Time Strategies

Knowing how to manage your time is an important life skill that most people, in my opinion, have not mastered. I've always wondered why that is. Time management has become a huge thing for me these days. As I am nearing graduation, it has become much more difficult to push myself to the finish line. As a freshman, I was super "into" college and I would rush to do my coursework ahead of time without having to convince myself it was necessary. Nowadays, it's literally a struggle and "I just can't even" most days yet I always make sure that I meet deadlines in regards to my schoolwork. It's just the motivation to do so has reached an abysmal level.

The article I chose to read was The Important Habit of Just Starting by Jory Mackay. This article really put into perspective the reason as to why procrastination is so hard to shake off. The author showed an equation that determines how much motivation we have is proportionate to the odds of an outcome that we'd like to achieve and how rewarding that outcome may be as well as inversely proportionate to how easily distracted we get and how long we have to wait to obtain the outcome. So as you can see, the longer it takes for us to obtain the goal we have set for ourselves, the harder it is to be motivated to carry out the tasks essential to obtaining that goal. It was interesting to see that put in an equation-form because it makes sense if you really think about it. Contemporary society relies heavily on instant gratification and so much so that it impacts our motivation towards things that require time and effort to achieve. I, too, am a victim of the desire of instant gratification which sometimes has led to negative impacts on my future and life goals.

In regards to all the classes I have this semester, I hope to break down my tasks into small goals in order to emulate a shorter time frame instead of thinking that it's a super long task that I need to work at in one go. One time management strategy that I have is to write in a planner every day to make sure I don't forget deadlines for anything. It helps to see it all in one place and it's also quite nice to be able to cross off an item on your list of to-do's.

Image of a man taking small steps.

"Traits of a Motivated Leader" by Daniel Goleman, April 2014. Source: Link.