On Time Management

So for the second week in a row I find myself scrambling to meet my post deadline. After months of leading a life that was to be polite, “sedate”, I am now having some major issues with time management. As a natural procrastinator, I like to leave things until the last minute, but with my new schedule all the minutes at the end of the week now seem to be very full. This means that in order to procrastinate I will have to sleep less, and in the words of The Dude “this will not stand, ya know, this aggression will not stand.”

One of the goals that I set for myself when I decided to return to school was that I wanted to try and not procrastinate as much. My last semester of University was brutal and it had gotten to the point where I was writing papers not only the night before they were due, but sometimes that very morning. This created several problems. Firstly I didn’t get to do as good a job on my work as I would have liked to and secondly this way of working is also very stressful. I would often have to stay up all night working frantically and it was exhausting. In first and second year I used to tell myself after every such incident that I would never do it again, but by third year I had completely given this idea up. I saw procrastination as inevitable.

I think I have fallen into this trap again with my blog post writing and so I guess it’s time to nip that in the bud. Instead of trying to get these done on Thursday night or, as now, Friday morning when I have absolutely no time I need to start getting them done the weekend before when (theoretically) I have all the time in the world. It’s just a matter of finding a method of talking myself into doing this. Actually the way it usually seems to work is that I decide to start early and then later talk myself out of it. I can be very convincing when I need to be. So really what I need to do is to stop talking myself out of getting started early. If I can get myself to get this blog project done with plenty of time to spare, then maybe I can start tackling some of these school projects as well.

I don’t have anything due yet but starting next week the trickle of deadlines will begin. I purposely signed up for some really early presentations so that I could thin out the end of term workload and I plan on getting those going this weekend. I should also start brainstorming some ideas for the first few papers and maybe even crack a book or two. I am finally ahead on my reading, but reading isn’t work so I don’t have to put it off. I also I’m also ahead in my painting but that can’t be put off because I have to be in there doing it as part of my regular class work.

I think what I have to do with my writing is treat it like I do my reading and my painting and do a little bit of it every day. If I spend time on writing regularly, hopefully I can not only keep it all under control but build it into a habit of productivity. I have to find some way to handle it because I’m getting to old to put myself through all the stress of hardcore procrastination. I found out a few months ago doing our Headshots from the Heart run that staying up all night is not as easy as it used to be. I would also like to do better work that I don’t have to feel vaguely bad about handing in.

Anyway, I hope you all have a good weekend, and if anyone has some good strategies for overcoming procrastination or just time management in general, feel free to let me know.

D.