselet often, especially in college. "Blah blah blah, procrastination, blah blah blah, good time management skills." Somewhere in all the how-to-be-a-productive-member-of-society mumbo jumbo, there really is important information that must of us don't bother to hear...or it doesn't make it through our thick, procrastination-armored skulls.
So, to make light of the very reason I have not put fingers to keyboard in months, I will provide these tips, as they work for me when I have not cast them aside to eat a snack instead of writing the paper that's due tomorrow.
How to MANAGE time (is that possible? yes!):
- Calendars. Lots of them. A good online calendar you can take everywhere you have Internet access is Google calendar. It really is useful. You can color-code events, set reminders for yourself, and share your calendar with the important people in your life. You can even add public calendars to your own (ex.: The University of Arizona academic calendar, the Tucson Jazz Society calendar of events, etc.) so you know what's going on when, and if you have any conflicts.
- Post-Its. I swear by them. They come in a bazillion colors and sizes and shapes, they're sticky, and they're disposable. What more could you ask for? Sometimes, when I get busy, hundreds of them will pop up, stuck all over my desk, bathroom and computer at work. But they work--because you look at them and think, "oh, yeah. I need to do that."
- Lists. It sounds anal to write lots of lists, but lists can be very potent little reminders. There's nothing more sobering than sitting down to write a list titled "To Do This Weekend" and finding that you need to turn over the 26-lined sheet of paper to continue the list. Eeee. But once you have everything written down, you can take a big, bold Sharpie and strike out each item on the list as you finish it. You can even rank each item's importance, so you know what to get done first. And you can make multiple lists--grocery list, work list, items due list, gift list, etc. Ahh, the organization.
- PDA. No, not public display of affection. Get a Palm Pilot, Blackberry or something of comparable stature. Even better if you can have Internet access with it, like on an iPhone. Taking your calendar, to-do list, contacts' information and a budget calculator everywhere can save you a lot of stress, extra trips to the grocery store and missed appointments. I set my PDA's alarm really loud, so it's obnoxious and I HAVE to pay attention to it to make it shut up. And it reminds me of what I need to be doing, every time.
- Alarms. So you already have a PDA/Blackberry/iPhone alarm blaring at you, and reminders on your computer. For someone like me, that's not usually enough. I have three other alarms in my bedroom to get me moving in the morning. Sometimes four or five alarms isn't even enough, especially in the dead of winter. The important thing is to place your alarms as far away from you as possible, so you have to get up to turn them off. Hopefully, you get distracted along the way and don't think about going back to bed or the TV or whatever it was you were doing before.
- Selbstmotivation. It's German, but it's easy to get: self motivation. I know, this is always the hard one. But after a few nights with only 1.5 hours of sleep, you're bound to get the point. And if you don't, you're like me and you're a masochist. So stop it! Take the damn bull by the horns and get to work, already!
