Time Strategies

 I've always been pretty good at time management, or so I'd like to think. My philosophy has always been "do what you have to do now so you can do what you want to do later." I'm definitely not the first person to use this motto, Denzel Washington and Oprah Winfrey have both said the same thing in different variations, but nevertheless, it's always been something I've stuck by. When reading Eat the Frog First Thing in the Morning by Thomas Oppong, I resonated with it intensely. This is how I approach all of the administrative tasks in my day to day life. However, some of the larger scale don't-want-to-do-but-have-to-do tasks tend to loom over me in a way that makes them a bit more difficult to complete. Moving forward, I plan to approach these tasks by breaking them down into more manageable pieces and working towards finishing them one day at a time.

Despite my efforts to get what I need to get done over with, I do get wrapped up in being too busy. When reading The Myth of "Too Busy" by Time Grahl, I realized I was one of the people he was talking about. While I'm conscious of my efforts to prioritize my time around school and maintaining relationships with my friends and family, I find that a large portion of my day not related to these things is spent doing meaningless tasks. Much of this is due to distraction of course. With online learning, it's easy to find myself wondering amongst different open tabs when I should be working on a homework assignment. After further reflection on all of the unnecessary time I spend doing essentially nothing, I intend to be even more ruthless with my time, only spending it on activities and projects that are required of me or will better me. 

("Blue Clock" by Andre Helmstetter)