I Wish One Day Had 48 Hours!

by Ruimin (currently studying at Oxford University)

IN WHICH RUIMIN OUTLINES SOME KEY POINTS THAT HAVE HELPED HER MAKE BETTER USE OF HER TIME. SINCE EVERYONE HAS THE SAME 24 HOURS TO WORK WITH, WHY ARE SOME PEOPLE ABLE TO ACHIEVE SO MUCH MORE THAN OTHERS? THEY MUST KNOW SOMETHING THAT OTHERS DON’T, SUCH AS THE TIPS SHARED IN THIS ARTICLE.

How often we wish that we had more time in the day, particularly when we have a project or homework due the next day? Even now, I find myself wishing that I had much more time on my hands so that I could sleep more or do more leisure activities that I enjoy. Yet, the more I think about it, the more I realise that even if each day consisted of 48 hours, firstly, the day would be much more tiring; and secondly, we’d desire more time anyway! The 24 hours in a day are at our disposal to decide exactly how we wish to spend them. My teachers and seniors often told us that if we wanted to have ‘more time’ on our hands, we should have better time management. Time management thus seemed to be such a big thing, but in actual fact as I grew older I found that it is actually very little daily activities added together. I give a few of suggestions below that I hope you may find useful:

Start with the homework/projects/activities that are most urgent (e.g. the homework that is due tomorrow).

Complete whatever you can today
You never know what homework your teacher may decide to give you tomorrow, or what extra training your coach might require you to stay back for the next day.

Plan ahead
Look at your week’s schedule and analyse how many truly free days you have, so that you know how much of a project you need to do earlier in the week in order to get it in on time.

Get sufficient rest if you need to
Falling sick will only make you miss stuff which means you will need to catch up! And power naps (15-30mins) can help some people work better especially when you are very tired after you have just returned from school.

Put away some distractions if you have to
If you have a computer on your desk and it keeps making you feel like chatting to your friends or finding interesting websites on the internet, maybe pack it away until you’ve finished a reasonable amount of work, then relax and contact your friends via the instant messenger service.

Sacrifices may sometimes be necessary
Because there are only 24 hours in a day, no more, no less, one simply cannot cram in all the activities we want to do in a day. We need to prioritise the ones we really have/want to do and then sacrifice those that aren’t so important or those that can wait. This might mean missing a TV show you like, or taping one episode and watching it over the weekend.

It helps to keep a notebook/diary of the things you need to do.
Write a list of the important things you need to complete each day to remind yourself of how much time you have for each task, and tick it off when you’ve completed it. This ensures that you won’t forget anything, and you know how much time you have left to do other stuff or relax.

I really hope this has been useful for you. Many tasks may look scary or impossible to complete if you consider them all at one go, but if you take them one step at a time, you’ll find that it’s not too bad after all.

All the best!