I am going to be honest and candid for a moment. I usually pride myself in my ability to manage my time. Well, I struggled a lot this past week to find balance in my daily activities: classes, studying, Wesley, SigEp, family, etc. What makes this past week different from any other week? Well, according to my Semester-at-a-Glance, we are now five weeks into the semester. This means in two weeks, I have three midterms and two projects due. In three weeks, we have fall break. Take a deep breath!
College is the perfect environment to challenge your ability to prioritize. There’s so much going on – how are you going to cope with everything? We each have certain responsibilities and activities that demand a concrete amount of our time. These include classes, meetings, working out, sleeping and eating. Other time consumers include how often we are with our friends, how often we go out, and how often we study. From my own experience, most people are not very good at finding a balance between all of these things. I often catch myself juggling. In fact, over the last four years, I’ve gotten pretty good at juggling. Allow me to take this analogy a step further. As a juggler, you only have control of each ball for the brief moment before you toss it back up into the air. Likewise, when you juggle your various activities, some activities will get more time and attention and some may even drop out completely.
I was recently recommended to read a book by Andy Stanley called “Choosing to Cheat.” While I have not yet found the time to completely read this book, Andy’s main argument is pretty convincing – what we choose to cheat in our lives is a clear indication of our values. And while he focuses more on work and family life balance, his concept is relevant to me.
Are you cheating yourself? You will inherently have to choose on a daily basis what matters most to you. As a first year and sophomore, I often found myself cheating on sleep. I mean – sleeping is such a waste of time right? Other times, I would find myself too busy to eat. What an irrational thought – but people are doing this everyday. Maybe that’s not you. So let me ask you this – how often have you been late for a meeting? Late for class? Late for anything? When was the last time you went to the gym or enjoyed the weather and the beauty of this campus?
There’s obviously no right solution to this predicament. Simply becoming more aware of your priorities and how you are spending time with each one is a good start. Make sure the things that are most important to you are not compromised. Cutting corners on your basic needs may not seem like a big deal, but eventually it will come back to haunt you. The best way to help you prioritize your schedule is to come up with a written schedule or a written list of things that demand your attention.
Obviously this article is not focused on time management methods. If you are interested, I wouldn’t mind sharing a few tips of my own. However, what I want to draw to your attention is simply this: You only have four years in college. How are you going to invest your time? More importantly, how are you going to accomplish your goals? For me, it is easy to cut corners and skip a meal or skip a devotional to spend more time with friends. Ultimately you will realize that if you truly value something, you will make it a priority. For myself, I value God, personal health, family, friendships, and school the most. As a college student, academic excellence should be a pretty high priority. If your schoolwork is important to you, why do you compromise that time with things like Facebook? Look at your own life and think – what consumes the most amount of your time? Are those things really the things that you value? A penny for your thoughts.
Daniel Liu is an engineering management graduate student. He can be reached for comment at [email protected].