How do you solve a problem like... Time Management?

Hiya!

It’s Andrew, it’s Saturday and I’m back with another long-ish blogpost.

 

Today’s blogpost title is greatly inspired by Kieran Mackle, a podcaster whose focus is on primary education and has nothing to do with IB. I just found the title interesting. x

 

Ah yes, today we’ll talk about time management. An age-old problem. From a very personal perspective, I think we’re increasingly obsessed with time management that we sometimes spend more time planning the things we’d do instead of actually getting them done. It really doesn’t have to be this way.

 

All of us living on this planet have 24 hours, no more, no less. Some people would advocate overwork yourself to get more work done. I firmly disagree, simply because it isn’t sustainable for me. Those who know me probably know that I hang out with my friends very often but I still get shit done at an acceptable level. This post is simply a place for me to share my thoughts and tips on how to get shit done and how to not feel guilty about not doing “enough”.

 

1. Clearly identify what needs to be done for each hour.

This one is by far the most useful advice I can give.

 

I watched a video (in Vietnamese sadly) from a YouTuber who’s pretty huge in self-development and he made an entire video on how to be effective during work hours. Basically you have a sheet of paper/notebook/whatever, write down the date, the time and the stuff that you need to get done for the hour. This has several perks.

 

- You’ll have 50 minutes of focus time knowing precisely what you need to get done and how you can do it, so no time wasted fucking around. A 10-minute break between sessions is healthy, though personally I never manage to do that.

- What if you aren’t really in the mood to do the task you’ve planned? You can spend an entire hour reflecting on that.

- What if you failed to do the task you planned to do? You haven’t lost the entire day; you just lost an hour. So there’s time to make up for it before the harmful thoughts got inside your head.

- Last perk for those who plan their day properly: you don’t feel overwhelmed because of the amount of shit you “force” yourself to do. *raises hand* I’ve been there before. So many times.

 

Example:

Date: August 14, 2021

Time: 14.45-15.45

Task: Write a blogpost for y’all.

Subtasks:

- write a draft

- proofread (or throw into Grammarly)

- post it on Blogpost

- fix tiny formatting stuff and add subheadings

- sign off

 

After you finish the task, spend 5 minutes to brainstorm the next task and the other 5 minutes to rest.

Then you get on with the next task.

 

NB: Don’t plan too much in advance – it’d lead to the same problems as having a long-ass to-do list.

 

How I use this technique myself

- I usually don’t use this unless I absolutely need to get something done. The larger the task the more important this technique is.

- If you tend to focus for more than an hour, you may be better off planning a longer time block. Just make sure you have water right next to you that you can chug at any time.

- I also have a daily to-do list to have a bird eye’s view of what I need to do today. For those who use a paper planner, the feeling of crossing out the task after you’ve done it is soooooo exhilarating.

- 3-4 productive sessions like this should be sufficient for you to get your stuff done. You’ve saved yourself a lot of potentially wasted time by knowing what needs to be done and the steps you need to take to do it.

- If you’re so close to perfection, the focus has shifted: is it worth working on the thing you’ve been spending so much time on or is it time to hand it in. For me, the “grade” function is an exponential function in reverse. Once you’ve spent a significant amount of time on the assignment, spending more time on the assignment for a minimal gain isn’t really worth it. (For those taking economics, I’m basically talking about opportunity cost. You’re really better off doing another thing than spending an extra 10 hours to get another percent or two.)

 

2.      Giving yourself a smol reward if you’re forcing yourself to do a task that you d r e a d.

Sure, it’s satisfying to cross the shit out of the list, but what if the task is so h u g e that you really want to put it off? Many ways to go about this.

 

(a)     Break the huge task into smaller ones and follow the method outlined earlier.

Yeah, it really does help because you don’t waste time messing around and feel shit about your lack of productivity. Take 15-30 minutes to break the task down into subtasks, pick one (1) subtask and get it done. You have a target and you know what to do. The same thing applies when you’re writing an essay. I really don’t get how people can write a decent essay without an outline. I really don’t. Unless you have an easy piece of writing (like this) where you can basically let your brain loose and write down what’s on your mind, you usually need a more solid structure to avoid your essay goin totally offtrack.

 

(b)     Give yourself a smol reward for getting started.

I remembered the day I wrote my intro to sociology midterm assignment. God, 1500 words and worth 20% of the final grade. I already have the outline ready to go but boy oh boy, it’s hard to force yourself to sit down and write 1000 words in one sitting. What did I do?

I have a bottle of Teisseire passion fruit syrup at home. I made a large jug of passion fruit water right next to me. It really made me get the work done because there’s something to look forward to when I’m writing, and I’d feel guilty if I drink it without working on the assignment.

 

So there you go. Just over 1k words, so go read it.

I hope it’s useful to some people.

 

Salut,

Andrew