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Further thoughts on revisiting old habits
Jun. 29th, 2017 11:25 amWhen I was in high school, particularly junior and senior year, I had an ongoing experiment with time management. You know how it is when you're a teen -- all the boring classes go on for eons, the study halls (where you're doing homework that you should have done last night) are far too short, lunch period doesn't start until 11ish and you're hungry by 10. That sort of thing. I wanted to better manage all that.
More to the point, I wanted to even it all out a bit, if that makes sense. Make my day a little more consistent.
Somehow I worked it out by always being conscious of the time. I got pretty good at assuming I was coming close on the halfway point of a class period. I figured out the best times to run to my locker and switch books and so on (which, as it happened, was pretty far down one hallway and not that close to some of my classes). I got quite good at this, to the point where I stopped using a book bag; by the end of the day I only had the needed textbooks and notebooks for that night's homework. Everything else (pens and my pocket calendar where I wrote down my assignments) was in the pocket of my green trenchcoat alongside my Walkman and tapes.
It seemed to work pretty damn well for those last two years of high school. My time management, not to mention my grades, got a bit better near the end there.
As for college...? Well, that's another story entirely.
Anyway...I forgot about that process for a while, mainly because my work and life schedule didn't really need it. I revived it a bit in the early 2000s when I was working at Yankee Candle. The reason then was because my Day Job schedule was in fact quite strict by design, to ensure the warehouse floor had unbroken coverage. It also let me find pockets of free time during the Day Job where I could sneak in some writing prep in the form of short-term outlining. You all know the rest of that schedule: the mid-afternoon punching-out, the Wednesday comic/cd run, the afternoon anime watching, and the two solid hours of writing work down in the Belfry.
I say all this because I've been thinking about revisiting the process once more. Sure, I'm kinda sorta doing it already, with my whiteboard schedule, taking strict scheduled breaks at my Day Job (again, same reason -- unbroken coverage), using said breaks for writing exercises, and sneaking in some extra writing during slow moments.
I still feel like I could better manage my time, though. It's partly the distraction of the internet, but that's easily fixed and I'm not going to dwell on that part. I've gotten much better in the past few months, especially now that I have my new projects to work on and a solid blog schedule, but I still feel like I'm sort of passively letting time waste away, especially during the Day Job hours. Even during busy days, I feel I haven't quite managed my time that well. Perhaps it's time to revisit my time management process again.
Does this sound like being a bit too anal retentive? Well, maybe, maybe not. I only get aggravated by screwy schedules when it totally messes with something I really need to get done ASAP.
But other than that, it's not really about adhering to a strict schedule. It's just about being more aware of where the time goes and what I do with it.
More to the point, I wanted to even it all out a bit, if that makes sense. Make my day a little more consistent.
Somehow I worked it out by always being conscious of the time. I got pretty good at assuming I was coming close on the halfway point of a class period. I figured out the best times to run to my locker and switch books and so on (which, as it happened, was pretty far down one hallway and not that close to some of my classes). I got quite good at this, to the point where I stopped using a book bag; by the end of the day I only had the needed textbooks and notebooks for that night's homework. Everything else (pens and my pocket calendar where I wrote down my assignments) was in the pocket of my green trenchcoat alongside my Walkman and tapes.
It seemed to work pretty damn well for those last two years of high school. My time management, not to mention my grades, got a bit better near the end there.
As for college...? Well, that's another story entirely.
Anyway...I forgot about that process for a while, mainly because my work and life schedule didn't really need it. I revived it a bit in the early 2000s when I was working at Yankee Candle. The reason then was because my Day Job schedule was in fact quite strict by design, to ensure the warehouse floor had unbroken coverage. It also let me find pockets of free time during the Day Job where I could sneak in some writing prep in the form of short-term outlining. You all know the rest of that schedule: the mid-afternoon punching-out, the Wednesday comic/cd run, the afternoon anime watching, and the two solid hours of writing work down in the Belfry.
I say all this because I've been thinking about revisiting the process once more. Sure, I'm kinda sorta doing it already, with my whiteboard schedule, taking strict scheduled breaks at my Day Job (again, same reason -- unbroken coverage), using said breaks for writing exercises, and sneaking in some extra writing during slow moments.
I still feel like I could better manage my time, though. It's partly the distraction of the internet, but that's easily fixed and I'm not going to dwell on that part. I've gotten much better in the past few months, especially now that I have my new projects to work on and a solid blog schedule, but I still feel like I'm sort of passively letting time waste away, especially during the Day Job hours. Even during busy days, I feel I haven't quite managed my time that well. Perhaps it's time to revisit my time management process again.
Does this sound like being a bit too anal retentive? Well, maybe, maybe not. I only get aggravated by screwy schedules when it totally messes with something I really need to get done ASAP.
But other than that, it's not really about adhering to a strict schedule. It's just about being more aware of where the time goes and what I do with it.
