Time Strategies

Time Management: Why I Feel Like I am Constantly Running out of Time

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My Time Management

I think I have very poor time management skills. I constantly wish there were more hours in the day, and I am always struggling with prioritizing and procrastination. I am a full-time 40+ hour manager at a bank plus a full-time student. I either put too much effort into work or too much effort into school inevitably neglecting one of these aspects of my life. Juggling these two entities rarely leaves me with time or mental energy for fun, healthy activities such as hanging out with friends, exercising, cleaning, and me-time. I have tried planners in the past, but I find it to be more of a chore to fill them out than anything else. I'll admit, it has been almost four years and I have yet to find a time management strategy for me, but I am open to any and all suggestions. 

My Procrastination

One of my biggest drawbacks is I am a procrastinator. As you can tell, this blog post is due in four hours, and I am just now doing it. I am a procrastinator because I am widely successful at it. I have a near 4.0 GPA and am the youngest manager in my company. My procrastination has never caused me to fail a test, get a zero on an assignment, or disappoint at work; therefore, I continue to procrastinate. Now I can imagine what you are thinking. If I have never failed at procrastinating, then why stop procrastinating? Although I may have been relatively successful up to this point, that may not only be the case. Getting into the habit of procrastination has made school much more stressful than it has to be. Leaving assignments to the last minute has caused me to lose sleep, gain weight, get ill, and produce work that may or may not be my absolute best. I have been working on my procrastination, and believe it or not, it has improved greatly since freshman year. Although I am still on the hunt for the best time management strategy for me, I know I am much closer than I was three years ago. 

Time Management Strategies

The first article I read was The Psychology of Checklists: Why Setting Small Goals Motivates Us to Accomplish Bigger Things. I recently started using checklists at work, and I found it extremely helpful to write down everything I have to complete and when I have to complete them. I also find it extremely satisfying to check mark them when they are done. Having a checklist takes all of the floating responsibilities I have in my head and puts them on paper. Rather than using the mental energy need to keep a running queue in my head, I let the piece of paper do it for me. This is a strategy I only recently started using so only time well tell how useful it actually is. I have yet to incorporate my school activities on to it as I am afraid two checklists may intimidate me, but have one checklist for both work and school may be overwhelming.  

The second article I read was How to Beat Procrastination. As I mentioned before, I have an extreme procrastination problem. One that I have yet to suffer the consequences for, therefore, struggle with justifying the need to change my ways. This article obviously appealed to me because I wanted to learn how to almost trick myself into doing better. What I found most helpful, however, was the first paragraph's discussion of procrastination isn't entirely my fault. Although I do consciously make a choice to put something off, the way my brain is programmed only perpetuates my procrastination making it that much harder to change. This was relieving and discouraging. If my own brain didn't want to change why should I? The most useful tip was identify the first step. My biggest issue is I view an assignment in its entirety rather than by it's steps. Last year, I had to write a 20 page paper, and I was terrified I would procrastinate. Rather than wait the last minute, I scheduled time out of my week to write two pages a day for 10 days. This helped tremendously. Now, instead of the assignment being a 20 page paper due in two weeks, it was a two page paper due at the end of the day. I plan on using this strategy in the future as it has worked well in the past.