When I reflect on my five years at SMU, I am overwhelmed by how occupied I have been. And rightly so – people who know me typically assume I’m just busy all the time. I hate that word – busy. The adjective “busy” possesses so many negative connotations – the almost insane, out-of-control person enslaved to his or her circumstances. I just want to set the record straight – while I overcommitted myself a few times in college, I believe I learned to manage my time quite well by the time I graduated last year.
I took at least 15 hours every semester except my last semester. I’m not even counting those sneaky three to four hour labs that count for zero to one hour of credit. As a first-year, I joined over nine organizations; you would think I learned my lesson about over-commitment. Over the next few semesters, I found myself taking on more and more leadership positions. One day, my concerned mother called me and asked if I was going to class – I was spending more time in meetings than I did in class.
I am not necessarily proud of how poorly I took care of myself back in those days. My health suffered the most from my crazy antics. However, my failure to balance my life in the first two years of college taught me some important lessons. I learned how to effectively prioritize my time and my energy. Most importantly, I learned how to say “no”.
I have often wanted to share my workflow – how I get things done. Because I juggled so many different activities on a daily basis, I discovered some good time management and productivity skills. I even started compiling a lot of these ideas into a book. One of these skills is learning how to deny access to your time and attention.
In a previous article, I wrote about my life motto – discover, determine, and dedicate. Discover your passions and purpose, determine your pace, and dedicate yourself. This framework provides a good approach to anything you might get involved with in college. However, I feel a strong urge to clarify something in this framework. Determining your pace requires you to employ good decision-making skills. You have to be able to not only decide what is important to you, but also deny the other things that seek your attention.
Even though college students do have the most available time for themselves, that time is often wasted. We are easily distracted because so many things demand our attention. When you are walking to class, you might be having a conversation with someone, twittering on your phone, and trying to not drop those flash cards you made late last night for your test in five minutes. We cannot sit in front of a computer and not check Facebook. We have a serious problem – we rarely have blocks of time to do anything. Look at your current schedule. You have blocks of time for certain activities – classes, meetings, food, workout, homework, etc. But how often are you being interrupted in those blocks of time?
David Allen, the well-known author of Getting Things Done, presents compelling advice for getting quick control of your workflow to allow for more productive thinking and actions. The GTD concept addresses the common problem of interruptions – we are only as effective as our focus allows us to be.
Another productivity guru, Merlin Mann from 43Folders.com, recently spoke about “Gangs, Constraints, and Courageous Blocks”. I highly recommend that podcast. He talks about creating blocks of time to help you devote 100 percent of your attention to making your best work. Even Steve Pavlina, one of the most successful personal development bloggers, suggests a similar principle called triage. Triage, a medical term, is an effective way to only focus on what is most important, like saving the body by removing the limb. All of these individuals agree that a significant amount of time is crucial for performing at your best.
My idea behind determining your pace is simple – decide on what you need to prioritize in your life first. It might even be worthwhile to come up with multiple levels of importance. Then, learn to deny external factors access to your time and attention. When you are working on a paper, turn off your cell phone, disconnect from the Internet, and work in peace for a solid block of time. When you have to read chapters for a book, read them all at once – not only will you have a firmer grasp on the material, you will also get it done more quickly. While in class, take notes sparingly – lectures are best enjoyed when you are fully attentive. And most importantly, when you are resting and relaxing, deny others from stealing that important time from you. You will not be the most popular person because others will continue to demand instant access to your responses, thoughts, ideas, etc. However, they will get over it eventually.
Developing a healthy lifestyle requires you to manage the many variables in your life effectively. Think of college as the perfect time to discover and decide who you really want to be. As you make decisions, always remember to think about what you will gain when you give something.
Daniel Liu is a graduate engineering management student. He can be reached for comment at
