How Not To Waste Your Day Away
by Eugene
IN WHICH EUGENE OUTLINES SPECIFIC METHODS WHICH HE USES TO OVERCOME THE HUGE PROBLEM OF PROCRASTINATION, IN ORDER TO MAKE BETTER USE OF OUR SCARCEST HUMAN RESOURCES- TIME.
Have you ever gone to bed feeling dissatisfied with the way you’ve spent your day? Sure, you might have read a few articles out of today’s newspaper or spent some time revising your work, but have you ever fallen asleep silently lamenting at how you’ve spectacularly managed to spend your whole day doing, well, nothing much? Well, most people have. There exist, however, ways to help you make better use of your time. Ways such as coming up with a proper list to things to do and staying on task while you’re at it. Here I hope to convey to you some of the ways which, I find, help me make better use of my days.
Now, it’s important to ensure that you have an idea of what you intend to accomplish for the day. Coming up with a concrete to-do list that spells out both the day’s objectives as well as the time to be spent accomplishing each task helps you make good use of your time. On the other hand, having only a vague concept of how you plan to spend your time does little to help you make the best out of the 24 hours accorded to you daily. An example of a ‘vague idea’ would consist of you telling yourself “Yeah I’ll do some math sums, read a little, maybe go downstairs for a jog etc. etc.” without actually writing down your plans for the day. The lack of a solid plan, as sometimes is the case for undisciplined folk like me, leaves much room for procrastination. Often, when you feel like its time to start doing some work, you might find a voice in your head saying ‘Well, I’m sure it wouldn’t hurt spending another ten minutes sleeping/listening to music/watching TV/playing on the computer...’ Sounds familiar? The voice of procrastination is a persistent menace that each and every one of us has to deal with on a day-to-day basis. And the best way, I find, to deal with this pressing problem is simply to write down your tasks for the day and set yourself a deadline to get started for every one of them. To give you an idea of what I mean, here’s my order of the day circa 14th December 2006.
Early Morning: Wake up
10am: Run, Eat Breakfast
11am: H3 Research. Read section on Srebrenica massacre in book ‘Complicity with Evil: The UN in the Age of Modern Genocide’
12.30pm: Lunch + break + nap.
2:30pm: Continue reading book.
5:00pm: Write essay for book of ideas (i.e. this book)
7:00pm: Dinner
8:00pm: Practice on the guitar
9:00pm: Do math sums on vectors.
11:00pm: More research. Read ‘The New Killing Fields. Massacre and the Politics of Intervention’. Sleep
As I continue to type this essay, the clock on my bedroom wall reads 6:37pm, and I’m quite pleased to say I’ve managed to stick with my schedule so far. The reason why schedules are effective for me is that the deadlines I set for myself don’t leave me with any space for procrastination. For example, as you might observe from my schedule, I have to haul myself out of bed by 10am and get downstairs, for otherwise I’d run the risk of making a mess of my plans for the day. Therefore, regardless of how tired and sleepy I feel, I still end up forcing myself to get going. If, however, I had not come up with such a schedule, I probably would be telling myself ‘Nah, its ok, I can always start at 10:15.’ What’s more, there’s no guarantee that I would have mustered the willpower to drag myself out of bed by 10:15. You probably would have to wait till 10:30 to find me jogging downstairs. If I were to take 30 minutes to overcome this inertia for every activity that I plan to do for the day, that would definitely add up to a lot of valuable time wasted to say the least.
Try to draw up your plans the day before the actual day itself so that you can set a deadline to wake up and get started, especially since the act of waking up is often subject to much procrastination as it can prove a rather formidable obstacle to surmount. Also, when completing tasks, if you find that you’ve finished the job with some time to spare, take the opportunity to give yourself a break. After all, you deserved it.
Of course, not only is it important that you start doing some work, it’s also vital that you keep yourself on task throughout its duration. The best way to accomplish this is to minimize or eliminate all forms of distraction. Crucially, stay away from any object that is likely to catch your fancy. Items such as the television, interesting books, musical instruments, your computer and your bed should be best kept out of reach and out of sight. Thus, in order to give your work your undivided attention, try to find a secluded spot where the influence of distractions can be minimized. An example of such a spot would be the reading room located downstairs in my condominium clubhouse, which I find extremely useful for studying purposes due to its Spartan layout – it consists of a table, some chairs, a sofa and not much else. If, however, you find yourself doing work on the computer and are thus unable to detach yourself from it, then close all applications that you won’t be using for your work. If you happen to be using msn messenger, it is highly advisable that you set your status to busy and wait till you’re done before chatting with friends as it is somewhat difficult to stay focused on an essay while maintaining a casual conversation with a friend.
If you have a preference for listening to music while doing work, then ensure that this does not cause any brainwave interference that might lower your level of concentration. Personally I find that music helps tide me over the more mundane aspects of schoolwork such as filing or repeatedly doing simple, formulaic math sums. However, I avoid listening to music when doing other assignments that require some serious thinking such as history essays because they interfere with my ability to focus and think. Of course, music might exercise a different effect on you, but ultimately if you find that it lowers your level of productivity, then its best to save those earphones for later.
When mugging with friends, try to ensure that the group is actually mugging. Group mugging can be extremely effective in that the sight of friends hard at work often encourages one to mug even harder. However, the dark side to such an activity lies in its potential to completely destroy the productivity of any given mugging session for the sight of friends chatting when they should be studying often encourages the whole group to engage in the former activity rather than the latter.
To conclude, if you haven’t already started trying to make good use of your time, then now’s the time to begin. The average human being has 28,251 days to live and only one shot at life. There’s no way you can stop time and age from having their way with you, but you can always make the best use of them while you still can. Right now, there isn’t much time left to waste, so why not get started?
